SAFE PASSAGE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Sam Shepard, Robert Sean Leonard, Nick Stahl, Sean Astin, Marcia Gay Harden, Jason London. Screenplay: Deena Goldstone. Director: Robert Allan Ackerman.
Films like SAFE PASSAGE have been a television staple for years. They're about families in crisis facing pent-up resentments, steely matriarchs and ineffectual (or absent) patriarchs, and lots and *lots* of crying. Every once in a while, one will sneak its way onto the big screen, usually on the cachet of a big-name star or director (a la ORDINARY PEOPLE), and occasionally a great performance (like Kathy Bates in 1993's A HOME OF OUR OWN) can turn tired material into something special. Susan Sarandon is a big name who turns in a great performance in SAFE PASSAGE, but even she can't save this mess. There are simply too many interchangeably troubled characters wandering around shouting at each other.
Sarandon stars as Mag Singer, a middle-aged mother of seven sons separated from her husband Patrick (Sam Shepard). Mag has a premonition that one of her sons is in danger, a premonition that may come true when an explosion destroys a Middle Eastern Marine barracks where son Percival is stationed. As she awaits word on whether or not Percival is among the casualties, Mag is joined by the rest of her family, including oldest son Alfred (Robert Sean Leonard) and his divorced girlfriend (Marcia Gay Harden), son Izzy (Sean Astin) and Patrick, who is experiencing periodic attacks of blindness. The waiting leads to conflict, as Mag and Philip re-hash old differences, and Mag ponders all the mistakes she made raising her sons.
You might begin to realize what is wrong with SAFE PASSAGE if you note that the preceding summary only names three of the seven sons. And except for the remarkably well-adjusted twins, every one of them is working through some sort of neurosis or involved in the storyline in some way. Alfred is too rigid and uptight; Gideon (Jason London) is a track star convinced that beating Percival in a race led to Percival enlisting; youngest son Simon (Nick Stahl, from THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE) is a twitchy kid with Jello-stiffened dreadlocks. There are simply too many characters bouncing around in SAFE PASSAGE, and director Robert Allan Ackerman often seems like one of the reporters who appears at the singer house running after a quote. With writer Deena Goldstone, he has created characters who are little more than sound bites, and none of their problems seem to matter all that much.
With this lack of focus comes the sense that no one making this movie really knew what it was supposed to be about. Is it about Mag's lack of fulfillment which leads to her separation, and her attempt to become a social worker? Is it about her relationships with her sons and her guilt over her failings? Is it about any of the individual sons' resentment over Patrick's insistence on them pushing themselves? It's about all of these things, and it's about none of them. SAFE PASSAGE is filled with little snippets of development which run into infuriating dead ends, but there isn't really a point. Mag seems to be developing a friendship with Alfred's shy girlfriend, one which might establish a kind of parallel to her parenting, but it's only a footnote. Patrick's vision problems seem to exist only to give Sean Astin's Izzy something to worry about, and Simon is confused, but no more confused than I was as I tried to figure out exactly why he even needed to be part of the story. SAFE PASSAGE simply needed about four fewer sons and a real identity for those that were included.
It does have Susan Sarandon, though, and she makes up for a multitude of failings. She has the guts to take Mag just to the edge of being crazy, showing us how easy it is to become crazy raising seven sons and living with an immature husband. She has a couple of wonderful scenes in which her near-obsessive concern for her sons' well-being goes a bit too far, including a very funny flashback in which she carries Percival off the field after he is injured in a youth football game. But as good as she is, she isn't given a handle on who Mag is, at least not one which can carry the film past its scattershot characterizations. A movie like SAFE PASSAGE, in which nothing really happens, depends on the development of strong characters to carry it through. SAFE PASSAGE is simply a collection of Character McNuggets.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 superfluous sons: 4.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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