The Razor's Edge

For many years, writer/director John Byrum (Inserts, Heart Beat) and Bill Murray wanted to make a film W. Somerset Maugham’s novel The Razor's Edge, as Murray had always resonated with the book's main character, Larry Darrell. No studio was interested in financing Murray in a serious picture until 1984. By that time, Murry had become an unexpected box-office champ, turning light comic vehicles like Meatballs and Stripes into box-office juggernauts and proving with Caddyshack and Tootsie that he could fit his totally unique comedic style into someone else's ensemble movie. When he was asked to star in Ghostbusters, he saw it as his opportunity to get his dream project made. He only agreed to make the movie that would turn out to be the highest-grossing picture of 1984 if Columbia Pictures green-lit The Razors Edge with him as the star and Byrum as the director.

Director Edmund Goulding and star Tyrone Power had made an earlier studio adaptation of Maugham's existential novel in 1946, two years after the book was published. That film was met with indifferent reviews, which felt it could not convey the internal spiritual longing that comes across in prose; on screen, it just felt like a melodrama about an overprivileged guy who talks too much. Murray and Byrum weren’t interested in remaking the Goulding film. They set out to do their own distinctive interpretation, writing the screenplay together and tailoring it to Murray's unique combination of mischievous humor and soulful darkness. 

You can see why the material appealed to the gifted comic actor. Larry Darrell is certainly a Bill Murry type from the get-go, a man who doesn't take anything too seriously. He and his friend Gray Maturin (James Keach) are from the privileged class living in 1917 Illinois before the United States joins World War I. They volunteer to go to Europe to assist in the war effort as ambulance drivers. After arriving at the front, they discover the harsh realities of war are far less romantic than they had assumed. Serving under a tough, strict commanding officer named Piedmont (played well by Brian Doyle-Murray), the two men are placed in constant danger, witnessing the death of their fellow ambulance drivers and the random killing of many soldiers. During a firefight with German soldiers, Piedmont is killed, saving Larry's life.

When the war ends, Gray and Larry return to America. While Grey can transition back to the life he lived before going to war, Larry is wounded and traumatized by all the deaths he saw firsthand. He puts his engagement to the beautiful Isabel (Catherine Hicks ) on hold and moves to Paris to look for meaning in his life. His search estranges him from Isabel and leads him to India, where he joins a Buddhist monastery and hikes to the top of a snow-covered mountain. He returns to Paris at the point when the Great Depression and many other misfortunes have befallen Gray, Isabel, and his childhood friend Sophie (Theresa Russell). They all reconnect, but things go from bleak to bleaker. Larry does many good deeds and endures more tragedy, but it's never clear if he fully conquers his survivor's guilt to the point where he can live a happy life.

The Razor's Edge is a handsomely mounted production with a decent cast, but Murray's languid lead performance prevents it from ever fully connecting thematically or as a narrative. The film feels both lethargic and truncated because Larry never really changes from one point to the next. We don't spend enough time with him during the war to feel the effects of combat essential to the story and his character. We don't fully understand his connection to Piedmont because Doyle-Murray just doesn't have enough screen time (the fact that he's Bill Marray's real-life other brother doesn't provide any extratextural heft.

It's fascinating that Murray's inherent inertness, which sabotages this film, is what makes his next attempt at a fully dramatic role, Sofia Coppola’s masterful 2003 brief-encounter picture Lost in Translation, so effective. In that film, the changes in his alienated, disaffected character that occur over the course of a week are all the more powerful because they are almost imperceptible. On the grand, sprawling canvas of The Razor's Edge, we need to see how Murray's character develops over the course of many years. It doesn't work for him to play the complex protagonist in the minimalistic way that would serve him well as a sporting actor in so many of his later roles.