Unless something large changes soon in my life, something as life altering as a new career or an unexpected pregnancy, it is safe to say that regular full length reviews aren't in the cards for this site in 2004. Nearly all attempts --or rather attempts at attempts have been artistic still births. So herewith some thoughts on films that have been gestating in my head on films that I haven't reviewed yet . They all prominently feature MOTHERS! in some way or another.

Before you ask, yes, the histrionic all bold caps w/ exclamation point was called for and is intentional. Hollywood's got a mommy fixation this year. And it's more than a little Oedipal. We're a long way from Donna Reed territory. And yes, The Manchurian Candidate also belonged herein. If Streep's queen-bitch Mother wasn't eating for two, how else to explain the heaps of scenery she was devouring? But, alas, I already discussed that one.

Mama's Getting Hot

The Door in the Floor
At the beginning of this intense adaptation of John Irving's A Widow for One Year, the camera introduces us to a stone cold beauty in the form of Kim Basinger. We linger on her unflinching gaze. But the eyes aren't penetrating. Though she's staring straight as us, whatever she's seeing is far far away. The Mother, we quickly learn, is not entirely among the living. She may have a breathing troubled child (Elle Fanning) to care for, but her heart and soul is with her two dead children, killed years before. She's more Persephone than Earth Mother, trapped as she is in her own hell.

Even in her spiritual absence she can't steal the worst mother of the year award from Meryl Streep's Manchurian prima donna. But, to her credit she is aware of her own unfit status. She knows she's empty. This is not to say that Basinger's performance is vacuous, merely that the soul of the character has left the room. The actress, lovelier than ever, is completely keyed into her character, perfecting the closed off nature of someone who tragically didn't make it through the stages of grief. She never came back out the other side.

So, to Basinger's vacuum Yin we get Jeff Bridges void filling Yang. His performance is much livelier and approriately so. His character Sam Cole, a children's book author, is large and eccentric enough to fill more than one film. The movie springs to life whenever Bridges comes into focus. The audience is quick to embrace this more vivacious half of the broken couple.

However as the movie progresses, our expectations are overturned a bit. Marion is not as dead as she appears. And Sam isn't, perhaps, as willing to live. They both make terrible choices, lashing out at their own unhappiness through sexual escapades but to the film's credit it doesn't pass judgment. Their sexual acting-out may not liberate them in the way they hope but it does seem to open them up to break away from the past. The film is rich with rarely seen moral gray areas. The characters may not be likeable, but at least they have actual human depth. As the couple's behavior gets uglier --or rather seems uglier, we learn our lessons about these damaged souls. The kids are dead. But neither of the living parents is, well...to twist the vernacular phrase; The parents are not all right.
B

A Home at the End of the World
Given the tricky accomplishments and the actorly bravado within Door, the summer's other acclaimed book-to-film adaptation had the bar set high. It can't reach the mark. In fact, it doesn't even come close. This film's source material, a novel of the same title from The Hours author Michael Cunningham, covers nearly the entire life of Johnathan, a young gay man from Ohio who lives an unconventional life with his two best friends, Claire (his fag-hag in NYC) and Bobby (his boyhood best friend). Though Cunningham himself adapted it for the screen, the very talented novelist proves that a screenplay requires a different talent than a novel.

There's simply too much ground to cover here. But the film stubbornly refuses to take shortcuts, sending you skipping through a greatest hits selection from the book; All the big scenes with little of the cumulative emotional effect. To condense the book, they limit not the storyline (a long journey which eventually takes the trio into a remote home and nontraditional parenthood) but the characterizations. Rather than attempting the novel's p.o.v. triptych (Like The Hours narrative only without the time jumping, and with all the characters present) the film chooses Bobby as its focal point. Colin Farrell is quite game for and quite good in the role even if he seems to be trying a smidgeon too hard to project innocence. Yet one imagines that if the big star had been assigned to Johnathan or to Claire, the film would be quite different but still have the same inherent dilemma.

The unbalanced casting creates an acting showcase for Farrell but creates considerable trouble for the less experienced and less charismatic Dallas Roberts as Jonathan. He just doesn't have much of a character to play and his performance doesn't fill in the gaps the way great actors can with underwritten parts. Though the storyline is really about a trio's unusual relationship the film feels too much like a one man show.

Robin Wright Penn, as the female third of the triangle fares even worse. She had what should have been the film's most memorable role. You don't see characters like Claire often in the movies and even in the book she practically jumps off the page. Penn was able to pop off the screen in White Oleander as a bible-thumping trailer trash foster mother but she barely registers as Claire, a bohemian New Yorker and sexually adventurous soul. There's no screen chemistry with the man whose supposed to be her soulmate (Jonathan) or her big love (Bobby). Because we don't particularly know or like her, her abrupt exit with baby in tow is neither heartbreaking nor particularly easy to understand. Though I couldn't help feel that the baby might have enjoyed another parent more.

Without enough invested in Claire's sudden decision, the ending of the picture then feels colorless and drab. A strange outcome when you stop to consider that the story is rather revolutionary. The sun sets on the hero, but he got the guy instead of the girl. And he kept the dream house, too.
C-

Had the eccentric and domineering Claire from ...End of the World abandoned her daughter leaving it with the father, she might have inspired the next film's plot...

Gypsy '83
The road trip tale of Gypsy '83, a wonderfully fresh film for the Goth set, is born of an oversize Stevie Nicks fixation. But Madonna might also be a hidden kindred spirit of the film's titular heroine (played with great sincerity by Sara Rue). Like the great pop star of our time, this girl's spirit, drive, and persona are largely shaped by the absence of her barely-remembered but somewhat idolized mother.

Gypsy's mother abandoned her rather than died but for a child it can amount to much the same thing. Gypsy '83 tries to fit an awful lot into its coming-of-age narrative, including several hiccups on the road, some of which work and some don't. Some pruning was in order but it's hard to knock a little film this loveable. The search for Gyspy's mother is heartfelt but sometimes awkward. The true power of this funny smartly performed indie stems from the well observed friendship between Gypsy and her Goth plaything Clive (Kett Turton), a misfit gay teen. The chemistry between the two young actors is near-wondrous.

Disappointingly for such a likeable film, the budget gets in the way. The filmmaking team (led by writer director Todd Stephens who also penned the lovely Edge of Seventeen some years back) must have been unable to secure rights to Stevie Nick's song catalogue. If I were Stevie, I'd have donated them for free. The film is far to honest to have to try and fudge dishonestly on its soundtrack with a B-grade Stevie impersonator warbling away to a muzak Talk to Me.
B-

The Mother
Hanif Kureishi writes beautiful screenplays. But beautiful screenplays don't always make for great films. My mixed-response to The Mother is possibly just my hunch that the temperaments working on this sometime impressive film don't exactly gel. Were Anne Reid (the lead actress) and Roger Michell (the director) the right collaborators? Their efforts at illuminating the provocative text, a character study of a widowed grandmother fallen in lust, are interesting and even extremely well-played in individual scenes. Yet when taken as a whole much of the film feels counterintuitive to the general thrust of the narrative.

Intellectually, I thought this story of a widowed grandmother May rediscovering her sexuality was a fascinating piece. But emotionally I just couldn't connect to it. It seemed too detached, too quiet for a film so concerned with the blood in our nether regions. The high point of the picture comes in the aftermath of a particularly riveting sex scene which takes place between May and a carpenter named Darren (that always magnetic hunk-of-burning man love Daniel Craig.) The widow remarks that she's "burning up". The movie wants to be on fire with her shocking new passion. But the actress never lets loose in the way you might imagine a more traditional choice for this type of role, say Helen Mirren, might have.  

Even the ending, a tough clear-eyed erasure of sorts feels like it should work, like it should really shake you. It does a little but not to the extent it feels it should have. The film, which turns out to be a cynical and angry indictment of our dismissal of the elderly, never quite delivers the last pulverizing blow that might have made it a great film. Like the title character, it merely seems to recede and vanish.
B-

Kill Bill, Volume 2
And no discussion of this year's mothers would be complete without a little shout out to the Mother Lion of the batch, Beatrix Kiddo. For the less initiated she's also known as The Bride. Uma Thurman got quite a workout as an actress in this instantly iconic role. And if she isn't Oscar nominated for her troubles this time out, it's this fan who'll be reaching for his Hatoria Hanza.

But I kid. Too much has been sad already about the films... Quentin Tarantino sure can get people talking! And I've said a bit myself here. As you know, I prefer The Bride's less maternal avenging angel side in Volume 1 when I didn't know her as well and could invent my own woman. But who ever said marriage (fan to character in this case) would be easy. For better or worse, you know.

In this case "better" would be anything involving 1) Uma's performance, 2) the throwdown with Elle Driver in the trailer --instantly classic! and 3) Bill himself. And "worse" would be 1) irrevelant non vengeance motif tangents involving Budd or a pimp, and 3) the pacing: It's glacial. It's as if Tarantino and Sally Menke (his brilliant editor) suddenly realized there wasn't enough footage for two films after all. They hide it well. It really does look like a style choice.

But, there is so much to enjoy in this second half. Together the films are some kind of gonzo classic so I don't mean to be churlish with my grade. I am still giving the relationship a try. I know that The Bride can kick it with the best action heroes of all time. But wife and mother? It didn't work out so well between her and Bill you know. But whoever said that assassins would make the best parenting choices? Not I.
B

-Nathaniel R

Related Reviews:
Kill Bill, Volume 1
Queer Cinema Discussion (brief notes on A Home at the End of the World )
Top Ten of 1999 (honorable mention to: Edge of Seventeen)
The Hours (top ten review)
The Manchurian Candidate Streep is monstrous
White Oleander (Robin Wright Penn giving great cameo)