frankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank Maloney) (12/20/90)
MERMAIDS
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1990 Frank Maloney
MERMAIDS is Cher's first movie in two years, the last being the
wonderful MOONSTRUCK. MERMAIDS is directed by Richard Benjamin and
co-stars Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins.
First off, let me just say that I love Cher and have since the
early Sixties; she is outre and outrageous and sane and I admire her
intelligence and acumen, her strength and courage, all of which, I
think, are visible in her life and her acting. Next let me say that
Cher is not a great actress; her range and her gifts are narrow, but
within her limitations she can be amazing.
Cher was amazing in MOONSTRUCK. In MERMAIDS, she's wonderful, but
not quite amazing. One of the reasons is that this movie is not quite
the movie the older one was, it lacks that romantic moment of magic, the
transformations of love. This is not to say that MERMAIDS doesn't try
to achieve a moment like the one in MOONSTRUCK when all the principals
are looking at the full, huge moon from their several windows. The
comparable moment in MERMAIDS, which involves a room painted and lighted
to look like a fantasy of the bottom of the sea fails; the audience does
not enter into the vision, it merely sees Cher momentarily entranced by
it. This is not Cher's fault, but the result of some faulty direction
on the part of Richard Benjamin (who was once a comic actor himself and
had a charming failure of a TV series, called HE AND SHE, co-starring
his wife Paula Prentiss).
Another reason is that Cher seems to be stepping back to allow
Winona Ryder plenty of elbow room. This is really Ryder's film. She is
the voice-over narrator and provides the audience's point of view. The
film is about her coming of age much more than it is about Cher's
character, Rachel, doing some growing up of her own. The film is also
about the relationship between the mother and the daughter, and most of
the best scenes and best lines concentrate of this.
In fact, Winona Ryder gives the amazing performance in this film.
Her range and her gifts seems unlimited and promise even greater things
as she matures. She is the glue that holds this movie together.
The movie is mostly comedy with one melodramatic episode and it's
the kind of movie with wonderful one-liners that people are going to be
pleased to quote to each other. "Death is dwelling on the past and
staying in one place too long." "All of Charlotte's ages are
difficult." The script is by June Roberts, who wrote "Experience
Preferred . . . But not Essential," and is based on a novel by Patty
Danns.
In addition to Cher and Ryder, the other principals include
Hoskins, who, although he has been adorable, has never been cuter than
in his role of the shoe-store owner and boyfriend. In fact, his mugging
and eye-brow waggling are on the verge of being totally out of control
by the last scene.
And then there is the role of the younger daughter, played by
Christina Ricci, who impressed me tremendously. A natural, eccentric
child who seemed oblivious to the camera.
Finally, I need to say something about Benjamin's direction and
Roberts' script. The finest, most singular scene in MERMAIDS concerns
the morning John Kennedy was assassinated. I was in tears during the
entire scene, it so perfectly brought back exactly what that experience
was like for all of us who were alive then and old enough to understand
it. Men standing in the street with tears streaming down their faces.
Clots of people watching TV together in doorways. An entire nation come
to a standstill. The evocation of '63-'64 is almost flawless (I saw a
couple of impossible details in set decors, but that's pretty good);
certainly the spirit of the times beautifully invoked. The soundtrack
will undoubtedly find a good sales, being choked full of all sorts of
"classics" of the period. These are praiseworthy qualities the director
and writer have brought to the movie.
On the other hand, I was upset by some of the directional
decisions. Benjamin made some awkwards cuts, for one thing, especially
one where Cher slaps Ryder in the kitchen and suddenly we cut to the
living room; it was absolutely disorienting, completely without
continuity. Inexcusably awkward.
Overall, I can recommend MERMAIDS. It's funny, and entertaining,
and it leaves you feeling good at the end. I note that the audience
that I was part of was overwhelming composed of women. From this, I
take it that MERMAIDS is women's film. I think that lots of people will
go to MERMAIDS and they will go back a second and third time.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloneyleeper@mtgzy.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) (12/31/90)
MERMAIDS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: While a comedy on the surface MERMAIDS
has a serious underside. Cher plays a mother whose
irresponsible self-indulgence is destroying the lives of her
family. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4).
Rachel Flax (played by Cher) has not handle responsibility well. On
the surface she seems a likable kook with some odd ways of getting through
life with minimal commitment. When life gets too hectic for her, she packs
up and moves on, together with her two daughters. What she refuses to face
is that she is hurting everyone around her and making both daughters
incredibly neurotic. At first the viewer chuckles at the odd quirks of the
family, but with time the chuckling becomes more uneasy and we get a feel
for the painful contortions the Flax family is being put through by their
mother's willful avoidance of any commitment. The movie is seen from 15-
year-old daughter Charlotte's point of view as she desperately tries to
understand her coming-of-age with no guidance whatsoever from her mother.
(Charlotte is played by the ubiquitous Winona Ryder, who is currently in
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and WELCOME HOME, ROXY CARMICHAEL and is rumored to have
had a nervous breakdown that prevented her from also being cast as Michael
Corleone's daughter in THE GODFATHER III. Predictably she gets everything
confused. One minute she wants to become a nun (though she is Jewish), she
is fixated on Catholicism), and the next she is praying to be raped by the
26-year-old hunk who is the caretaker at a nearby convent.
Mrs. Flax is having her current affair with a Lou Landsky who owns the
local shoe store "Foot Friendly." There are a couple of problems here,
actually. "Foot Friendly" at least sounds like a take-off on the phrase
"user-friendly," but MERMAIDS is set in 1963, before terminology like "X-
friendly" was familiar or perhaps even invented. The second is that the
script apparently calls for Lou to be Jewish and from the Midwest and the
role is something of a stretch for actor Bob Hoskins. His character Lou
realizes that behind all the weirdness there is a lot of pain in the Flax
family. He wants to help but must tread a narrow line of helping the
children and not scaring Rachel into "moving on."
Richard Benjamin directed, though a recent PBS discussion said that
Cher was able to maintain much of the artistic control. The script's worst
faults are its lulling the audience into believing the material would be
light-weight, and a gratuitous piece of suspense toward the end that
cheapens the effect of the film and makes it seem more manipulative where
earlier it had been more sensitive. Still MERMAIDS has more to it than
first meets the eye. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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