LITTLE VOICE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films Director: Mark Herman Writer: Mark Herman, play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" by Jim Cartwright Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Jane Horrocks, Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Ewan McGregor, Annette Badland, Philip Jackson
Here is yet another example of a play which has not been successfully transported to the screen. In this case, though, the drama itself--which unaccountably had a run on Broadway--is so minor that one questions why the adaptation was attmepted at all. It features a shy, agoraphobic young woman who rarely leaves her neat but downscale home in a small English town, who has a fine voice but can do little more than imitate some of the greats she listens to from her record collection. Brenda Blethyn, who is cast as the girl's mother and who turned in an Oscar-nomination performance in the multi-textured, award-winning film "Secrets and Lies," is a motormouth whose personality this time is so irritating that it's a wonder that half the audience does not walk out in disgust and embarrassment. It's even more amazing that Mark Herman, who directs the insignificant fiasco, expects anyone to believe that even a failed talent agent is willing to be seen in his pimpmobile, much less to apply his lips to hers. While Laura, the Little Voice of the title (so named because when she is not singing you can scarcely hear a sound from her mouth), is not unattractive, we wonder why a telephone repairman named Bill has romantic feelings toward her--unless this pigeon-fancier imagines himself to be a Mother Theresa getting his kicks from nursing a sick bird like the eponymous L.V.
The chief disaster of the movie is Mari Hoff (Brenda Blethyn), a widow who looks like hell and who has a mouth that should repel anyone with a pulse and two legs to get himself out of her way. While she cares only about booze and bonking, her daughter Laura (Jane Horrocks, of TV fame), spends all her time in the attic listening to her late father's record favorites--the songs of Billie Holiday, Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland). When a night club owner known as Boo (Jim Broadbent) hears her sing, he agrees to sign her into his two-bit club, while Little Voice's new agent, Ray Say (Michael Caine) sees her as the discovery that will re-launch his failed career.
The movie features one scene designed as a show- stopper. Laura, seeing her father's ghost in the audience of the night club, belts out valid imitations of the great singers who were her dad's favorites, only to fade away in a succeeding act like a Virgil Adamson losing his regained sight or Algernon's adult friend Charly's losing his gray matter. While some critics have interpreted Michael Caine's role as that of a man who is exploiting the young chanteuse, he is guilty only of bringing the wallflower out into the open as though she were one of telephone repairman Bill's birds flying out for exercise. James Berardinelli, a noted internet critic, concluded his review by saying that the movie offers "opportunities to laugh, cry and cheer." Yes, it's a movie to laugh at, to cry that you're not elsewhere, and to cheer the conclusion which comes at a mercifully reasonable time.
Rated R. Running Time: 99 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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