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Crimes of the Heart
Despite the presence of three Oscar winning actresses in the starring roles, the 1986 film version of Crimes of the Heart is a slow and unimaginative movie that keeps pretending to lead to something and never gets there.
This is the story of three eccentric sisters who are reunited in the small southern town where they grew up when their mother commits suicide and one of the sisters gets arrested for shooting her husband. As two sisters try to get to the bottom of what the third did, they find themselves once again at the center of town gossip, thanks primarily to their snarky and prudish cousin, who has been the bane of their existence forever.
Lenny (Diane Keaton) is a lonely woman whose birthday is being quietly celebrated by herself. Meg (Jessica Lange) was the town tramp when she was younger but left town to try to become an actress, a dream that never really panned out. Babe (Sissy Spacek) is the baby sister married to a wealthy but tyrannical lawyer who she shoots after seeing his wife spending innocent time with a hunky young black man.
The film is based on a play by Beth Henley that opened in November of 1981 and ran a little over a year. Henley was allowed to adapt her own play into a screenplay, which is always a risk that, in this case, didn't really pay off. The screenplay is very talky, rich with long rambling Tennessee Williams-type monologues that seem to offer insight into who these sisters are, but it never really does.
Director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) provides some directorial flourishes that do offer something the screenplay doesn't. I don't know if it was in the play, but I loved the attention Beresford put into the attention of the early scene of Lenny attempting to put a birthday candle on a cookie speaks volumes because we assume she has the only one who has remembered it is either Meg or Babe's birthday, but we're a little startled when Meg reveals that it's Lenny's birthday. Also loved a tiny throwaway moment of Meg on the bus home and notices a location memorable to her, that causes just the tiniest smile to appear.
A serious shot of star power helps. Keaton and Lange are solid, as always, and Sissy Spacek's Babe earned her a fourth Best Actress nomination. Tess Harper's bitchy Cousin Chick earned her a Supporting Actress nomination as well. Like all of Beresford's work, the film is beautifully photographed, but considering all the talent involved, should have been a lot more interesting than it was.
Despite the presence of three Oscar winning actresses in the starring roles, the 1986 film version of Crimes of the Heart is a slow and unimaginative movie that keeps pretending to lead to something and never gets there.
This is the story of three eccentric sisters who are reunited in the small southern town where they grew up when their mother commits suicide and one of the sisters gets arrested for shooting her husband. As two sisters try to get to the bottom of what the third did, they find themselves once again at the center of town gossip, thanks primarily to their snarky and prudish cousin, who has been the bane of their existence forever.
Lenny (Diane Keaton) is a lonely woman whose birthday is being quietly celebrated by herself. Meg (Jessica Lange) was the town tramp when she was younger but left town to try to become an actress, a dream that never really panned out. Babe (Sissy Spacek) is the baby sister married to a wealthy but tyrannical lawyer who she shoots after seeing his wife spending innocent time with a hunky young black man.
The film is based on a play by Beth Henley that opened in November of 1981 and ran a little over a year. Henley was allowed to adapt her own play into a screenplay, which is always a risk that, in this case, didn't really pay off. The screenplay is very talky, rich with long rambling Tennessee Williams-type monologues that seem to offer insight into who these sisters are, but it never really does.
Director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) provides some directorial flourishes that do offer something the screenplay doesn't. I don't know if it was in the play, but I loved the attention Beresford put into the attention of the early scene of Lenny attempting to put a birthday candle on a cookie speaks volumes because we assume she has the only one who has remembered it is either Meg or Babe's birthday, but we're a little startled when Meg reveals that it's Lenny's birthday. Also loved a tiny throwaway moment of Meg on the bus home and notices a location memorable to her, that causes just the tiniest smile to appear.
A serious shot of star power helps. Keaton and Lange are solid, as always, and Sissy Spacek's Babe earned her a fourth Best Actress nomination. Tess Harper's bitchy Cousin Chick earned her a Supporting Actress nomination as well. Like all of Beresford's work, the film is beautifully photographed, but considering all the talent involved, should have been a lot more interesting than it was.