MARVIN'S ROOM
A film review by John Schuurman
Copyright 1997 John Schuurman
Directed by Jerry Zaks Screenplay by Scott Mcpherson, based on his play.
Why is this film called 'MARVIN'S ROOM'? At first glance it doesn't make much sense. Marvin, (Hume Cronyn) just lies there. He is an entirely dependent, way old, completely non-verbal, pathetically incontinent bed-case. He is of no obvious use to himself and is a great burden to others. In short, conventional wisdom says that the guy is a perfect candidate for a brief visit with Jack Kervorkian.
And yet the movie is named after him! Or more specifically his room. This is -- MARVIN'S ROOM. But if Marvin is a nothing as a person, his room is really a big zero. There is nothing unique or specific about it at all. It is just a simple barren room with a hospital bed and the hapless Marvin lying in it. In the stage play by the same title, you don't even see inside the room or get to actually have a look at Marvin. You only hear his moans and see his silhouette through the glass block wall.
So why "Marvin's Room"? Instead of Marvin or his room the action seems to center on his two grown daughters, Bessie (Diane Keaton) and Lee, (Meryl Streep), and their fractured relationship. The two have had little to do with each other for the last twenty years. It seems there was a big disagreement and they went their separate ways. Lee, not wanting to "waste her life," went off to experience various adventures of romance and self-improvement (all of which fail). And Bessie stayed at home tending the ailing Marvin whom she says "has been dying for twenty years -- slowly, so that I won't miss anything."
It seems that everybody has been wasting their life with depressing regularity here.
But now, Lee has come home with her two sons. She has come because Bessie has been diagnosed with Leukemia and there is a possibility that either Lee or one of the boys might be a good match for a bone marrow transplant. So it is understandable if we should conclude that the movie's theme concerns Lee and Bessie and their relationship made fresh through the quest for a donor. But this is MARVIN'S ROOM.
Another issue that captures a lot of our attention is the situation of Lee's eldest son Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio). He has "always been a problem" for Lee and when we first meet him he is in the act of burning her house down. Throughout the movie we watch this troubled lad come to a measure of insight about himself and his mother and so here might be a fruitful center for the movie. But, again, this is MARVIN'S ROOM
What makes it MARVIN'S ROOM? Let me ask it this way: What makes for a life of worth? And what makes for a life that is wasted? Those are the root questions of MARVIN'S ROOM.
In the room lies the pathetic Marvin in a situation that all people dread. We pray, "Please God, take me before I get like that." And, "Lord, I don't think I could cope with someone like that."
What lies in the room gives us the shudders. And then question comes: Is it worth anything? Would it be a waste to invest a life in caring for this?
I delight to tell you that the movie's answer is clear and unequivocal. In Marvin's room, lies the person Marvin -- someone who, though capable of producing only body fluids and guttural noise -- is eminently capable of BEING loved. The issue is not that he is able to love in return. That is specifically rejected as any sort of a motive. No, Bessie says, "I've been so lucky to have been able to love someone so much."
What makes for a life of worth? This film says that Bessie has such a life. She has loved a love that expected nothing and received much. It is enough.
For an early hint at the driving theme of the film, check out the opening credits. While the names role we see medicine bottles, hundreds of them, along with syringes, thermometers, water bottles, and hand wipes all lovingly arranged and bathed in a soft and nostalgic golden light. It is as if the the camera were panning Christmas tree ornaments in the most sentimental of possible treatments. But there is no sentimentalism in this movie, it is rather a combination of brute realism and some of the great folk that enoble the rest of us.
Go see this truly wonderful film about the greatness of those who love sacrificially. It will help you look afresh at who life's real heros are.
for more reviews by John Schuurman see http://www.mcs.com/~wcrc/movies.html
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