John Shea (9/86 Honeymoon/Lune de Miel)
Excerpt from Ottawa Citizen 9/6/86: John Shea | Honeymoon (a.k.a. Lune de Miel) | Pictures on Corbis Images
Ham-fisted direction scuttles New York love story
By Christopher Harris
It is unusual, as someone remarks in Honeymoon, to marry someone else in order to be with the person you love.
....
The suspense is due to the fact that the unexpected husband, Zach (John Shea), is a sinister, threatening man with fever-bright eyes and a face that's drawn perennially into a disturbing half-grin. And as he works his way like a worm deeper and deeper into Cecile's life, we learn that he may or may not be a psychotic wife killer.
....
What suspense there is is largely due to the fine acting of Baye and Shea, who breathe fleeting life into the moribund script. Baye has a deep understanding of Cecile's character that comes through every line. And Shea as the tortured Zach is far more convincing an actor than director Jamain deserves.
© Ottawa Citizen
Excerpt from Los Angeles Times 11/15/86: John Shea
Shea Fiddles Around To Get Ready For 'Dreamers'
Roderick Mann November 15, 1986
For Shea this has been a busy year. He took over from Tom Hulce in "The Normal Heart" in London's West End, made a musical comedy for the BBC "Coast to Coast" and now has a French movie opening here shortly--"Honeymoon" in which he stars with France's Nathalie Baye. Directed by Patrick Jamin, "Honeymoon" is about a French woman (Baye) who, deciding to remain in the U.S. after a visit here, goes to a marriage bureau and picks out a husband by computer. In this way she's able to get a green card and stay. One night there is a knock at her door and a man appears. "Honey," he says, "I'm home. How about fixing me a drink?" He is the husband.
"I love the story," said Shea, who with intensive tutoring, learned sufficient French to do the movie both in French and in English. "And I'm really proud of it. I did a lot of preparation for it. This character I play is a real psychopath, so fascinating that I entered him for analysis at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. They told me the only other actor who had ever gone to them for help with a character was Monty Clift--and that was back in the '50s."
Shea first gave them the script to read and then discussed the actions of his character. "I wanted to be absolutely sure there were no inconsistencies in the script," he said. "I'd say: 'In the film I do such and such. Does that seem right to you?' And they'd tell me.
"And it was interesting. At the end they said, 'Watch out for this director (Jamain wrote the script with Philippe Setbon). He's written a totally accurate portrayal of a dangerous psychopath. . . . ' "
© Los Angeles Times
Excerpt from Los Angeles Times 1/14/87: John Shea
Movie Reviews : 'Honeymoon': Half-baked Hitchcock
January 14, 1987|KEVIN THOMAS | Times Staff Writer
In "Honeymoon" (citywide), a tedious exercise in protracted morbidity, a Frenchwoman named Cecile (Nathalie Baye) takes off for a New York vacation with her boyfriend Michel (Richard Berry), whom customs officers promptly arrest for possessing cocaine. When her application for a visa renewal is turned down, Baye in desperation settles for a proxy marriage and--you guessed it--winds up hitched to a homicidal maniac (John Shea).
....
Directed by Patrick Jamain from a script he wrote with others, this Franco-Canadian co-production is half-baked Hitchcock that, at least in its English-language version, brings no glory to either top French stars Baye and Berry or to Shea, a fine young stage actor best known in films as Sissy Spacek's husband in "Missing." Baye has too elegant and intelligent a presence to be so easily bamboozled by these two losers, in whom we can perceive not the slightest glimmer of charm. Berry's Michel comes across only as a self-pitying whiner, and Shea overacts so consistently that he's quickly tiresome and obnoxious.
© Los Angeles Times
Excerpt from New York Times 11/20/87: John Shea
Lune de Miel (1985) Film: 'Honeymoon,' Frenchwoman in Manhattan
By Janet Maslin Published: November 20, 1987
The plot, which is also rather desperate, concocts a terrible plight for this Cecille, whose lover Michel (Richard Berry) has most inconveniently landed in jail. She wants to visit him every day, but her visa has run out, and so she is forced - forced! -to marry a psychotic American (John Shea) whose name she finds through an agency.
....
''Honeymoon,'' which opens today at the Cinema Village, is not helped by an extremely wooden screenplay; not even the American actors here are given comfortable-sounding dialogue. The camerawork is so wan it turns Times Square colorless, and Mr. Jamain hasn't the timing or the energy to manage even rudimentary thriller touches. Miss Baye tries hard, Mr. Shea tries too hard, and by and large the acting is dreadful.
© New York Times