reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (05/22/85)
"Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" is a film with an
unusual feel to it. It feels more like a short story collection
than a novel, which form most films resemble. Generally, the
only omnibus films made nowadays are occasional horror films,
like "Cat's Eye", so "Enormous Changes", as I will call it for
brevity's sake, is something of an aberration. The film con-
sists of three segments, each about one half hour long, each
dealing with a New York woman whose life is about to undergo a
sudden change. There is a vague interconnecting thread no more
convincing than that in "Cat's Eye", but each story really stands
on its own in plot, presentation, and theme.
All three segments are taken from the short stories of Grace
Paley. The subjects of the stories do not deal with the monumen-
tal earthshattering events most films trade in. In the first, a
woman with three children is left by her shiftless husband and
begins to be courted by an old boyfriend who is now married. The
second tells of a divorced woman's reaction to some unexpected
revelations from her aged father. The third deals with a child-
less, middle-aged social worker who is more or less swept away by
a young cabdriver, and soon finds herself pregnant. There may be
the plot for a Neil Simon film in there somewhere, but no one in
Hollywood would be likely to make a serious film with plots like
these.
This is, in fact, a very different kind of filmmaking. Ex-
cept for the last episode, there is little in the way of story in
any of the three segments. Rather, each presents a character
faced with certain problems and shows how she deals with those
problems. The focus is on reactions and emotions rather than
solutions. Again, excepting the third episode (to a degree),
there are no real resolutions in the episodes. Each is reminis-
cent of a miniature portrait, except that the picture is moving,
both in the most obvious sense and in the sense that we are see-
ing women in the process of changing.
Not surprisingly, "Enormous Changes" is an independent film
rather than a Hollywood production. The script is co-written by
the current high lama of American independent cinema, John
Sayles. The direction is by three women, Ellen Hovde, Muffie
Meyer, and Mirra Bank. Rather than taking one episode each, as
might be expected, they teamed up, codirecting the various ep-
isodes. Apparently these three women work well together. There
is a difference in tone between episodes, but each is internally
smooth and consistently made. Since the budget was low, largely
unexceptional photography can be forgiven. (There are one or two
very good shots, though, leading one to wonder if the directors
lavished special care on particularly important scenes or if they
just occurred accidentally.)
The cast is quite good, and includes some fairly well known
performers, doubtless drawn by the good script. Ellen Barkin,
familiar to many net readers from "Buckaroo Banzai", but also one
of the stars of "Tender Mercies" and "Diner", plays the woman in
the first episode. Kevin Bacon, also of "Diner" and the star of
"Footloose", plays the cabdriver in the third episode. There are
also some familiar faces of character actors, and some performers
better known for New York stage work, like Maria Tucci as the so-
cial worker. The performances are all fine, with Tucci and Bar-
kin being especially good. A number of child performers are ex-
tremely natural and convincing, more than I expect from the kids
in "Explorers" and "The Goonies".
Other than technical problems nearly unavoidable on a low
budget film, the biggest problem with "Enormous Changes" is that
the three stories do not mesh together into a single entity. Of
course, by their very nature, the plots cannot intertwine, but I
would have preferred that the themes of the stories be more
closely related, or that the tone of the whole production be
more consistent. The use of multiple directors may have caused
some of these problems. As a caveat to my criticism, I should
mention that I vastly prefer novels to short stories, collected
or individual, so I strongly suspect I am exhibiting a prejudice
which may not be shared by others.
"Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" is yet another film
which has scant appeal for action/adventure/comedy audiences, but
it should help momentarily silence the near-constant background
noises made by lovers of serious films wailing and gnashing their
teeth. The past month has actually provided many more films for
those whose primary interests in films involve real stories about
real people than for those who like to see people and things
blown up. More than slightly unusual. To appease those of you
who are getting tired of being condescended to just because you
appreciate a well placed explosive charge or the humor in a fart,
I will next review either the new James Bond film or "Second
Blood" (I insist on calling it that, and consider the producers
to be old fuddyduddies for not doing the same), or maybe both. I
must confess that, last Saturday afternoon, I too felt in the
mood for watching some gratuitous violence. I was more than a
little disappointed that I had to settle for "Lost in America".
As for those who are refreshed by the appearance of films like
"Enormous Changes at the Last Minute", or "My First Wife", or
"Secret Places", or "The Return of the Soldier", enjoy them while
you can: here comes the summer.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDA
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reihertraining@rtech.UUCP (Training account) (05/28/85)
> Excepting the third episode (to a degree), there are no real resolutions > in the episodes. Each is reminiscent of a miniature portrait, except > that the picture is moving, both in the most obvious sense and in the > sense that we are seeing women in the process of changing. I loved this film. Although John Sayles only co-wrote the film and didn't direct any of it, it has the feel of a low-budget John Sayles movie. To me, John Sayles major strength is his ear for dialogue, and the dialogue in this film is superb. Overall, it reminded me a lot of "Return of the Seacausus Seven". > Since the budget was low, largely unexceptional photography can be forgiven. The film was shot in l6mm, and at the theatre where I saw it, in Boston, it was shown in l6mm. I don't think it's being shown in 35mm anywhere, but I could be wrong. The fact that it was so technically unadvanced didn't bother me a bit. This is a warm, human film, one in which all the characters are portrayed sympathetically, and are clearly cared about by the directors and the screenwriters. After seeing the film, I read two of the short stories that the films were based on and I didn't care for them so much. John Sayles (and his co-writer) took a lot of liberties with the stories: the dialogue in the film is different, and more importantly, many scenes in the film just don't occur in the story at all. Single sentences in the stories have been expanded into entire scenes in the movie; for example, a throwaway line in a story which was something like "He hit his head on the bathroom tiles and lost two decades and four Presidents" was expanded into a few long scenes (this isn't a criticism of the film at all - it was just interesting to see the differences). Robert Orenstein Relational Technology