SAFE PASSAGE
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1995 Jon A. Webb
SAFE PASSAGE has Susan Sarandon once more portraying an over-protective mother (as in LORENZO'S OIL and, in effect, THE CLIENT.) This time she has seven boys to worry about, and Sam Shepard as an estranged husband whose eyesight keeps flickering on and off like a worn-out fluorescent light. She has a lot to worry about too, because one of her sons is in the Sinai, one of a group of Marines who have just been bombed while sleeping. The movie setting is the family house, while they all wait for the portentous news.
I thought the movie was well acted and directed, but the screenplay stunk. There are too many incidents in this film that are unmotivated (such as the encounter of the youngest son with Daisy, or the father's blindness), obvious (the role of the Marine son in the family is a cliche) or unexplained (what happened to that sickness the running son came home with; how was the obvious depression of the youngest son early in the film resolved?)
Older actresses like Sarandon have a tough time in Hollywood. Unlike older actors, who achieve greatness and go on to command fortunes for small roles (Brando, DeNiro, Nicholson), they seem to take on bigger roles and get less and less for them (Meryl Streep in THE RIVER WILD is another example.) I think part of the reason (besides Hollywood's obvious chauvinism) is that they don't seem to realize that their best work is behind them. When Nicholson puts on heavy makeup for The Joker or The Wolfman he's doing something people really want to see: an actor with a great history demeaning himself, and having fun with a role. A role where he tries to teach us about what it is like to grow older and give us some compelling insights into the nature of middle age in a more straightforward way, as Sarandon does here, simply would not be as successful, regardless of how well it would be received critically. (Though I must admit I have no idea if people would go to see, say, Streep in a John Waters film.)
Many of the actors here seem wasted; they could have made just as much of a movie with many fewer sons. Robert Sean Leonard, a fine young actor, seems frozen by the constraints of his role. Sam Shepard spends most of his time moping around; he does nothing to suggest his role in this family was anything more than perfunctory. On the other hand, the woman who plys the psychologist girlfriend of Leonard has a striking presence.
The direction, on the other hand, seemed right on. I particularly liked the little touches in the interaction between Sarandon and the other characters, especially including Shepard. Shepard's falling asleep when he did is a cliche, as is the scene where Shepard and Sarandon end up on the floor, but they don't seem so; a feeling of much greater complexity in their relationship comes through than what the screenplay itself conveys.
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