Best Actress Retrospective: An Introduction

 

If we go by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Mikey Madison is better than Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr. How? This year, Madison won Best Actress for her performance in Anora. One wonders if Garbo would have won the Oscar if she had shaken her ass in Ninotchka. Perhaps if Dunne had simulated sex on screen in Love Affair, that Oscar would have been hers. For that matter, would Madison be able to play, now or in the future, the leads in Camille or I Remember Mama? This, of course, does not even count Myrna Loy or Maureen O'Hara, who were never even nominated once.

In the history of the Academy Awards, as of this writing 80 women have received a Best Actress Oscar. Katharine Hepburn currently holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins at four, with Frances McDormand hot on her heels at three. Some of those wins have stood the test of time (Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins). Some are pretty much forgotten (Luise Rainer's first back-to-back win for The Great Ziegfeld, Glenda Jackson's second win for A Touch of Class). Where will Madison's win eventually fall? Will her Anora be mentioned in the same breath as Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress or will it be as obscure as Joan Fontaine's win for Suspicion? 

With that, I am embarking on something of a fool's errand. I will watch and review all 100 Best Actress Oscar winning performances (there was one case of a tie, and the first Best Actress winner won for three performances), starting backwards owing to the unavailability of some of the Oscar-winning films. You can't find everything on streaming. 

I have already reviewed 48 performances as of this writing, which is not bad. I will, after the retrospective is complete, rank them to find the Ten Best, the Ten Worst, and the overall ranking for all our winners. I will go only by the performance itself, not who the competition was. That might come later, on a year-by-year basis.

With that, I now formally begin my Best Actress Retrospective.

The Trip to Bountiful: A Review (Review #1962)

THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Memory is a most curious thing. It is something that we alone possess, attempt to pass on, and sometimes live in or for. The Trip to Bountiful is both a specific and universal story, with a moving performance from Geraldine Page as a flawed but feisty woman, determined to go back one final time to what was home.

Carrie Watts (Page) is a widow living with her son Luddie (John Heard) and his wife Jessie Mae (Carlyn Glynn). To say that Mother Watts and Jessie Mae do not get along is putting it mildly. The bossy, often mean Jessie Mae is a tyrant with Mama Watts, scolding her for singing hymns and accusing her of deliberately hiding her pension check that Jessie Mae wants. Luddie, for his part, wants there to be peace between the two women in his life, but they cannot find much common ground.

Mrs. Watts is determined to go back to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas, for one last visit and reminisce. Luddie and especially Jessie Mae are dead set against it and will not let her go. It takes Jessie Mae finally leaving to meet up with her frenemy for Mrs. Watts to carry out her plan: rush out of their shared apartment, board a train to Bountiful and get back home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Watts is not aware that time has evaporated Bountiful, done in by the Depression and people moving from there to nearby Houston, where she too lives. Finding there are no trains to Bountiful, she tries a bus. There are no buses to Bountiful, but there are to nearby Harrison. That's close enough for Mrs. Watts, who manages to avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae.

On route, she makes friend with Thelma (Rebecca De Mornay), who has recently married a soldier shipped off and who is traveling to Corpus Christi to stay with her parents until her new husband returns. In Harrison, Mrs. Watts realizes that she left her purse on the bus that just left. Fortunately, the bus is not too far and can have the purse sent back. Unfortunately, that gives the police enough time to hold Mrs. Watts in town until Luddie comes for her. The shock of coming so close only to be held back is too much, and she has a medical emergency. The sheriff, taking pity on her, agrees to escort her to what remains of Bountiful, though he reminds Mrs. Watts that Luddie will bring her back. Once in Bountiful, Mrs. Watts reflects on what has come before and what there is left to come. Will Mama Watts, Luddie and Jessie Mae find a new understanding amongst each other?

It is a curious thing that while The Trip to Bountiful is often filmed in open spaces, it still strongly reflects its stage roots. So many scenes in The Trip to Bountiful play as if they were taking place on a stage. I do not know if director Peter Masterson or screenwriter Horton Foote (adapting his own stage play) deliberately intended to make The Trip to Bountiful look like a stage play filmed outdoors. That was what I found to be the end result.

This observation is not a slam on the film. Far from it: The Trip to Bountiful allows for the dialogue and the acting to have more of a focus due to that staging. It is, however, easy to see how the story originated on the stage given that it plays that way. 

The Trip to Bountiful was Geraldine Page's eighth Oscar nomination. Had she lost, Page would have had the record for the greatest number of unsuccessful Oscar bids, or at least gotten there before the current record holders of Peter O'Toole and Glenn Close who are both 0-8. Given that Page was not a major film star like O'Toole and Close, this would have made for a curious bit of history. However, Page more than was worthy of the win. This is not the time nor place to judge whether Page "deserved" to win or match her against her competitors.

It is, instead, a time to look at Page's performance. Here, one is deeply moved by Mrs. Watts, who is stubborn but also filled with deep emotion on her past, present and future. She has wonderful moments of monologues, such as when she talks to Thelma about Ray John Murray, whom she considers the lost love of her life. Telling Thelma that she did not love her husband but admired him (and let him know it), we see in Page's performance all the waves of regret that Carrie Watts has. Mrs. Watts is a woman of deep faith, who finds both joy and comfort in her relationship with Christ. She also has great pain, talking about the loss of two of her children in moments that move the audience. In her desire to visit her old ground, her fear and anger at seemingly failing, the struggle with her daughter-in-law, Page captures this singular woman's needs, anxieties and hopes.

The Trip to Bountiful is an exceptionally well-acted film all around. Rebecca De Mornay and Carlin Glynn would have more than rightly earned Best Supporting Actress nominations for their performances as Thelma and Jessie Mae respectively. It is a bit of a surprise that both were overlooked that year. De Mornay reveals a side to her skills that I think has not been as tapped as it should have. Her Thelma is gentle, kind and almost innocent, a young bride starting out her life who helps Mrs. Watts avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae. In their scenes together, you see a bond growing that the pressures of time forced an end. Again, you can see how the character of Thelma might have just been there for Act II, but that does not remove the positives of De Mornay in the film.

For her part, we get to openly hate Glynn's Jessie Mae. She is not a monster, for at one point she does show great concern when Mother Watts has something of a fainting spell, even offering to stay with her while Mother Watts recovers. However, for most of The Trip to Bountiful, we see Jessie Mae as snobbish, contemptuous of her elderly mother-in-law and rather curt with everyone. Still, by the end, we do see that perhaps there can be a rapprochement in their relationship.

In his role, Heard too showed another side as the henpecked Luddie. He loves his mother, but he loves his wife too. Near the end, Luddie has a long monologue about how he does not feel the connection to Bountiful that Carrie has owing to the circumstances that he lived through. Heard handles the gentle, sometimes weak, but eventually firm Luddie with great skill. This is a man filled with regrets, even anger, about his situation with Carrie and Jessie Mae, but now wants to see if he can be that peacemaker he wants to be.

The Trip to Bountiful is a curious film in how it is never far from its stage roots. However, with strong performances from the cast and a moving story about the importance of your past and future, I think many will be moved at the end. "I'll go on," Mrs. Watts at one point says. She may mean go on to Bountiful, but I think there's more meaning than that. We all have our own Bountiful, and The Trip to Bountiful is a beautiful reminder of remembering our roots without becoming entangled in them.

DECISION: B+

The Great American Pastime: A Review

 

THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews Annual Opening Day Movie Review, where I look at a baseball-related film to coincide with the AAA Opening Day for the El Paso Chihuahuas. This year, I look at the funny frolics of Little League.

Long before we had the Bad News Bears, we had the Willow Falls Panthers. The Great American Pastime looks at the dangers of Little League Baseball, from pushy parents to dirty players. While essentially a B-film, The Great American Pastime has just enough charm to carry it over.

Bruce Hallerton (Tom Ewell) loves watching baseball, but he is not big on other things, such as his wife Betty (Anne Francis) or son Dennis (Rudy Dee). A surprise opportunity for father-son bonding comes up when a group of fellow attorneys ask him to be their Little League team manager. Unfortunately for Bruce, Dennis is placed on a rival Little League team. Still determined to make the best of it, Bruce continues managing the disastrous Panthers.

The poor record does not win him any fans among the Panthers' parents save perhaps for one: the luscious Doris Patterson (Anne Miller). This femme fatale of the Little League set always laughs at Bruce's jokes, invites him (and his family) to dinner and appears delighted to be near the plain Bruce. Betty clearly dislikes this black widow, much to Bruce's confusion. Bruce now has to content not only with Betty's growing green-eyed monster but Dennis adopting the questionable "win-at-all-costs" attitude the Tigers have. Will Bruce grow to bring at least one win to the hapless Panthers? Will he let Doris down easy? Will he get a big surprise from Doris and Betty?

The Great American Pastime is fully aware that it is meant to be a bit light. As such, I judge it on whether or not it entertained me and made me laugh. It did this mostly well.

What did surprise me was in how almost progressive The Great American Pastime is when it comes to adultery and sex. Granted it was a bit in double entendre and suggestions, but it worked quite well. Remarking on what he considers Doris' best attributes (raising a son as a widow), he says, "I take my hat off to her". Betty instantly fires back, "Please make sure that's all". After an outraged Doris crushes Bruce's dreams of a mistress, she informs him that she was only buttering him up to get a favorable position for her son Herbie. As she orders him out of her house, she gives him a parting shot. "Now run along and...play with your marbles". 

Read that any way you like.

The Great American Pastime also features two black players. Sadly, we never heard from them or the parents, but I find it a step forward. 

The performances range from the amusing to the tolerable. Tom Ewell is pleasant enough as Bruce, a put-upon man who creates his own disasters. Appropriately silly when working with Doris, he does not do so well when bemoaning his situations to Betty. Francis is a bit weak as Betty, but to be fair it was not a great part. The thought of Miller as this Little League temptress is amusing, more so given the plain-looking Ewell. However, she did quite well in the role. The Great American Pastime is also an early role for Dean Jones as the eager young coach. Bruce's voiceover description of Buck Rivers has one of Nathaniel Benchley's clever lines: "His teeth were so white they made me nervous". 

We get a lot of amusing zingers in The Great American Pastime. Early on, Bruce describes his team as "a nest of midgets". Later on, he attempts to make Betty sympathetic to the black widow Doris by telling her that her husband "disappeared into the jungle". "What was he: a baboon?" she derisively responds. After a disastrous game, Dennis is talking about the results with the family dog, Smidgen. An irate Bruce asks that Dennis stop. "Why? You afraid he'll get your job?", Betty replies.

One thing that I think was a flaw was in having Ewell address us directly in the opening and closing. I think we could have done without the voiceovers too, though it is not a deal-breaker for me. 

At a brisk 90 minutes, The Great American Pastime knows when to start and when to finish. A light affair, The Great American Pastime may not be great itself, but it is pleasant enough and fully aware. 

DECISION: C+

2024 Opening Day Film: Mr. Baseball

2023 Opening Day Film: Angels in the Outfield (1954) 

2022 Opening Day Film: Bull Durham

2021 Opening Day Film: Alibi Ike

2020 Opening Day Film: Mr. 3000

2019 Opening Day Film: Ladies' Day

2018 Opening Day Film: Fear Strikes Out

2017 Opening Day Film: Eight Men Out

Venus (2006): A Review (Review #1960)

VENUS (2006)

I start my Venus review with a curious observation: whoever chose this poster to advertise the film ought to be publicly horsewhipped. It is downright frightening, this disheveled old man staring back at me, almost dead-eyed. Moreover, it tells us absolutely nothing about what Venus is about. HE can't possibly be the goddess of love. Venus, Peter O'Toole's eighth and final failed Best Actor nomination, probably would not be remembered save for that sad distinction. That is a shame, as Venus is a good film about mortality and a mutual great awakening to the joys of life.

Relatively successful actor Maurice Russell (O'Toole) has become adept at playing corpses, finding fewer roles in his seventies. He exchanges pills and reminiscences with his acting friends and colleagues Ian (Leslie Philips) and Donald (Richard Griffiths). Ian is at first delighted that his great-niece is coming to London to care for him. He soon finds Jessie (Jodie Whitaker) a boorish nightmare. Ian begs Maurice to take her off his hands. The ever-rakish though secretly ill Maurice agrees.

As Maurice and Jessie start to know each other, they find the generation gap pretty large. Jessie, uncultured, uncouth and unsophisticated, is opening up to Maurice about her life. She occasionally teases him about looking and touching her, which he finds delightful. For his part, Maurice finds new vim and vigor despite his growing illness owing to his prostate. He does wine and dine her, but he also gets her a modeling job, posing for art classes. Maurice also brings art and culture into her life. 

Still, Ian, who still dislikes his tart of a great-niece, finds their relationship, whatever it is, distasteful. As they all push and pull away and at each other, will Jessie grow in life as Maurice fades away from it? Will the lifelong friends reconcile before it is too late? 

The title Venus comes from Maurice's nickname for Jessie, partially inspired by the Diego Velazquez painting Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery in London which Maurice shows her. Venus is a very brisk 95 minutes long, and in that time director Roger Michell guides his actors to very good performances.

At the top of the list is Peter O'Toole, who as stated earned a Best Actor nomination for the film. He handled the comedy well, such as when he does a pratfall attempting to see Jessie's first nude modeling. After accidentally barging in and causing a ruckus, Maurice attempts to play it cool by asking, "Is everything all right?". 

O'Toole has a droll manner as the knowing rascal Maurice. Speaking about the nightmare that his great-niece is, Ian tells his friends, "Martha said there is no job in the countryside". Maurice observes in O'Toole's magnificent voice, "There must be some demand for barmaids and prostitutes". When persuading Jessie to go to a theater performance, he observes, "It won't be as good as Celebrity Love Island, but it'll be live". 

However, in O'Toole's performance, we see the vulnerable, even regretful aspects of him. Some of his best scenes are with Vanessa Redgrave as his ex-wife Valerie. Here, just the two of them, we see Maurice coming to terms with his failures in love and more importantly, with his own mortality. 

There is poignant moment where he and Ian go to a small church which contains memorial plaques to their fellow thespians, some of whom they knew, some whom they did not. As a chamber orchestra begins to play, these two BFFs begin an impromptu waltz, finding joy and acceptance that they too will eventually find their names here. 

An aspect of O'Toole's performance that may go unnoticed is how Maurice, as a still-working actor, has a few scenes where he is acting in two roles: Maurice and whatever character Maurice is performing. In a clever bit of editing, we first see Maurice fall in Ian's apartment after essentially hitting the clubs with Jessie immediately followed by him in a hospital, surrounded by family begging him not to die. We soon quickly establish that the hospital is a studio, and Maurice is playing yet again another dying man. It was a clever twist in screenwriter Hanif Kureishi's script. Later, Maurice takes Jessie to a location shoot, where Maurice is acting in a Georgian drama. Made up in full Georgian makeup and costume, one briefly gets caught up in that story, showing O'Toole's range.

Peter O'Toole is a standout in Venus, bringing Maurice's joie de vivre as he accepts his impending death with grace, though not perhaps with a lot of dignity. This is a man who loves life but who also faces his mortality with a mix of fear, regret and acceptance. 

It is hard to judge Jodie Whitaker in Venus, which was her film debut. She was fine as the tawdry but evolving Jessie. In fairness, she has a wonderful, quiet moment when she, while bathing, talks about a forced abortion to Maurice, waiting outside. Earlier, Maurice told Jessie that the sight of a beautiful woman would be the most beautiful thing that a man would see. When she asks what would be the most beautiful thing that a woman would see, after a pause Maurice says, "Her first child". It was not clear why that caused Jessie to become upset, but this scene explains that. We also see how, by the end, Jessie had changed for the better, the woman who terrorized her great-uncle by just lying about eventually became a responsible young woman. 

In their smaller roles, Philips, Griffiths and Redgrave also did well. The interplay between O'Toole and Philips revealed a longstanding bond right from the start, where these two old men exchange medication and tell each other the pros and cons of red or white pills. Griffiths has some of the funnier moments, such as when he expands on Maurice's skills with women. Maurice, lover of words, assures his friend that he is "a scientist of the female heart" who can get Jessie off his back. Donald adds on that Maurice is "a professor of pussy", which shocks Ian and amuses Maurice. 

Venus also features Corrine Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On, which dominated the airwaves back in the day. It does describe Jessie's evolved character, and lends Venus a nice, casually upbeat ending and chill vibe. 

Venus is a short, simple story well told, with good performances all around. People who might worry that the May-December relationship is sordid I think might misread it. I do not see it as a sugar daddy-pretty young thing situation, though there are elements of that. It is, however, not exactly a grandfather and granddaughter type either. I put it as a strange dance between people who may not have sought each other out, but who ended up in better places thanks to their interactions. 

DECISION: B-

My Favorite Year: A Review

 

MY FAVORITE YEAR

Television's early days were never so wild and outlandish as My Favorite Year, a wonderful and brilliant comedy with a bravura no-holds-barred performance from Peter O'Toole. My Favorite Year is a delightful romp, full of heart and joy but able to move you in its softer moments. 

My Favorite Year is 1954 according to our protagonist, Benji Stone (Mark-Lynn Baker). Stone is the newest and youngest writer on television sketch comedy show Comedy Cavalcade, starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). Kaiser is abrasive, temperamental and prone to delusions of grandeur and insecurity. He also is not afraid of spoofing mob boss Karl "Boss" Rojek (Cameron Mitchell) with a series of comedy sketches about "Boss Hijack". Rojek does not like being openly mocked, but despite the danger that is the least of Kaiser's concerns.

That belongs to this week's Comedy Cavalcade guest star, matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole). Swann is a drunk whose best years seem behind him. He delights in being scandalous, but he is also suave, charming and even insecure behind the bravado and swashbuckling derring-do. Benji, who is a massive Swann fanboy, dares to stand up to not just Kaiser but the equally loud and abrasive Comedy Cavalcade head writer Sy Benson (Bill Macy), insisting that Swann should not be replaced as the guest star. Kaiser, impressed by Stone's act of defiance, agrees to keep Swann in the show, provided that Stone keep his eyes on Swann. Stone won't be alone in trying to keep Swann out of trouble, for Swann's longtime New York chauffeur Alfie Bumbacelli (Tony DiBennedetto) is an old pro at keeping Mr. Swann from his most extreme behavior.

With that, Benji Stone and Alan Swann begin their weeklong adventures. Swann offers guidance in Stone's wooing of Comedy Cavalcade production assistant K.C. Dowling (Jessica Harper). Swann takes Stone to dinner at the Stork Club, where he helps Swann squire a pretty young thing. Stone also takes Swann to have dinner with his mother Belle Steinberg Carroca (Laine Kazan) and his stepfather, Filipino bantamweight boxer Rookie (Ramon Sison). 

As the week comes close to ending, Swann and Stone learn more about each other. Despite his image, Swann is really at heart Clarence Duffy, a Scotsman who went AWOL from the British Navy with dreams of becoming an actor and managed to become a movie star. Stone reveals that he is really a Benjamin Steinberg, who does not hide his Jewish identity but is embarrassed by his family's behavior. On the day of the broadcast, Swann has swanned off to Connecticut in a failed effort to see his daughter Tess, whom he loves but is afraid to reconnect with. Will Alan Swann pull himself together enough to perform live in front of a studio audience, a prospect that terrifies him? Will Boss Rojek get back at King Kaiser literally on the air?  

My Favorite Year is really about Stone's favorite week, as the story takes place in that short time period. Screenwriters Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo (from a story by Palumbo) crafted a story that was in terms outlandish and heartwarming, where the characters can be crazed one moment, touching the next. 

A good moment that shows how My Favorite Year balances absurdity with sincerity is when Benji takes Alan to the foreign land of Brooklyn for a Steinberg family dinner. We get a lot of Borscht Belt comedy when Aunt Sadie (Annette Robyns) pops in wearing her wedding dress, apparently oblivious as to how bonkers it looks. Even Belle looked shocked, and Belle is no shrinking violet, insisting on calling her guest both "Al" and "Swannee". As a bemused Swann looks on, Aunt Sadie comments that she's worn that dress only once before.

This scene has some funny moments, like when Benji scolds his mother for calling Swann "Al". "If I bring Jolson or Capone, you can call him Al", he says. Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi) replies, "Jolson's coming?". However, we see what makes My Favorite Year so special: Peter O'Toole's performance. O'Toole as Swann here is unflappable and surprisingly respectful and respectable given the odd goings-on. He is gracious towards Benji's family, which is no small feat. When Uncle Morty brings up past sex scandals involving Swann, everyone else is appalled. 

Swann, however, reveals the gentleman behind the rogue. Calmly answering Morty's question about his schtupping past, he says that the answer is no. Swann points out that people like him are targets, often accused of things that they did not do. However, he adds that because of who he is, he sometimes is allowed to get away with murder on other things, so in his mind, it balances out. 

These types of scenes, where O'Toole reveals the gentleman and gentle man behind the swashbuckling persona, are a real acting treat. O'Toole certainly can do the broad farce and drunken pratfalls with great enthusiasm. He even has one of the film's best lines when he realizes, to his horror, that Comedy Cavalcade will not only be live but in front of a studio audience. As his panic grows into a frenzy, he ends his meltdown by shouting out, "I'M NOT AN ACTOR! I'M A MOVIE STAR!".

However, shortly afterwards, Benji finds Swann in the studio hallway. O'Toole shows Swann not as the plastered buffoon he's taken for, but as a frightened man, terrified of being a failure and not living up to the image that even he is not sure is real or fake. O'Toole showcases a range that is simply remarkable in My Favorite Year. One moment he can have you laughing at how outlandish he can be, like when he looks at a fire hose that he can use to try and shimmy down to a lower floor like a man who has discovered fire.

The next moment, you see him silently watching Tess come out of her mother's house. Staying in the car, we see the joy in seeing her fade into fear, him crouching back into the seat. It is a beautiful performance: funny, touching and knowing of this man, a charming, smooth and intelligent but roguish and undisciplined one. It is one of Peter O'Toole's greatest screen performances and an underrated one.

Everyone else in My Favorite Year is not up to O'Toole's level but they are pretty serviceable. Out of the rest of the cast, I would put DiBenedetto as the best, his Alfie very understanding of "Mr. Swann" and his pretty bonkers behavior. Mark-Lynn Baker is "introduced" in My Favorite Year, and I think he did well as Benji Stone/Benjamin Steinberg. He and O'Toole work well together, especially whenever Swann gets Benji's name wrong as either "Stoneberg" or "Stoneburger", which brings no reaction. He did not do so well when he was attempting to tone done his family's behavior, a bit too forced in my view.

Same with some of the other performances. They worked up to a point, but I feel conflicted in that I think that they were meant to be broad but somehow still did not fully work. Bologna was a strange figure: sometimes not funny but exaggerated, other times fine. As a side note, the two comedy sketches shown as part of Comedy Cavalcade (the Boss Hijack sketch and the musketeer sketch meant to spoof Swann's persona) were not funny at all.  

Still, it is a credit to director Richard Benjamin that My Favorite Year rolled pretty smoothly. I hope that people will watch and remember My Favorite Year for being more than Peter O'Toole's seventh Best Actor nomination. It is a fun, nostalgic homage to early television and how our cinematic heroes may be more real than we think.   

DECISION: B+

As Good as It Gets: A Review

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Melvin Udall is not someone that if you met, you would not want to be around. You certainly would not like him. However, one of the elements in As Good as It Gets is that despite all logic, we end up liking, even loving Melvin no matter how awful he is to others. As Good as It Gets is a wonderful comedy, blending humor and heart where you find yourself laughing even at things that you would cringe at.

Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) writes successful romance novels, but he is in many ways a loathsome person. He insults people openly, sometimes shockingly. While he does have obsessive-compulsive disorder, Melvin is also extremely difficult to deal with in his routines. Among those is having breakfast at not just the exact same restaurant but at the exact same table. If anyone else dares to sit at his table, he will not shrink from going beyond mere insults to being downright bigoted in order to get them out. Only Brooklyn waitress Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) can work with him. 

She also is the only person who can put Melvin in his place. When he dares suggest that her chronically ill son Spencer (Jesse James) will die like everyone else, she makes clear that if Melvin ever brings up Spence again, she will not serve him. For once, Melvin backs down, mostly due to how that would upset his routine though perhaps a small part of him feels shame about targeting a child.

He won't back down when it comes to insulting his openly gay neighbor, painter Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear) and his little dog too. Simon struggles to confront Melvin, something Simon's art dealer and friend Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) does not have a problem with. Simon's newest model, hustler Vincent (Skeet Ulrich), poses for two weeks. However, Vincent is party to his fellow hustlers robbing Simon, almost killing the painter. Melvin, no fan of Simon, at least has enough sense to contact the police.

Now, Melvin owes Frank a favor for not beating him up before. That favor? Look after Verdell, Simon's beloved dog whom Melvin cannot stand. Despite himself, Melvin soon starts bonding with Verdell. He also finds that, despite his misanthropic nature, he soon starts getting involved in the lives of both Simon and Carol. When he finds that Carol cannot come serve him because of Spencer's illness, Melvin pays for a specialist to treat him. He goes so far as to venture from Manhattan to Brooklyn to see if Carol can come back to work. 

Melvin also agrees, very reluctantly, to go with Simon to Baltimore to see if Simon's estranged parents can help him financially. Terrified that Simon will attempt to seduce him, Melvin pushes Carol to go with them. On their way to and from Baltimore, friendships and romances build, fall and return.

As Good as It Gets is a master class in writing thanks to Mark Andrus and director James L. Brooks' screenplay. The story flows smoothly, where Melvin's evolution from almost anti-human to somewhat functional but still crass person is natural even though he still says awful things. We know that Melvin is a very terrible person at the beginning, when he dumps Verdell down the garbage chute rather than see the dog urinate on the floor. Add to that how, when Simon asks about Verdell, Melvin replies that he thought that Simon was referring to "that colored man that I've been seeing in the halls".  

As the film goes on, Melvin continues saying the most awful and bigoted things. However, the end result is that we laugh at him, not with him. Melvin's overall uncomfortableness, his thorough thoughtlessness is all played for laughs. We do see, however, that a wonderful element of As Good as It Gets is that we see that for all his awfulness, Melvin has another side to him.

We see it when he is writing his newest romance novel, the words of love pouring out. We see it whenever someone, be it Carol or Frank, stands up to him. As the film goes on, the delight that he has with Verdell makes Melvin almost cuddly. How can we hate someone who sings Always Look on the Bright Side of Life to a dog?  He still is in many respects a horrible person; by the time he introduces Carol and Simon to each other as "Carol the waitress, meet Simon the fag", we see that Melvin is less monstrous and more clueless about people.

There is also a sense of schadenfreude when Melvin has to endure a serious of disasters: he loses Verdell to Simon, is refused to be seen at the psychiatrist's office for his insistence on not making an appointment and finds a new waitress at his table. When he finally is ordered out of the restaurant over his boorish behavior, Melvin's body language shows a man thoroughly dejected, the applause from the other restaurant patrons giving this scene a greater comedic punch. 

The film is filled with great quips and insults. I think the best-known one is when he is asked how he can write women so well. "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability", he replies to a female fan at his publisher's office. 

As Good as It Gets also has the great blessing of Jack Nicholson in the lead role. Nicholson makes Melvin into a funny character both despite and because of his behavior and bigotry. I think it is because there is a slight impishness in Nicholson's performance, as if we saw that for all his outward bluster and boorish behavior Melvin has something of a heart. He shows the vulnerable man behind the eccentric behavior. Melvin is a misanthrope, but he also is able to see joy in how children are fond of Verdell. You end up being charmed by Melvin, some of the time, and that is due to Nicholson's performance.

Nicholson has a strong group of actors working with him. In a curious turn, I think Helen Hunt is the weaker of the three main characters (Melvin, Carol and Simon). It is not that Hunt, in her Best Actress Oscar-winning performance, is bad. She has a wonderful scene where she struggles to write a lengthy thank-you note to Melvin, which is quite moving. The problem with Hunt's performance is that she struggles quite audibly with her Brooklyn accent. It is a case of trying too hard to sound like someone born and bred in the borough when that accent not just comes and goes but goes from heavy to nonexistent. I think it might have been better if Hunt had not adopted or attempted the Brooklyn accent, which could have been easily explained away as Carol being a transplant.

Greg Kinnear, who was best known at the time as the host of the comic clip show Talk Soup, had made a few films before As Good as It Gets, but here he did one of his best performances, rightfully earning a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Fey without being cartoonish, Kinnear made Simon into a lost man struggling not so much with his sexuality but with his own sense of worth separate from that. Kinnear has a standout scene where he is on the telephone to his mother. The shift from someone looking for help to someone who sees that he is not helpless is there in his performance. Kinner also has a nice bit where he imitates Nicholson, showing Kinnear a good mimic and Simon capable of having a spine.

If I have a few caveats about As Good as It Gets, separate from Hunt's dodgy accent, are with some plot points. I struggle with the idea that anyone would have hired a street hustler to be Simon's model versus looking for a professional. We never saw how Melvin came to find that Simon had been robbed and attacked. I had a major issue at the scene where Simon's injuries and reaction to them were played for laughs. 

Still, overall, As Good as It Gets holds up very well. Yes, Melvin says awful things that are insulting at best, downright racist and homophobic at worst. However, that is part of the joke: that Melvin, as abrasive as he is, is unaware that he looks foolish. It is hard not to laugh throughout As Good as It Gets, a crowning achievement for everyone involved. 

DECISION: B+

Drive My Car: A Review

 

DRIVE MY CAR

Some things are universal, and some things are specific to certain cultures. Drive My Car touches on both elements, covering grief while also keeping to its Japanese setting. While the film's length may be off-putting to some, once the film gets rolling Drive My Car becomes a strong portrait of letting go. 

Successful theater actor Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) has built a strong reputation for his multilingual dual skills of directing and acting on the stage. His wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) is a successful television screenwriter, giving him her newest risqué scenario for Japanese television. Kafuku is in high demand as an actor, director and theater judge. Leaving for a theater festival, he is delayed and forced to return, where he finds Oto having sex with Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) an actor from a new television project. Kafuku quietly sneaks off, only to find that Oto asks that they have a talk when he returns. When he does return, he finds Oto dead of a brain hemorrhage. 

Two years later, Kafuku is still processing his mixed emotions, as he is now alone, he and Oto having lost their daughter many years ago. He has been invited to a theatrical residency in Hiroshima but is displeased when told that he will need a driver during the residency. Kafuku has been driving his beloved red Saab 900 Turbo for years even with his glaucoma (diagnosed after an accident). Moreover, he uses the drives to listen to tapes of Oto feeding him lines, which relaxes and helps him with his productions as well as keeping Oto alive. His new driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura) is a bit of a sullen girl, but efficient at her job. She is also 23 years old and would have been the same age as his and Oto's daughter had she lived. 

Kafuku will direct the theater's production of Uncle Vanya with a multilingual cast. To both their surprises, Kafuku casts Takatsuki in the title role, the actor having fallen on hard times due to personal scandal. As the rehearsals go on, the trio of Kafuku, Watari and Takatsuki deal with their own guilts and regrets about the past with varying degrees of success. Will another scandal that involves Takatsuki force Uncle Vanya to be cancelled? Will Kafuku have to pull double duty? Will he and Watari reconcile with themselves and heal? 

Drive My Car is a bit of an endurance test. The first forty minutes is about Kafuku and Oto, which technically is all pre-credit. I wonder if this could have been covered in less time. It does allow us a chance to be with the characters and build up the dynamic between Kafuku and Oto. However, it at times feels like too much, especially when you think that Drive My Car is more than just Kafuku's story. 

However, once one settles into things, he or she will find that Drive My Car does reward those willing to endure writer/director Ryusuke Hamagushi's adaptation of Haruki Murikami's short story. There is a scene where Kafuku and Takatsuki talk in soft tones about Oto: the former's awareness of her rampant infidelities as a coping mechanism while still loving him, the latter filling in the story which Kafuku did not know how it ended. All this while Watari is listening up front, rarely even expressing much except at one point where her eyebrows go up when she hears that Kafuku and Oto's daughter would be the same age as Watari had she lived.

This scene, not built on grand emotions but on quiet tones and glances, is a master class of acting, writing and directing. Hamaguchi gives us a great moment to close this scene when Kafuku offers Watari a cigarette where she can indulge in her one major vice, then Kafuku joins her. Hamaguchi allows the symbolism to speak for itself. 

He also at times finds clever ways to give us background. For example, we do not know why Takatsuki is now slumming it in a theater production until Kafuku and Watari take a ferry to Watari's hometown to give him time to consider whether or not to act and direct Uncle Vanya. We hear from a far-away television about Takatsuki's past record, which tells us while giving us that information in a logical way.

The performances are not just universally good but multilingual. We have scenes where Uncle Vanya and Waiting for Godot are performed in different languages ranging from German to Indonesian. Kafuku's newest production of Uncle Vanya is similarly multilingual: there are Chinese and Filipino actors, and even an actress who uses Korean Sign Language. It is eventually cleared up how this cacophony is clear to the audience (a large screen has several simultaneous translations). However, the staging of Uncle Vanya is so good that at times one almost forgets one is watching Drive My Car and focuses on Uncle Vanya.   

Nishijima and Miura form a great double-act as Kafuku and Watari. Individually they both excel, particularly Nishijima who carries the bulk of Drive My Car. He not only has to play Kafuku but also at times characters from Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya. His performance is never showy but actually quite quiet, which makes it all the more effective. The same goes for Watari, who has her own moments when she talks about her mother and the regret she carries with her own relationship. They grieve in different ways but find a way to process that grief to peace.

Again, I think length will be an issue. I think the nearly three-hour runtime, coupled with it being in Japanese, will scare some people off. I admit to struggling initially with the film, finding it interesting at times but dragging at others. Eventually though, particularly after a drive with Kafuku and Takatsuki, I became more involved. Drive My Car is well-written, directed and acted throughout. Straightforward and respectful, one will find Drive My Car well worth the trip.

DECISION: B+