MARVIN'S ROOM
A film review by Walter Frith
Copyright 1997 Walter Frith
There are few movies from 1996 with a more realistic look at everyday life than 'Marvin's Room.' Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton play sisters who haven't seen each other for twenty years. Meryl Streep is a frumpy and belligerent woman with a large chip on her shoulder whose course personality has had a devistating effect on her seventeen year old son (Leonardo DiCaprio) who has burned down their home and is sent to a mental institution. She has another young son in tow and her Ohio lifestyle and potential career in cosmetology is disrupted by a call from her sister (Keaton), a woman of family dedication and sunshine personality who has just been diagnosed with leukemia and needs here sister and two nephews to come down to her Florida home and test as potential bone marrow matches. All the while Keaton is nursing her weak minded old aunt (Gwen Verdon) and her bed ridden father (Hume Cronyn). Everything goes fine in the process of breaking the ice after a relationship gap of twenty years between the sisters but hidden feelings begins to surface and the family is brought to terms of recognizing and confronting each other's faults and frailties. This movie is a stimulating and relentlessly emotional odyssey with touching and heartfelt performances from a professional cast of actors resembling the visuals of a stage play. The movie has no pretentious Hollywood trappings and director Jerry Zaks earns high marks for his interpretation of presetning a simple fact in life which is "you can't choose your family." 'Marvin's Room' is headed for that treasure chest of celluloid to become a burined treasure. When Robert DeNiro is asked to do a meaningless bit part as Keaton's doctor and makes it memorable then you know this has got to be a gem.
OUT OF 5> * * * 1/2
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