DOLORES CLAIBORNE
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1995 Jon A. Webb
Directed by Taylor Hackford Written by Tony Gilroy With: Kathy Bates (title role), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dolores's daughter), David Straithairn (Dolores's husband), Christopher Plummer (investigating detective). 130 minutes
There are two kinds of Stephen King films: (1) adaptations of his novels and stories with supernatural elements, which range from real trash (NIGHT SHIFT, THE MANGLER, etc.) to well-meaning mediocre to good productions (THE DARK HALF, the television productions of IT and THE STAND, THE SHINING, etc.) and (2) the Castle Rock productions of his stories and novels without supernatural elements: STAND BY ME, MISERY, and now DOLORES CLAIBORNE.
The first category is sometimes entertaining, sometimes thrilling, sometimes embarrassing. The second category is consistently as good as mainstream American cinema gets.
Dolores Claiborne is a resident of a small island off the coast of Maine. She's had a tough life--an alcoholic husband who abused her, hard domestic work all the time, nothing much else except her love for her daughter. When I read the novel I found it weak. The central scene in the book with Dolores's head silhouetted against the sky while a solar eclipse reaches totality fell flat for me.
But in the movie this scene sings. We see Kathy Bates's rough face in the left and in the upper right a perfect dark circle and crescent of awesome beauty. Then we shift to the circle of the view from the well, then back again. I was really overwhelmed.
The story has been sharpened considerably from the novel. The novel is centered around Dolores herself and her hard life; the movie is centered around Dolores's relationship with her daughter Selena. Not only is the story better cinematically, it's stronger in any case.
But even a much weaker script would have been saved by this exceptional cast. You have Kathy Bates, who of course won an Academy Award for her work in MISERY; the highly talented and versatile Jennifer Jason Leigh; David Straithairn; and Christopher Plummer.
Bates, at least, and maybe Leigh as well, deserves another Oscar nomination for her performance. Their two faces fill the screen; the constrast between Bates's plump roughness and Leigh's gaunt youth is rich and full of meaning in itself. The absorbing puzzle they find themselves in, with Bates remembering everything but hiding it under her crustiness, and Leigh remembering nothing--barely remembering her mother, even--drives the movie and makes that transcendent moment as the eclipse reaches totality stunning. Leigh's spirited turn in the courtroom recalls other famous Hollywood defenses.
The cinemaphotography appropriately shows the modern scenes gray and drained of life, as they have by events, and earlier scenes full of garish color. The last scene keeps this drained effect, marking the way these two women cannot really recover their youth and innocence.
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