... and fly beyond the stars! Stars are a well-known symbol of human aspirations. We all dream about something in our youth, think about what we will do when we grow up and become adults, and then sometimes we do not notice that we have achieved what we dreamed of.
Here is the character of Gina Rhoudends, Mildred: she lived her life no better and no worse than others: her husband died, her son she paid perhaps too much attention - unlike her daughter, one way or another her children grew up and left the parental home ... and even the neighbor's boy, whose parents can be called dysfunctional and whom she took care of, found his family happiness. And then the question arises: “How to live?”
Jake Lloyd, in my opinion, played his best role here—sorry to the Star Wars fans—although perhaps it was because of this role that George Lucas drew his attention to him: he played the breakup scene just wow...(great). I was surprised to learn that he has not made a single film since 2001 - I hope we will hear about it again, that is, we will see!
And also surprised Gerard Depardieu – did not expect to see him in the role of French-American, although he plays, according to his character, Quebec (Canada is a partially French-speaking country). In a checkered shirt and jeans - a real, damn cowboy!
In this film you can see the familiar images of the main characters from the film of the father of Nick Cassavetes, John Cassavetes, Gloria
(by the way, the main role was played by the same Gene Rowlands and the film received the Palme d'Or Cannes - although his remake in the production of Ridley Scott with Sharon Stone) and prototypes from Nick's next film, "She's Beautiful" (the same dysfunctional neighbors).
This is Nick Cassavetes' first film, a debut he made 10 years after the release of his father's last film, John Cassavetes. Nick in his films continued and developed the film achievements of his father, made them more accessible to the mass audience, because despite the fact that the works of his father are fondled with criticism, for the mass audience they are difficult to perceive, require immersion in them.
Already in this first film, you can see what I call (and love in Cassavetes films) "the beauty of the frame." For example, the scene when on a rainy night on Valentine’s Day a drunken husband (David Thornton – he will then play, I think, in all subsequent films of Nick Cassavetes) comes home, swears at his wife under the window of their house, and then confesses his love, and she stands behind the closed front door and listens to him and does not open the door – a similar scene of a drunken date in the rain is in Nick’s next film “She’s Beautiful” – what in ordinary life would be perceived as obscenity, Cassavetis takes a very beautiful form.
It is worth noting that since this film, Nick has laid down the tradition of , which he continued in his next films: he has world-class movie stars on secondary roles. This is Marisa Tomei and Gerard Depardieu. And it's not surprising. Nick is one of those directors who can be called acting, he not only gives the role to the actor, he gives the material for the game. He is especially strong in monologues - in this film it is a monologue of a happy wife who reconciled with her husband (played by Marisa Tomei).
It so happened that I watched Nick’s films in reverse order: starting with Alpha Dog, then My Guardian Angel, Diary of Memory, etc., the last film at the time of writing this review was this one. His subsequent films will be no better or worse - he initially chose his creative guidelines in this film - briefly they can be described as "close human relationships" - and in the future did not depart from them, except that the direction was improved.
The film, it seems, never really came out in our country: it can only be found on the Internet with Russian subtitles of terrible quality (it would be nice if someone did a normal, and even better dubbing - now there are a lot of homegrown film translators on the Internet).
For a great debut:
10 out of 10
Original