The Goodbye Girl

Paula (Marsha Mason) is an out of work dancer who has just been dumped by her boyfriend that she and her ten year old daughter, Lucy (Quinn Cummings), have been living with.  He has left, but sublet the apartment to a struggling actor from Chicago, Elliot Garfield (Richard Dreyfuss), without telling Paula.  When Elliot shows up in the rain, claiming legal rights to the apartment, Paula isn’t stupid and Elliot isn’t cruel.  They agree to share the apartment.

Immediately, Paula and Elliot start butting heads.  Paula’s uses her squatter status and daughter to pull her weight on setting the ground rules, but Elliot insists on his own ways with idle threats of legal action.  He makes it clear that he enjoys playing his guitar in the middle of the night, sleeps in the nude and meditates every morning.  The combination is great for laughs and detrimental to Paula’s beauty sleep.

Thankfully, the film doesn’t keep to an odd couple style for long.  When you live with someone, it’s hard not to form a bond.  With Paula desperately trying to get into a dance number and Elliot becoming more and more nervous about his controversial portrayal of Richard III, the two have enough to worry about.  They realize this and become supportive of each other.  It is simply respect and friendship and eventually leads to romance.

Wedged in between all this is young Lucy.  She is surprisingly mature and docile for a ten year old, but perhaps that is just the product of the lifestyle her mother has exposed her to.  Lucy has grown up knowing the theater world, what productions her mother was in and going to shows to support whoever her mother was dating at the time.  In the opening scene, just before Paula finds her breakup letter, she and Lucy talk have a conversation that doesn’t quite sound like mother and daughter, but more like equal aged friends.  The tone reminded me of The Gilmore Girls, only more intelligent and taking moments to breathe.  When the letter is found, Paula is the weak one, who breaks down crying and can hardly speak.  It’s Lucy who reads it aloud.  Immediately, it’s established that Lucy is the tough one of the family, but still only a child.

I’ve been a fan of Richard Dreyfuss since I was about five years old and first saw him get in the shark proof cage, but his performance here might be his best ever.  He brings such a bounding enthusiasm to Elliot in every way.  When he puts his foot down to set some rules, he’s a perfect mixture of cunning, threatening and sarcastic.  In the rehearsals and his big play, his stereotypically gay Richard III is one of those “so bad it’s good” moments that had me rolling.  But his greatest achievement, and what I think won him the Oscar, was his ability to make Elliot a completely lovable, endearing, dare I say it, even adorable person without going overboard and turning the whole performance into lovey-dovey mush.  Even in the moments of grand romantic gestures, he smartly keeps everything down to Earth.  Only he can pull off the surprise dinner on the roof act, complete with a rented white tux and Bogart line, without feeling like a pushover.

While I can hardly stand 90% of the romantic comedy genera, I loved The Goodbye Girl.  The characters are smart and believable, never cardboard or over-the-top.  And the situation does not seem to far fetched.  Just think how many ways this film could have gone wrong: painting a line down the middle of the apartment, ending with a race to the airport.  It’s like someone was reading a Choose Your Own RomCom Adventure book and made all the intelligent and believable choices.  Except for bringing that guitar out into the rain.  I swear, lovey-dovey people have no common sense.

“What is it about you that makes a man with a hundred forty-seven I.Q. feel like a dribbling idiot?”

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Norma Rae

In 1974,  union organizer Eli Zivkovich came to Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, met Crystal Lee Sutton and together they got the local overworked and underpaid textile workers to join the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.  The film Norma Rae tells their story, borrowing some harrowing true events and adding the Hollywood touch.

Right away, we’re shown that the factory is a horrible and monotonous place to work.  Unfortunately, it is the town’s main source of employment that the people cannot do without.  The machines are so loud, they’re causing Norma Rae’s mother to go deaf.  The older and less healthy people must stand for hours, no rest no matter how bad they feel.  They break their backs just to keep the only job around, but the pay is terrible and the whole town seems to have financial struggles.

Though Norma Rae (Sally Field) has many faults, we clearly see that she is too smart to be stuck in chump job like this.  She moves her way up in ranks by complaining to the management about needing longer breaks and a feminine products dispenser in the ladies room.  They know she’s got a big mouth and they want her to shut it.  But her new, higher paid position is to critique and make sure the workers are keeping up to speed, and that doesn’t make her a popular person to be around.  Norma Rae is a single mother with two children, but she doesn’t need a wedge coming between her and a town of workers, including her own parents.

When Reuben (Ron Leibman) comes to town trying to urge the under appreciated factory workers to push for unionizing the factory, he’s not exactly welcome.  In this little Southern Baptist town Union seems to just mean Trouble and they think they don’t need some New York city boy barging in trying to fix their lives.  But Reuben’s concern is sincere and it’s only Norma Rae who listens to him and realizes how much better off the whole town would be with a union.  She and Reuben start leading a fierce campaign to unionize the factory with Norma Rae slowly recruiting more and more people as they realize how much the factory takes advantage of them.

Sally Field won Best Actress for her title role as Norma Rae.  She portrays Norma Rae as a bluntly honest, passionate and hard working woman who sticks out in a town where she could have easily disappeared into the woodwork.  I love how refreshingly honest Norma Rae is with the mistakes in her life, when she runs into her youngest child’s father in front of Reuben, she doesn’t sugar coat or dismiss the story.  Instead, she seems to embrace the moment of shame and it becomes a moment to share and bond.  Later, in the iconic scene where Norma Rae holds up the cardboard sign, Field seems to fully transform her from a little redneck woman to a strong, defiant fighter able to lead he fellow workers.  And when she trying to break away from the men trying to put her in the police car, Field accidentally broke one of the men’s ribs during filming.

The film has a great mix of drama, inspiration and boundary breaking to appeal to a wide audience.  Those who enjoy films with a strong female role will love Norma Rae.  If you’re like my sister and have a love for strong Southern women, this is like Christmas.

“Forget it! I’m stayin’ right where I am. It’s gonna take you and the police department and the fire department and the National Guard to get me outta here!”

Secrets and Lies

On the surface, Secrets and Lies tells the story of a young woman, Hortence (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) seeking out her biological mother, Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn).  As we look deeper into the film, we see how unhappy and alone each member of Cynthia’s family is.  Her crass, foul-mouthed daughter, Roxanne (Clair Rushbrook), works as a sidewalk sweep and always seems miserable.  Cynthia’s house reflects her and Roxanne’s low working class status.  Her brother, Maurice (Timothy Spall), is a photographer and provides well for his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan), but he doesn’t keep in good contact with Cynthia.  It’s only after Hortence and Cynthia start a friendly relationship, (perhaps the most open, honestly positive relationship Cynthia has ever had) that tensions rise and secrets are revealed.

British director Mike Leigh is one of the most anti-Hollywood filmmakers I’ve ever heard of.  He didn’t begin the film with a written script.  He didn’t let Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste meet before filming.  In fact, most of the film’s dialogue is improvised.  It’s so well done that Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste were nominated for acting Oscars.  This amazingly dramatic film gels solidly into an engaging story.  These unorthodox methods is what gives the whole film has an odd and naturally real feel about it.

In many scenes in the film, it feels like we’re eavesdropping.  We hear the conversation, see the characters, yet the topic stays between just the two for a while.  They are in the know, but the fact that the topic has not been blatantly revealed makes us listen more intently and attempt to read between the lines.  The scene where Hortence is initially seeking information about her birth mother kept me searching for clues the most.  I found myself trying to draw conclusions from the posters on the walls and when the topic was finally dropped, I was released from my search, very much relieved.

What we are shown of Maurice’s photography profession is fascinating.  Multiple times, we are shown his clients just before the shot.  A newly engaged couple fights, a little boy picks his nose, business men impatiently check their watches, a bride cries.  Maurice’s job is to capture the moments that look like everything about these people is perfect.  What’s amazing is that his wife Monica is trying to make her life picture perfect in real time.  She shows off their nice house, with new carpets and a new car just trying to keep up appearances, while she and Maurice hide a devastating secret.

While I was captivated and stirred by this film, many viewers may not be.  It’s very quiet film and the most telling moments are not within the conversations, but within the moments of deafening silence.  There’s also the topic of race, I purposely waited until now to tell you that Hortence is black while the rest of Cynthia’s family is white.  I believe Leigh handles that subject perfectly, but I feel that many viewers will want to read too much into it.  If you want to tackle a very dramatic, unorthodox, quiet British film, I completely recommend Secrets and Lies.

“There, I said it, so where’s the bolt of lightning?”