Trixie (2000, U.S.A.)

Director Alan Rudolph and producer Robert Altman are up to their usual tricks with this quirky farce starring Emily Watson.

Watson plays Trixie Zurbo, a naive would-be detective.  Taking a job at an upstate casino, she finds herself on the outside of a possible cover-up scheme and murder. She also finds romance with Dex (Dermot Mulroney), the swaggering yacht captain for shady local powerbroker W. “Red” Rafferty (Will Patton).  Also figuring into the case are Nathan Lane as a besotted lounge singer, newcomer Brittany Murphy as an ex-girlfriend of Dex’s and Lesley Ann Warren as Red’s sexpot wife.  Best of all is Nick Nolte’s hilarious turn as a double-talking senator.

The witty script by Rudolph plays with language, having Trixie speak almost solely in malapropisms such as “I’m looking through a needle for a haystack,” and “Your life is going to hell in a handbag.”  Whether it’s a meditation on love and the limitations of speech or just a goofy detective spoof, TRIXIE boasts fine performances all around and a nicely elegaic score by Mark Isham and Roger Neil.