SHE'S SO LOVELY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
"Hey Daddy, what are you doing?" inquires Joey's nine year old step-daughter, Jeanie. "Shut and drink your beer!" retorts Joey. John Travolta plays heavily against type as Joey, the wealthy construction company owner who cusses a blue streak and sees no problem suggesting a beer to his daughter as an appropriate afternoon beverage.
SHE'S SO LOVELY, from a old script by John Cassavetes and directed by his son Nick, operates in a sea of booze and a cloud of smoke surrounded by the constant threat of violence. The star of the film is a highly likable but completely crazy Sean Penn as Eddie, Jeanie's father. Eddie, a cheap hood with a gun, likes nothing better than showing up without money and talking his way into clubs and closed restaurants. With the smile of a small puppy, he has a host of friends, but there is that temper and that lack of sanity that gets him into more trouble than he can handle.
As the show opens, his pregnant wife Maureen, played by his real wife, Robin Wright Penn, is searching for her AWOL husband. She stumbles intoxicated out of her fleabag apartment to call on the pay phone in the hall. When nobody knows Eddie's whereabouts, Maureen decides to go drinking instead with her scumbag neighbor, who ends up beating and raping her. Although the rape happens off camera and the scene cuts away quickly, it is one of several parts of the film that can be hard to take.
Eddie begins to lose it, beating up people, shooting them, and jumping through plate glass windows. "We were made for each other," concludes a cut-up Eddie to his battered wife. "We're both banged up." And they are both low-class alcoholics who do seem well matched.
Soon he begins to lose it with her, and his mind begins to deteriorate. "Can you type 100 words a minute?" he screams at her in one of his many bizarre streams of dialog. "Can you sew? Can you dance? What can you do?" The answer, of course, is that she can share bottles with him, but she just takes his diatribes without response.
Nick Cassavetes, whose UNHOOK THE STARS earlier this year was beautiful and uplifting, at least knows how to stage scenes well in this disquieting film. When Eddie totally flips out, he sits bleeding at a bus stop with his pants down and his gun beside him. As the cops surround him, Maureen runs up to him from out of nowhere, wearing big, fluffy house shoes. The scene seems about as unbelievable as the rest of the film, but visually it certainly shocks the audience into paying attention.
In the second half, the story skips forward ten years. Maureen, now Joey's wife, has been transformed to look well off, but she talks and acts with the jumpy anxiety and crudeness of her earlier life. Although the people in the film drink and smoke constantly, Maureen gives the impression that she mainlines caffeine as well. (In a bit of irony, Joey brags to Eddie about how great his own relationship is with Maureen. "We quit smoking together" he says while he puffs away.)
The show has such excellent actors as Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazar, Sally Kellerman, James Gandolfini, and Gena Rowlands in the minor roles. Although all the actors accomplish what they set out to do, only Sean Penn gives an exceptional performance. Still, you have to ask yourself if these are people you want to spend a couple of hours with.
"I'm really depressed," Eddie confides to Maureen when he is released from the institution where he has spent the show's missing ten years. You may feel the same way when the ending credits release you from your time with these unhappy alcoholics.
SHE'S SO LOVELY runs 1:52. It is rated R for violence, alcohol abuse and profanity. The show would be acceptable only for the most mature teenagers. I admired the performances but did not like the film enough to recommend it. I give it **.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: August 27, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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