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'night, Mother
The superb performances by two Oscar winning actresses anchor the disturbing 1986 film version of a Pulitzer Prize winning play called "night, Mother that focuses on one my least favorite subject matters for the movies.
This is the story of a woman named Jessie Cates, seen cleaning and organizing the home she shares with her mother, Thelma. Not long after Thelma arrives home, we are shocked when Jessie pulls out a gun to clean it and quietly announces to her mother that she plans to kill herself in a couple of hours.
This movie aroused all kinds of jumbled emotions in me because of my personal feels regarding suicide. There is no rationalizing the act of suicide in my opinion and I don't think it solves anything. I believe suicide is an act of cowardice. I also believe that committing suicide is agonizing for everyone who loves the victim because they will always feel guilty and feel they could have done something to stop it.
With that said, it took almost the entire running time for me to break down what Jessie was doing and why. First of all, I had to understand why Jessie was doing this and that does come to light relatively early in the running time and, for this viewer, suicide was not the only answer for this woman, but she did and if she didn't want to be talked out of it, why come home and announce to her mother that she's going to do this in a couple of hours and offering her a million final instructions. There is no justification of the burden she puts on her mother here and I just couldn't get behind it. I did enjoy the glimmers of hope provided through Jessie's request for her mom to make her cocoa and a baked apple and agree to her mom's request for a manicure.
This was right up there with some of my most uncomfortable evenings at the movie but the Oscar-worthy performances by Sissy Spacek as Jessie and the late Anne Bancroft as Thelma, taking over the roles that were originated in 1983 by Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak, respectively, made this truly stomach-churning journey worth taking.
The superb performances by two Oscar winning actresses anchor the disturbing 1986 film version of a Pulitzer Prize winning play called "night, Mother that focuses on one my least favorite subject matters for the movies.
This is the story of a woman named Jessie Cates, seen cleaning and organizing the home she shares with her mother, Thelma. Not long after Thelma arrives home, we are shocked when Jessie pulls out a gun to clean it and quietly announces to her mother that she plans to kill herself in a couple of hours.
This movie aroused all kinds of jumbled emotions in me because of my personal feels regarding suicide. There is no rationalizing the act of suicide in my opinion and I don't think it solves anything. I believe suicide is an act of cowardice. I also believe that committing suicide is agonizing for everyone who loves the victim because they will always feel guilty and feel they could have done something to stop it.
With that said, it took almost the entire running time for me to break down what Jessie was doing and why. First of all, I had to understand why Jessie was doing this and that does come to light relatively early in the running time and, for this viewer, suicide was not the only answer for this woman, but she did and if she didn't want to be talked out of it, why come home and announce to her mother that she's going to do this in a couple of hours and offering her a million final instructions. There is no justification of the burden she puts on her mother here and I just couldn't get behind it. I did enjoy the glimmers of hope provided through Jessie's request for her mom to make her cocoa and a baked apple and agree to her mom's request for a manicure.
This was right up there with some of my most uncomfortable evenings at the movie but the Oscar-worthy performances by Sissy Spacek as Jessie and the late Anne Bancroft as Thelma, taking over the roles that were originated in 1983 by Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak, respectively, made this truly stomach-churning journey worth taking.