Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mare Winningham, Ted Levine, Max Perlich, John Doe, John C. Reilly
Genre:
Drama
Director:
Ulu Grosbard
Screenplay:
Barbara Turner based on a story by Barbara Turner
and Jennifer Jason Leigh
Cinematography:
Jan Kiesser
Composer:
Steven Soles
Runtime:
118 minutes
Jennifer Jason Leigh is the best American actress
that started in the color era, and this is her best performance (exceeding
the little seen gem Last Exit From Brooklyn) Aside from taking such a wide
range of diverse and incredibly difficult parts (some parts could be played
easily, but only if the goal wasn't for the performance to be worth mentioning),
what really separates her is that she has no on screen ego. She does not
care what depth she has to sink to or how unflattering she'll come across,
after all it's never her, always the character she's portraying.
She'll always research that character until she can become them on the
screen, which is why her performances are so painstaking realistic and
believable. She never wins any major awards because "making people happy'
always takes precedent over what should be important, which is the believability,
accuracy, realness, the generally the way the character comes to life.
This is not a movie where "a lot of things happen."
In fact, it's tempting to say that "not much happens," but either would
be totally missing the point because it's a character and relationship
study about a main character that is incapable of getting things together,
succeeding, and healing the wounds she's caused on those around her. It's
also about a sister that tries her hardest to deal with this character.
She can only take so much, but she can't bring herself to force her sister
out of her life.
As she always does when she's in the lead role,
Leigh takes the movie on her back and gives a totally engrossing, multidimensional
performance. A performance that should make you feel different things about
her character at different times even though it's always obvious that Sadie
is a no-hoper.
Calling Sadie unlikable is misses the point to
some extent because the characters and relationships in this movie are
all so complex. Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, wrote this story in a way
that none of the relationships would be black and white. Sadie is the center
of virtually every scene and wears her emotions on her shoulder, but with
everyone else there's the spoken and the unspoken. Director Ulu Grosbard
has left enough room for the viewer to interpret how everyone really feels
toward Leigh.
Sadie is frustrating in the sense that no matter how
much people go out of their way to help her, it's useless. Sadie is the person
that will always make herself the center of attention, and will suck everyone
around her dry. This character is an incredibly flawed person, but the thing
is she holds that certain power over people where she's so real, so emotional,
and so interesting in addition to being so f***ed up that one way or another
people are drawn to her. This is where Leigh's talent really comes to the
forefront because she makes the character so
interesting that you can see why, as hopeless as she is, the people around
Sadie can't help but accept her with her flaws and try to help her. Sure,
at some point most of them reach their limit, but even when they do you can
see it's tearing them up inside. Aside from her sister Georgia (Winningham),
no one really has the guts to confront her on why they have to get away from
her, or even how awful her singing is and how out of hand her substance abuse
is.
Winningham's performance as the polar opposite
sister is so impressive and worthy of supporting awards. She has the restraint
and ability to be able to convey the emotions while staying in the background.
That's the only way her character could credibly function because as the
opposite of Leigh; she's the quiet, unassuming one that has her life totally
together (aside from Leigh turning up when she's desperate and pulling
her down). Even though she isn't passionate about her profession and doesn't
care about fame and fortune, she is the highly successful singer because
she's talented and doesn't do anything (aside from perhaps putting Leigh
on stage) that would harm her career. Since she's got the dough, she's
giving but look for the subtle falseness in her generosity.
The most telling portion of the movie is when
she puts Leigh on stage for one song at an AIDS benefit concert, and Leigh
does the longest, most emotional rendition of Van Morrison's (one of her
favorite singers) 'Take Me Back.' The problem is the same as always, she's
plastered, no one responds to her bizarre pre-song comments, and she sings
as bad as anyone can possibly sing without sounding like they are just
trying to sound awful. This song seems to go on forever, so Winningham
finally reaches the point of embarrassment (and perhaps disgust) where
she comes back on stage and makes it a duet so she can 'save' her sister
and end this debacle. Due to the actresses, a horrible song has never been
so amazing to sit through. Of course, Sadie thinks that passion and living
the music is what makes for an exceptional performance, so her voice (if
she even notices it sucks) isn't important because her show (and her whole
life for that matter) is essentially a display of pain open to the public.
In the car after Georgia's show is over, Sadie has to ask her husband Axel
(Max Perlich), Georgia's husband Jake (Ted Levine), and Georgia 'was I
great or was I great?' Perlich & Levine, who don't get a tremendous
amount of screen time but still offer strong support, agree she was great
(well, Levine says she was something so again it's open for interpretation,
but to Leigh it's an agreement), but Winningham doesn't want to say anything.
After being prodded, she finally can't hold back her real feelings anymore,
although she still says it in the 's this what you want to here' way. The
true irony of the scene is that throughout the movie, especially when Sadie
got Georgia to come up and sing a duet with her at one of her performances
before a few drunks by putting Georgia on the spot, Sadie had always tried
to outdo Georgia and steal her thunder. That's the point of the title,
although Sadie is the character that gets all the attention and thus screen
time, everything she does always comes back to her sister Georgia.
*Spoiler alert*
This is a movie that doesn't have a definitive
beginning and ending point. By that I mean, it's obvious that the events
were going on long before we started seeing them and they'll continue long
after we've left them. That's why the ending of this movie is so perfect.
There's none of that it has to be happy and uplifting crap to take away
so much of the power of what came before it. There's what we already knew
followed by one line from Sadie that shows a small positive change in her
character, but at the same time does not lead you to believe that she's
poised for either a slow or sudden spiral in either direction. These sisters
are who they are. This may not be a movie that you'll think is one of the
greatest of all-time, but Leigh's performance and the basis of the movie
itself should stick with you for a long time.
