**PLEASE NOTE: Review contains spoilers!**
Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands do an outstanding job in this film. Their performances deserve first mention in any review, but certainly the movie has plenty of other good qualities to recommend it.
Set very authentically in the New Jersey of the '80s, it is a short, intimate and rather naked story of women, heartbreak and life... without, thankfully, being a saccharine 'chick flick.' The interplay between the characters is elegant and subtle as the symbolism is brash and heavy-handed, but most of the characters themselves are brash, trashy, vulgar. One can hardly blame the symbolism for matching, and it somehow does seem to perversely fit the setting.
This movie pulls no punches. If you are looking for something lighthearted or affirming, this is not the best choice. If, however, you are seeking something that will move you, something that is at once both extremely familiar (for those of us who recall the '80s, or know New Jersey, particularly) and refreshing in its honest vulnerability, you may enjoy this as much as I did. You may find that the death of one character breaks your heart on behalf of another, or that the final bar scene is difficult to watch in its desperation and rejection.
In the end, the best way I have to describe this movie is by describing a particular scene, and borrowing its sentiments. Ben Gazzara's character, Nicky, is seeing Debby's (Uma Thurman) mother, Virginia (Gena Rowlands). Debby is protective of her mother, whose husband left her when Debby was thirteen--it's been them against the world ever since, one gets the impression. Debby runs into Nicky in the local bar one afternoon, and is persuaded to sit, have a conversation. Nicky, as a character, is almost too kind and patient, overflowing with good qualities in a movie where every other male character seems an antagonist at best, even the ones who never appear. They have a touching conversation wherein he surprises Debby by making a comment about how 'girls like [her]' have to be careful, regarding partying, the bar scene. She asks him what he means, deciding whether or not to take offense... he explains that she has a special quality, just like her mother, that not too many people will be able to see, or appreciate. She seems disarmed, touched. It's a very sweet prelude to the most tragic moment of the film, when Nicky dies before he can take his beloved 'Gin' (Virginia) away to live with him in Florida, to grow old(er) together with a lemon tree in their front yard.
This movie has a special quality, too, and it won't be appreciated by everyone. It was originally an off-Broadway play, and I think that shines through in the brevity of the story arc, the raw intimacy and pain, the concentration on the emotional interplay between the characters. As Nicky goes on to say in the scene I mentioned, you think life can't go on, sometimes, but it always does. It just goes on, and it never stops, and it is both important and difficult to remember that, sometimes. That's what this movie leaves you with, that's this film's version of a happy ending. And it's not happy, not really... but it's real, and there is definitely something to be said for that.
Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands do an outstanding job in this film. Their performances deserve first mention in any review, but certainly the movie has plenty of other good qualities to recommend it.
Set very authentically in the New Jersey of the '80s, it is a short, intimate and rather naked story of women, heartbreak and life... without, thankfully, being a saccharine 'chick flick.' The interplay between the characters is elegant and subtle as the symbolism is brash and heavy-handed, but most of the characters themselves are brash, trashy, vulgar. One can hardly blame the symbolism for matching, and it somehow does seem to perversely fit the setting.
This movie pulls no punches. If you are looking for something lighthearted or affirming, this is not the best choice. If, however, you are seeking something that will move you, something that is at once both extremely familiar (for those of us who recall the '80s, or know New Jersey, particularly) and refreshing in its honest vulnerability, you may enjoy this as much as I did. You may find that the death of one character breaks your heart on behalf of another, or that the final bar scene is difficult to watch in its desperation and rejection.
In the end, the best way I have to describe this movie is by describing a particular scene, and borrowing its sentiments. Ben Gazzara's character, Nicky, is seeing Debby's (Uma Thurman) mother, Virginia (Gena Rowlands). Debby is protective of her mother, whose husband left her when Debby was thirteen--it's been them against the world ever since, one gets the impression. Debby runs into Nicky in the local bar one afternoon, and is persuaded to sit, have a conversation. Nicky, as a character, is almost too kind and patient, overflowing with good qualities in a movie where every other male character seems an antagonist at best, even the ones who never appear. They have a touching conversation wherein he surprises Debby by making a comment about how 'girls like [her]' have to be careful, regarding partying, the bar scene. She asks him what he means, deciding whether or not to take offense... he explains that she has a special quality, just like her mother, that not too many people will be able to see, or appreciate. She seems disarmed, touched. It's a very sweet prelude to the most tragic moment of the film, when Nicky dies before he can take his beloved 'Gin' (Virginia) away to live with him in Florida, to grow old(er) together with a lemon tree in their front yard.
This movie has a special quality, too, and it won't be appreciated by everyone. It was originally an off-Broadway play, and I think that shines through in the brevity of the story arc, the raw intimacy and pain, the concentration on the emotional interplay between the characters. As Nicky goes on to say in the scene I mentioned, you think life can't go on, sometimes, but it always does. It just goes on, and it never stops, and it is both important and difficult to remember that, sometimes. That's what this movie leaves you with, that's this film's version of a happy ending. And it's not happy, not really... but it's real, and there is definitely something to be said for that.