citrin@csn.org (Wayne Citrin) (04/26/91)
MORTAL THOUGHTS
A film review by Wayne Citrin
Copyright 1991 Wayne Citrin
Micro-summary: Alan Rudolph does a murder mystery.
Summary: A young woman (Demi Moore) gets inadvertently involved in
a murder committed by her best friend (Glenne Headley).
The facts come out at the police interrogation.
I'll just start by saying that Alan Rudolph is one of my favorite
filmmakers, and that he's done some of my favorite films (THE MODERNS,
and TROUBLE IN MIND). He always tries something unusual, and it's
usually interesting. When the film started, though, I was surprised.
Where was the surreal or hyperreal story line and physical setting?
Where is Rudolph's production company (Geraldine Chaplin, Keith
Carradine, Genevieve Bujold)? Something unusual was going on.
As I learned later, this isn't entirely an Alan Rudolph film.
Rudolph joined the production a week into the shooting, when the
producers (Demi Moore and Taylor Hackford) fired the original director
and brought in Rudolph. Rudolph was able to bring long-time
collaborator Mark Isham to do the music, but he had no hand in the
story. Still, he was able to put his stamp on the film.
Cynthia Kellogg (Demi Moore) and Joyce Urbansky (Glenne Headley)
are best friends. Cynthia also works in Joyce's beauty parlor. Joyce
is married to James, a dangerous and violent lout (played by Bruce
Willis, Moore's real-life husband). Joyce keeps talking about killing
James, and, well, one day it happens. Cynthia is there, and she ends
up helping her friend conceal the evidence and gets involved more and
more deeply. The strain affects both women, and the friendship
unravels. Cynthia isn't helped by the fact that her own husband isn't
any great shakes (although he's a step above James).
All of this is revealed as flashbacks during Cynthia's
interrogation. But the senior detective (Harvey Keitel) has some doubts
about Cynthia's story....
The film is nicely paced, and the screenplay gives us good reason
to understand why James is killed when it happens. We understand how
and why a law-abiding friend can be drawn into a crime, and then find it
hard to extricate herself. The friendship between the two women is
believable. Their acting is good, as is that of Willis, who makes a
convincing and hateful villain. The supporting characters particularly
Keitel's detective and Cynthia's husband (John Pankow) are well-drawn
and well-acted. The ending is good. (Won't say anything more than
that.) This is a superior murder mystery.
Rudolph's contribution lies in the pacing, which is slow enough to
raise the tension, along with appropriate use of slow motion and sound,
vivid colors, and shiny lights reflected in wet nighttime streets.
Isham's music contributes to the atmosphere. The main problem is that
he's constrained by the realism of the script, which just doesn't allow
many of the strange Rudolph touches (like the alternate reality of 'Rain
City'/Seattle in TROUBLE IN MIND or the modern-art painted backdrops to
many of the scenes in THE MODERNS). This is definitely Bayonne, NJ in
the late 1980's, and there's nothing Rudolph can do to change that.
As I said before, this is a superior murder mystery, and it also
shows that Rudolph is capable of handling conventional genre filmmaking
if he has to. So it's worth seeing in itself. However, there are any
number of directors who could have made this film. I'd rather wait for
a film that only Alan Rudolph could make.
--
Wayne Citrin
citrin@soglio.colorado.edu
citrin@boulder.colorado.edufrankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank MALONEY) (05/01/91)
MORTAL THOUGHTS
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
MORTAL THOUGHTS is a film by Alan Rudolph, starring Demi Moore,
Glenne Headley, with Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel, inter alios.
MORTAL THOUGHTS is a suspense film about the death of the Willis
character, James, and told through a series of flashbacks framed by a
police interrogation of Moore. The device works well and lets the
script slip us a few interesting surprises.
Alan Rudolph is one of my favorite directors when he is working
with his own scripts, such as CHOOSE ME or THE MODERNS. This film,
unfortunately, is not one of these. It is a project he took on at the
last minute and as such is one of his second-string efforts. To
compensate for the general lack of Rudolphian quirkiness, the film
features some glitzy photography and flashy editing. The overall effect
is slightly fussy, I think. But still it's a watchable effort and one
that is not totally unworthy of some qualified admiration.
For one thing, Demi Moore is slightly wonderful as the
Italian-American working-class hairdresser in Bayonne, NJ. MORTAL
THOUGHTS they may be, but the accent is strictly down-and-dirty Joisey.
Moore gets to do some acting for a change. It turns out that she is not
a totally discreditable actor, if fact I was impressed by her gritty,
unpatronizing portrayal. It redeems her role in GHOST for me.
Glenne Headley, whose name I may or may not be spelling correctly,
plays Cynthia, James' wife and the Moore character's boss and lifelong
friend. She brings to her part a similar egalitarian flair for Bayonne
and the added fillip of getting to portray a woman not that stable to
start and who descends into a kind of madness by the end. It's a well
modulated performance and one which I greatly enjoyed.
Willis gets to play James, the totally irredeemable druggie,
abusive husband, layabout, and general scumbag. And Rudolph, to his
enormous credit, got Willis to play this unattractive role without a
glint of that horrible Willisian cuteness and charm. It maybe that
Willis, too, is, under it all, an actor.
Harvey Keitel is the cop who conducts most of the interview and is
wonderful as always. The other character actors were also attractive
and effective in their roles. Indeed, this is a movie for acting buffs,
more than story buffs, perhaps. I was interested but not compelled,
alert but not alarmed, through the unfolding of the story.
I can recommend MORTAL THOUGHTS to anyone who can get to a cheap
matinee. I hope Rudolph made enough off this movie so that he do one of
his own next.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney