THE EVENING STAR 1996
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1997 Timothy Voon
4 :-( :-( :-( :-( for ruining the original
1 :-) in memory of Debra
Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Bill Paxton, Juliette Lewis, Miranda Richardson, Ben Johnson, Scott Wolf, George Newbern, Marion Ross, MacKenzie Astin, Donald Moffat, China Kantner, Jack Nicholson Director: Robert Harling Screenplay: Robert Harling based on the novel by Larry McMurtry
‘Memories of Endearment' by TMT Voon
The death of a young mother named Emma, Claimed by that deadly ill known as cancer, Leaves three children in the care of their grandmother, The ‘Grand Dame of doing things her own way'.
The sequel to ‘Terms of Endearment' is a bad move in the direction of an awful movie. One should not attempt to make a sequel to a classic tale of dying if it is to be as morbid and unhappy as this. There was enough misery in the first movie, why torture the audience with more sorrow. How does one top a finale like death? More people dying of course. Not just one death this time, but a minimum of two. Let's not toy with cancer again, it's soooo yesterday. Let's use a vague disease that nobody's heard of, or perhaps a handy debilitating illness known as stroke. Sorry chaps (director Harling and author McMurty), no sympathy points will be gained for killing off little old ladies. There's nothing new in this material that can't already be found in a Nursing Home.
Aurora (Shirley Maclaine) hasn't learnt much from the suffocating mistakes she made with her own daughter. She now reeks dominance and disaster on her grandchildren. History repeats itself as the three grandchildren, now adults, rebel in very different ways. Stubborn, strong willed and impulsive. The youngest (Juliette Lewis) follows in her mother's footsteps and becomes involved with the wrong guy (Scott Wolf) despite advice to the contrary. The eldest (George Newbern) who is also the angriest, has a history of juvenile delinquency and is currently caged in a penitentiary. The middle (Mackenzie Astin) who is perhaps the most stable has no ambitions, but carries a job, a de facto and a child.
I don't blame them and I don't back them either. If had a grandmother like Aurora, I would be jumping off a high rise building to escape her clutches, and if I had grandchildren like these ungrateful mutts, I would be bagging them alive. In truth this unhappy family deserve each other's tormented misery.
Aurora's life is in shambles. Numerous failed marriages and affairs, leads this ‘unhappy come sleep with me' sixty year old, to hop into bed with her much younger psychological counsellor (Bill Paxton). Things get more tedious and fantastic when there is vying competition with Emma's best friend (Miranda Richardson), a now wealthy divorcee who tries to outshine and outdo Aurora in every way - including reading bed time stories to the psychological counsellor.
Talk about unprofessional counsellor-patient conduct. Can you imagine, Bill Paxton and Shirley Maclaine in bed ‘doing it' several times over and over - Ewwwwwhl! What was the director thinking - the ‘turn on' of the decade? Throw up.
Comment: Aurora - ‘The Evening Star' - ‘she who shines the longest and burns the brightest', unfortunately doesn't also ‘fizzle out the fastest'.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
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