Hush (1998)
Director: Jonathan Darby Cast: Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnathon Schaech, Debi Mazar, Alice Baring, Hal Holbrook Screenplay: Michael Cristofer, Jonathan Darby Producers: Douglas Wick Runtime: 95 US Distribution: Sony Pictures/TriStar Rated PG-13: violence, language, sex
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
When I watch films like Hush, I wonder what kind of pitch the film makers made to the producers to make the project look appealing. I think about what the intended target audience is, and what the intended genre is, and how much money they expected to make with the film. I think about these things because the film itself does not answer the questions.
It's a film staring a talented actress who appeals to adults (Jessica Lange), a beautiful babe who appeals to younger males (Gwyneth Paltrow), a hot hunk who would probably appeal to most women (Jonathan Schaech), and stuffs them into an overblown, tedious thriller about a crazy Southun' mom on a sunny Connecticut horse ranch. The highest paid lawyers in the country shouldn't have been able to sell this premise, but someone did, and the film was produced.
Of course, lousy test-screenings caused TriStar to change the name from less interesting titles including Bloodline and Kilronan (one of which is generic, the other senseless to those who haven't seen the film). Apparently, the movie has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for over a year, just waiting to be released to suspense-thirsty audiences. And now, thank heavens, it is here!
It's about Helen (Paltrow) and Jackson (Schaech). Jackson takes Helen out of New York for a weekend to meet his mother, Martha (Lange) in Connecticut; she lives on a huge horse-breeding ranch called Kilronan (now you know what that other title means!). As the all-powerful audience, we know immediately that Martha is jealous of Helen, but neither Helen nor Jackson notice this until much, much later in the film. The weekend ends, and they return to their home in New York.
Helen gets pregnant. Jackson asks her to marry him. Someone breaks into the apartment and attacks Helen. Helen gets upset and wants to move to Connecticut so they can fix up the ranch and have a child in the nice, country atmosphere. And Martha slowly goes crazy as she begins to develop delusions about Helen's child being her own. From there, the film is unthinkably absurd (up to that point, it is imaginably absurd).
The movie is just poorly made. The script is disorganized; as I watched, I noted that it felt like a first draft of a practice script. I would not have structured the film in this clumsy, back-and-forth manner (from New York to Kilronan to New York to Kilronan, over and over again). There isn't even any suspense; Martha is clearly insane from the get-go, and we all know what's going to happen just from seeing the preview.
The story itself is not pleasant. Writer/director Jonathan Darby apparently wanted to make a film that observes the complicated bonds between a mother and her son, and what happens when that bond is in jeopardy, but there is no depth in this story. Everything here is for shock value, and what isn't intended to be shocking is boring. The story lends itself to only one kind of conclusion (which we can all guess because this is a mainstream film), and it just doesn't ring true.
Gwyneth Paltrow almost holds the film together with her no-nonsense approach, but one actress typically can't counter an entirely bad script and execution. She plays her part well, but Helen is a flat, often unbelievably mean character, and what concern I manifested for her spawned only from my liking of the actress. Schaech, who I last saw in the loathsome The Doom Generation, is bland an unnoticeable here.
Lange is the strangest part of the film. Her performance is overwrought, but often mildly amusing to watch. The character she plays is so deeply psychotic that I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her violently, screaming, "Why are you so crazy!?" When Martha coolly tells her lies, It seems that she actually believes what she says. As an observer of a character whom I've known for approximately thirty seconds, I would like to think that the characters in the film--who have supposedly know her for years--would be able to read her just a little bit. No, Jackson is not very observant. In fact, he's totally in the dark until the very last scene.
I understand why TriStar procrastinated with the release of Hush. It is a bad film. It has very little to offer anyone, mostly because it's the wrong kind of story from which to make a thriller. Unfortunately, it really doesn't matter when a film this bad gets released, because almost no one will go see it anyway. Thrillers should contain serial killers or deep mental anguish, and they should never, ever take place on a sunny horse ranch in Connecticut.
* out of **** (3/10, D-)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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