JUDY BERLIN
Reviewed by Harvey Karten TSG Films Director: Eric Mendelsohn Writer: Eric Mendelsohn Cast: Barbara Barrie, Bob Dishy, Edie Falco, Carlin Glynn, Aaron Harnick, Bette Henritze, Madeline Kahn, Julie Kavner, Anne Meara, Novella Nelson
During the New York City blackout of the late seventies, some bad things were going down. Stores were looted, car windows were smashed, people were getting mugged. Something good came out of the experience, though. All TV's were kaput in my own apartment building, and people climbed down the stairs, candles in hand, to find out what was going on. Neighbors met neighbors for the first time as we looked through the glass entrance to the building and marveled at the absolute darkness of the adjacent streets, streets rendered even darker than we had known them to be during those rare total solar eclipses of the sun.
The solar eclipse which is the central character of Eric Mendelsohn's small and slight film, "Judy Berlin," serves partly as metaphor for the obscured childhood dreams of the folks of the Long Island community of Babyon and in part as a marvel of nature which brings their repressed feelings to the fore. In this debut feature of Mr. Mendelsohn--which was screened appropriately at a recent Hamptons Festival--some strange and wonderful things happen during that single day. But this picture is no high-budget vehicle for a Paul Thomas Anderson, whose "Magnolia" similarly, in a period of a few hours, brings together estranged people freighted with feelings of guilt but adds a dramatic payoff of Divine will: thousands of frogs rain down on one area of the San Fernando Valley. Instead, Mendelsohn's feature film is a story of epiphanies realized by a small group of these ordinary Long Island who are hit by a recognition of their long-contained feelings.
At the center is the mother of the title figure, Sue Berlin (Barbara Barrie), a buttoned-down, divorced elementary school teacher who relates well to her well-behaved pupils and is about to come to grips with her feelings for her boss, Arthur Gold (Bob Dishy), a frustrated principal. Sue's daughter, Judy Berlin (Edie Falco), about to leave for Hollywood to try for an acting career, is a bubbly woman of 32, full of misguided optimism about her possibilities, who is brought back to Earth in a chance meeting with Arthur Gold's son depressed and unsuccessful son, David (Aaron Harnick)- -a failed film-maker who is still living at home with his dad and his mother, Alice (Madeline Kahn).
While the most amusing scene in the movie takes place as a small group of tourists watches a dramatized replay of what the town was like in 1857 (with Judy Berlin playing the neatly- costumed farmer), we are concerned principally with two relationships sparked into life: one between Arthur Gold and the divorced Sue Berlin; the other between the nebbishy David and the spirited Judy. While we suspect that both connections will fizzle out like the clouding over of the sun at 12:48 that afternoon, Mendelsohn has afforded us a slice of life, and of equal importance, has affirmed his faith in the beauty of suburbia.
"Judy Berlin" goes against audience expectations in that it is uncritical of life outside metropolitan areas. The picture appears to have been made by a man who was brought up on a quiet, tree-lined street in a relatively small community, who had little desire to go to "the city," and who has a great affection for the suburban way of life. While the picture poses as a modern Chekhovian tale--the silences and pauses more meaningful than the spoken dialogue--Jeffrey Seckendorf's cinematography is hard to take. The entire screen is enveloped in shadows, disastrous especially for a black-and-white movie, giving what is purportedly an optimistic yarn the ambiance of a cynical noir film. While Bob Dishy is super as a man who has been ground down by his yammering wife and who takes comfort in a brief hug with one of his teachers, there is not enough drama to make the story watchable. "Uncle Vanya" this is not. Rather this is the sort of chamber piece that would fit perhaps in a 50-seat off- off-Broadway theater but is lost on the large screen.
Not Yet Rated. Running Time: 96 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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