GRACE OF MY HEART
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
(Gramercy) Starring: Illeana Douglas, John Turturro, Matt Dillon, Eric Stoltz, Bruce Davison, Patsy Kensit, Jennifer Leigh Warren. Screenplay: Allison Anders. Producers: Ruth Charny, Daniel Hassid. Director: Allison Anders. Running Time: 115 minutes. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes, sexual situations, drug use) Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I have this idea that what happened to GRACE OF MY HEART -- a good movie which flirts with being a great one -- is that Allison Anders wrote herself into a corner. She created a story based in part on a pattern of behavior, resulting in a structure which becomes repetitious; she has also made a period piece filled with thinly disguised counterparts for music industry figures of the 50s and 60s, resulting in a guessing game which becomes distracting. GRACE OF MY HEART has a superb character study at its core, made even more appealing by the top-notch work of Illeana Douglas, and that makes it a disappointment that Allison Anders has surrounded that character with so many elements which draw attention away from her.
GRACE OF MY HEART opens in 1958, where Edna Buxton (Douglas), a well-heeled young woman from Philadelphia, dreams of being a singer and songwriter. She thinks that she is headed for the big time after winning a talent contest, but she finds the going tough in New York until she is offered an opportunity by producer Joel Milner (John Turturro) to write singles for other artists. Though she wants to sing her own material, she agrees to Joel's terms as a way into the industry, and even to his suggestion that she change her name to Denise Waverly. The newly christened Denise begins to churn out the hits in the legendary Brill Building, and soon gets involved with another one of Joel's writers, Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz). The relationship is as uneven as her professional success, however, and Denise finds herself on a decade long journey of discovery culminating in a marriage to surf music legend Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon).
On one level, GRACE OF MY HEART operates simply as a travelogue through an era in American popular music, and there are some extremely entertaining moments integrated into that travelogue. Denise clearly is modeled after Carol King, and it is interesting to note that her inability to break in initially as a singer was based largely on the prevailing notion that female vocalists were "out." There is also a hilarious bit involving Bridget Fonda as a Lesley Gore-type singer whose unconventional lifestyle inspires Denise and her partner Cheryl (Patsy Kensit) to write her a song about a "secret love;" the songs -- originals by Los Lobos, David Baerwald and Elvis Costello, among others -- are generally true to the period, making for a rich background of sound. Yet there are moments when the setting and the inspired-by characters feel forced. Anders draws too much attention to supporting players by asking you to chuckle at what she is able to suggest about Gore, Phil Spector and others without actually saying so, and it becomes a tail which wags the dog.
That is particularly true where Matt Dillon's character is concerned, a disturbed genius a la Beach Boy Brian Wilson. Dillon's performance is too sleepy to be involving even as Jay becomes more and more paranoid and depressed, and we are left to watch him play the way Wilson might have been without understanding why we should care. It is a long, patience-testing episode, and it is particularly frustrating coming at the tail end of a string of relationship episodes in which Denise falls hard for a guy who turns out to be more trouble than he is worth.
Still, I was generally willing to indulge Anders, because I could see where it all was leading. She introduces Edna as a child of an extremely traditional upbringing, with a mother (Christina Pickles) who is more concerned that her daughter look and sound respectable at the talent contest than that she express herself. GRACE OF MY HEART is a film about the struggle for a woman to find her own voice after being conditioned to believe that it is more important for her to subsume her own desires and talent to the desires of the men in her life. It is sometimes aggravating to watch Edna/Denise make the same mistake over and over, but that is exactly the problem she is forced to come to terms with and it pays off in impassioned moments when she finally does let her own feelings soar (notably in her songs, with vocal provided by Kristen Vigard). Illeana Douglas is fantastic as a woman who is both strong and weak, and her unique looks somehow make her even more believable as someone forced to linger in the background longer than her talent warrants. I wanted to stick with her through her story, and it remained worth the effort even after Anders gets sidetracked. GRACE OF MY HEART is a film with built-in flaws, but they can be overlooked for a chance to watch a woman find the grace in her own heart.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 amazing graces: 7.
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