Crazy In Alabama

Apart from the settings and the jim crow laws, I didn’t much recognize my home state in this directorial debut of actor Antonio Banderas, adapted by Mark Childress from his own novel and set in 1965. But the movie eventually won my goodwill by fleshing out a couple of my pet notions: that Marilyn Monroe (whom Melanie Griffith’s lead performance repeatedly alludes to) had a kind of prefeminist will to power before pop culture could ever conceive of such a thing, and that some parallels between the civil rights movement and the feminist struggle are well worth considering. Griffith plays an abused housewife and overworked mother who kills her husband with rat poison shortly before the movie starts and flees to Hollywood to become an actress, while her nephew (Lucas Black) witnesses the murder of a young civil rights activist. This comedy-drama takes a while to arrive at what it has to say, but some of the performances kept me occupied in the meantime. With David Morse, Cathy Moriarty, Meat Loaf, Robert Wagner, Paul Mazursky, and a fancy turn toward the end by Rod Steiger. (JR) Read more

The Story Of Us

Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer try very hard and certainly give a lot to this brittle romantic comedy, directed by Rob Reiner, about a husband and wife who seem to hate each other after 15 years together. But the script by Alan Zweibel and Jessie Nelson and Reiner’s direction of the secondary cast bristle with phoniness. There’s sitcom phoniness, the phoniness of imitating Woody Allen badly (cheap-shot therapist jokes based on attitudes rather than observations), and the phoniness of imitating Two for the Road even more ineptly (from the scattershot chronological structure to the obnoxious American tourists). Ultimately the lead performances lie buried in heaps of bad habits and strident conceits. If you disagree with me and like this, chances are you’ll find it cute. With Reiner, Tim Matheson, and Julie Hagerty, and cameos by Red Buttons and Jayne Meadows, among others. (JR) Read more