LIVING OUT LOUD
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. New Line Cinema Director: Richard LaGravenese Writer: Richard LaGravenese Cast: Holly Hunter, Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah
"I don't want to be alone," says Vanessa Williams to Chayanne is the less-than-realized movie "Dance With Me." What she is really afraid of is not aloneness but loneliness, a horse of a different color and an emotional state so frightful to so many people that high-school kids consistently say in polls that it is the condition they fear the most. With so many people in America now living alone, particular in urban apartments, it's no wonder that psychotherapists make a good buck in this country. "Living Out Loud" is about two lonely people who get together for a while, talk about their disaffection with life, provide comfort, effect great changes in each, and then, inevitably, fall out because one cannot give the other as much as he wants and is willing to give to the relationship. As a theme, it's not a wildly original one, but in the hands of first-time director Richard LaGravenese ("The Bridges of Madison County") it provides surprises, particularly when the two people offering consolation to each other are so mismatched in class, looks, and height. "Living Out Loud" features two actors known for their comic roles, Danny De Vito and Holly Hunter, and highlights an even greater happy surprise--that of Queen Latifah, heretofore known as a first- class rap singer, in the role of a sensual chanteuse who can rivet her sophisticated audience of supper-club denizens.
Holly Hunter is known to avid filmgoers for her stunning role in "The Piano" five years ago as a severe Nineteenth Century woman repressed in everything except silent pride. With her current movie, though, she's back in a more typical role as a fireball of energy, one who is given over to talk, talk, talk as she was in her successes in a stage role in Beth Henley's "Miss Firecracker" and an Emmy-winning job in Gregory Hoblit's "Roe vs. Wade." Now, as a woman who is living the good life on Manhattan's Upper East Side courtesy of a marriage to a successful cardiologist, she is faced with a forlorn but not withdrawn existence as a newly-divorced woman who has not lost her taste for living it up, or, as the title goes, living out loud. When Judith (Hunter) throws out her philandering doctor husband, Bob Nelson (Martin Donovan), she continues to go to fancy restaurants and night clubs, but alone and feeling none too enviable. At a club one night she meets a striking singer, Liz (Queen Latifah), who at first ignores her but after getting to know her introduces her to an unusual and packed-to-the-rafters disco in Manhattan's meat district. Meanwhile she has established some communication with her building's elevator operator, Pat (Danny De Vito), likewise divorced, whose daughter had recently died of cancer, who owes money to the mob, and whose ambitions lie in establishing a food importation business. The two are in many ways mismatched, but because of their common dilemma they console each other. While Pat is down-to-earth, Judith is given to leaps of imagination--literally, when she pictures herself jumping from her 17th story window and landing on her ex-husband and his new wife, killing all three. She has a quick, vivid fantasy of kissing a mysterious man in a bar (Elias Koteas) and a real- life experience with a strikingly handsome masseur-- photographed with erotic exquisiteness by cinematographer John Bailey.
La Gravenese's filming path takes the movie in two directions: one relatively static, featuring characters sitting over glasses of wine or cups of coffee commiserating about their common misfortune; the other active and moving, as when Judith pictures herself cavorting Fosse-style in a lesbian night club with some gorgeous models, showing that disco is anything but dead. LaGravenese is most effective, however, as a writer, as the film has drily comic, productive dialogue that keeps us wondering whether Pat and Judith can surmount their differences to unite on a more permanent basis. It is targeted to a forty-something or fifty-something audience as opposed to the recent string of date movies which highlight romances between lively but immature men and women whose marriages would probably not outlast the usual one-year honeymoon period. Looking at a poster of De Vito and Hunter sitting together in an elegant East Side restaurant, you'll wonder how these two mismatched folks can talk about anything romantic except their previous companions. But as you get to know them--and they get familiar with each other--you'll root for them while knowing at the same time that a durable bond between them is just not going to happen. "Living Out Loud," with its quiry characters and poignant situations, is one of this year's best examples of adult romantic comedy: a solid choice.
Rated R. Running Time: 93 minutes. (C) 1998 Harvey Karten
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