Apparently Neil Jordan’s thriller Mona Lisa is due for a remake with Mickey Rourke replacing Bob Hoskins and the action relocated from London to New York. Larry Clark (Kids 1995) is due to direct the new version, although the original still stands up as being one of the best films of the 80’s.
Based on a screenplay by David Leland, the original draft had a tough guy protagonist travelling around London beating up anybody who got in his way. Jordan altered this by making ex-con George (Bob Hoskins) an innocent who does not understand the needs and desires of those around him. George can still handle himself, but he is also vulnerable, sentimental and naïve. Simone, the woman he is trying to help is using him to find her lover, an under-age heroin addict named Cathy (Kate Hardie) who is lost amongst the London underworld.
Detective Genre Influences Mona Lisa
George’s only friend is a mechanic called Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) and the two spend their spare time reading crime fiction and trying out their own stories on each other. Raymond Chandler arguably had the greatest influence over this genre. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the archetypal private investigator; tough, sardonic, incorruptible and alone. Chandler created Marlowe as a romantic figure, in the sense of being idealistic about how a man should behave when faced with corruption and vice.
Jordan subverts these stories by having George’s chivalric notions seem quaint. George has been away for seven years, but his values seem to have been formed in the60’s and 70’s. Everything from his casual racism to his views on marital relationships and his notions of honour amongst gangsters is hopelessly out of touch. George naively believes he will be rewarded for taking the fall for his boss Mortwell (Michael Caine), but the first old acquaintance he meets struggles to remember him. George also seems shocked when he realises he is in a ‘knocking shop’ as if criminals should be above that sort of thing.
George’s Reward
George is given the task of chauffeuring prostitute Simone (Cathy Tyson) to her various engagements in West End hotels or occasionally private residences. They are not well suited. Simone needs an inconspicuous character capable of blending into the background and not attracting the attention of irate hotel managers who object to her working on their premises. George is out of his comfort zone in these places, embarrassing himself in front of a snooty waiter by not knowing Early Grey is a type of tea. Simone gives him some money to buy himself new clothes and George turns up in a brown leather jacket with a Hawaiian shirt and a gold medallion.
George’s Imaginary Detective Novel
Throughout Mona Lisa George confides in Thomas by retelling his involvement with Simone as a detective story. At first it is about an ex-con just out of prison and asked to look after a black prostitute, but as his relationship with Simone develops he changes his story so that she becomes an undercover nun on a mercy mission to find a missing child. However, George’s delusion is shattered when he discovers Simone has starred in a porn film with the menacing pimp Anderson (Clarke Peters from The Wire). It is as if the sexual nature of her work had never occurred to him.
George Out of his Depth
Marlowe was always falling out with women, but he was smart and kept his distance. Geroge is not smart and does not want to be alone. Lost in his vintage Rolls Royce listening to Nat King Cole, he is out of place in a world of drab neon lighting and dingy sex clubs where another kind of longing, the need for sexual gratification proves just as powerful as the need for romantic love. George’s naivety is not matched by his gentle friend Thomas, who may hide away from the world in his garage, but has a strong sense of pragmatism and an awareness of what can happen to people out there. “You like her, don’t you?” he asks George and the melancholy delivery of Robbie Coltrane makes it clear no good can come of this.
Mona Lisa Leads to Hollywood for Bob Hoskins and Neil Jordan
Having won acclaim for his first two films, the haunting thriller Angel (1982) and the dream-like The Company of Wolves (1984), Neil Jordan was offered the chance to direct a studio picture after the success of Mona Lisa. Unfortunately the result was the dire High Spirits (1988). Bob Hoskins yearning performance as the good-hearted but romantically deluded George, won him a deserved Oscar nomination and the leading role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis 1988).
- Mona Lisa
- Starring Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane
- Written by David Leland, Neil Jordan
- Directed by Neil Jordan
- Running time 104 minutes
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