BEFORE: Meryl Streep carries over this time - and I'm realizing that I didn't just program an Oscar-winning film for this coming Sunday, I pretty much programmed Oscar-winning or Oscar-nominated films all week, with one exception. Must have been kismet, starting with Liz Taylor's two Oscar wins for "BUtterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? Tonight's flick also won the Best Actress Oscar - but since it's about suicides (and hopefully, relationships as well) my chick-flick meter is on high alert.
I'm a little all-over-the-map today (will explain later), but TCM is firmly planted in Washington, DC, with films like "Born Yesterday", "Dr. Strangelove" (seen it), "Strangers on a Train" (I've tabled Hitchcock for now), "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (seen it), and "All the President's Men" (ditto). I'm picking up "Logan's Run", set in Washington in the future, but I've seen it before so it doesn't affect my count. However, I'm adding 2 films to the list tomorrow, so progress negated again.
THE PLOT: The story of how the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" affects three generations of women, all of whom, in one way or another, have had to deal with suicide in their lives.
AFTER: This is why I like to stay up late and post to the blog at 3 am, directly after the end of each film - because if I wait until the following afternoon, I lose a great deal of insight. I know I had some valid points I wanted to make - but remembering them is going to be the trick.
This is one of those "important" feeling movies, but the danger with them is sometimes telegraphing their own self-importance too greatly, and stumbling into bloated self-indulgence. Can someone possibly tell me this isn't what happened here?
I admit I'm not familiar with the storyline of "Mrs. Dalloway", but I looked it up on Wikipedia while watching this film. Was that wrong - should I have paid more attention? I get the feeling they were ALMOST going for an "Adaptation" vibe with the Meryl Streep storyline, since her real-world life seems to mimic the plot of the Virginia Woolf novel - down to the first names of the characters, and some of the key events. So, should I be questioning what is real and what is fiction?
No, I think that would be giving the film too much credit, and too much power. I'm willing to chalk all that up to coincidence. Coincidence seems to be the key factor here - since it also seems a coincidence that the star of the 1950's segment is also reading the same novel on the day that we see her. We actually see a typical (?) day in the course of three women's lives, the third being Ms. Woolf, the author herself.
The actual thread that ties two of the segments together, when finally revealed, was a bit unexpected, I'll admit. Thematically, however, the segments are linked by suicide (real or attempted), depression, and lesbianism (repressed or expressed). Make of the connections what you will - but some of the themes certainly don't dispel the middle-American image of Hollywood as a bastion of liberalness. Let's throw in stuff about AIDS, lesbian mothers, etc. etc. to make things seem more important.
That said, the movie seems desperately to want us to get inside the heads of these three main characters, but unfortunately does not get around to supplying the tools for us to do that with. OK, she's depressed - but WHY? Or do you not know? Isn't that your job, Mr. (or Ms.) screenwriter, to supply insight?
As a rule, I tend to hate these films where the timeline is split into two or three parts (thus placing me in England, Los Angeles and New York today), as if doing so is going to supply us with enough insight to fully understand three characters who have not met. It's impossible (OK, mostly) for one storyline to impact the others, just because they all have a connection to the same book. That's a substitute for backstory and subtext, and I call shenanigans. You can't act like there's a "meanwhile" when the story spans the decades like this.
And if you're going to dazzle/distract me with three storylines simultaneously, you should probably make sure that they all have something concrete to say. One out of three (and I feel I'm being generous) isn't going to cut it.
NITPICK POINT: If it's not OK for a man to abandon his family, then it shouldn't be OK for a woman to do the same. You can't just say she felt "trapped" or needed to "find herself" and expect me to regard her any better. That's a total double-standard.
NITPICK POINT #2: Without referring to the exact events depicted, it's a big stretch to suggest that one event caused another to occur, when by your own admission, those events took place 50 or so years apart. Editing the two events next to each other in a fractured timeline does not help suggest a cause + effect relationship. What prevented the first event from having such an impact for 50 years?
Also starring Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Nine"), Julianne Moore (last seen in "Next", I think?), John C. Reilly (last seen in "Cirque du Freak"), Ed Harris (last seen in "Needful Things"), Allison Janney (last seen in "Away We Go"), Claire Danes (last seen in "Terminator 3"), Toni Collette (last seen in "The Sixth Sense"), Miranda Richardson (last seen in "Fred Claus"), Jeff Daniels (also last seen in "Away We Go") and Margo Martindale.
RATING: 2 out of 10 hydrangeas
Oh, boy. This was such a hard movie to get through. Heartbreaking stuff with the Ed Harris character. So rough that I don't think I'd ever want to see it again, even though I thought it was a good movie.
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