SHY PEOPLE
A film review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper
As you watch SHY PEOPLE, you're sure you know what it's about. Don't be so sure. At the end, it makes a right turn in another direction entirely. This is not bad, just unexpected.
Jill Clayburgh is a writer for COSMOPOLITAN who decides to visit her distant relatives in Louisiana as research for a series on family roots that she is doing. She drags her teen-age daughter along to get her away from the daughter's 45-year-old boyfriend and they head off into the swamp. There she finds her cousin, played by Barbara Hersey. Hersey rules her family with an iron hand, and a somewhat odd family it is. One son has left the swamp and is treated as dead by Hersey, one son is kept locked in the shed, one son is "missing a button," and one son is trying to trap enough crayfish to keep the family fed. Clayburgh and her daughter have difficulty understanding the life their cousins lead; for their part, Hersey and her sons look askance at Clayburgh and city people in general. (They keep saying Hersey comes from Baltimore, even though she repeatedly tells them she is from New York, probably to soften the blow of having "Yankee" city relatives.)
Some of the subplots seem unnecessary, but they all fit together in the end. Only Hersey's character is fully developed. Clayburgh doesn't seem to know how to play her character and remains unconvincing (or perhaps vague is a better term) through most of the film. Hersey's sons and Clayburgh's daughter seem more like types than characters, but the wonderful acting job by Hersey manages to overcome these flaws and make this a film worth watching.
Evelyn C. Leeper
201-957-2070
att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com
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