Those on whom every country rests I can’t believe that such a movie could be made in America in the early 90s. I guess it's all right, though. Tired of the “triumphs” of Reagan’s “decades of success” – the success of fat cats pulling the rest of society behind them, gave rise to this very “rest of society” a craving to look not at the exhausting apologies of success at any cost over the years, Hollywood smiles, defiling expensive toilets along the red carpets in exquisite hairstyles next to the abryolined partitions and ties for three thousand dollars, but at ordinary people on whom the country stands.
Probably, Americans do not succeed in social films because of excessive pathosity, if we talk about those that are casually remembered at the words “social film” of the 70-90s. If J. Schumacher’s “I’ve had enough” with Michael Douglas is primarily an action-packed action, and his social load appears at best closer to the end of the picture, then “Time to Kill” is social from the first frame and gushes with pathos. Sam Peckinpah’s “convoy” is also primarily a fighter with chases, you can’t write anything – a social movie like Peckinpah’s horse, and he regularly climbed there, but it is always clear that the sadistic notes of naturalism are more attractive to him and it is the aesthetic of violence that has become the highlight of his creations, and not the analysis of society’s problems. In Kramer vs. Kramer by R. Benton, everything social is obscured by the play of two megastars Meryl Streep and Datsin Hoffman, and the whole social scene confidently falls into melodrama.
“Both in sorrow and in joy” by J. Hiller is a rare case when social pathos is unobtrusive, subtle, weighed, and paradoxically, that is why it immediately comes forward. Yes, there is melodrama, and comedy - and rightly so, because you need to attract an audience of different caliber and taste. But the fact that the film is not for ah-sighs or rusty, the viewer is not allowed to forget throughout the picture.
Incomprehensible and inexplicable at first glance brotherhood - or rather sisterhood, which connects three women of different ages - spoiled by male attention and almost all the benefits of life beauty in the juice itself; young indecisive indecisive indecision, making the first steps in family life and, finally, the mother of the family, who passed the crucible of an uneasy marriage. It forces them to climb together in the dumpsters, saving money for the furnishing of a younger friend who was in a bind with a young and inexperienced Yuppi husband who only yesterday succeeded; then to abandon all business and gather for gatherings in order to prepare a morning for children, despite the fact that their children only have one Iris; then to save, then to persuade, then to shame, in short, to weave a canvas of small, imperceptible at first glance details, of which the basis of life consists, which only sometimes they illuminate and become memorable from such events.
The backbone of this paradoxical commonwealth, of course, is Iris. The heroine of Stockard Channing is from Nekrasov women, who, as it turns out, are in American villages. A real hostess, a mother, sometimes noisy and peremptory in conclusions, but patient and wise. It is her unobtrusive life experience, which she sincerely shares with friends, makes them think seriously, and then change their lives.
The hero of Beau Bridges, the lazy and good-natured John. It seems that in life he is only interested in beer and television, but at the very moment when we are ready to classify him as a typical sofa plankton, we see him in a scene at a school lesson son invited to talk about the 60s. Where did his indifference and equanimity go, his sluggish goodness! We are astonished to see the transformation of the couch regular into what he once was in those 60s and who, it turns out, remained in the depths of his soul – a champion of justice; a fiery orator who spoke at rallies branding the power waging an unjust war; ready to empathize with its victims separated from him by thousands of miles; unafraid of police batons, water cannons and bars. Seven years later, Beau Bridges' brother, Jeff, will play a similar, burnt-out hippie of the 60s in the Coen Brothers cult film The Big Lebowski. Although this tragicomic character is “sharpened” to cause laughter – this is pure comedy – but echoes of the glorious past can be seen if you wish in some strokes of the legendary Dude’s personality.
Claire, the heroine of Sybil Shepherd, at first glance, the most unsympathetic internally, although the most attractive externally, character of the film. At first glance - a typical stepmother, snatched, or rather, picked up a divorced knave and not getting along with his daughter, who has a temper, too, be healthy. But the further, the clearer it becomes that for all the contradictory personality of Claire, she still loves this loser and is ready to go to great lengths for him, and the main thing is to try to understand and even love the seemingly completely unbearable burly stepdaughter, very well played by Donna Vivino. But for her chosen one, who at first seems one of her many easy victories, and then turned out to be the only one for which she should change herself - for him the main thing is just a daughter, that impossible Lucy. And that rare sacrifice, that fervor of fatherly love, which shows the hero of Ron Silver, makes him respect, and empathize with him perhaps more than anyone in the picture. And to be happy for him in the final.
Finally, Nina (Mary Stewart Mastersen) and Chuck Bishop (Robert Sean Leonard) are the youngest, most impulsive and inexperienced. They've been together recently and it's hard for them. It is on them that the filmmakers openly demonstrate their political preferences. J. Hiller is clearly not a Reagan and company voter. As well as the characters of the film, except perhaps the youngest and arrogant Chuck, it is most convenient to hang noodles about the fact that “the President pursues a confident foreign policy” and so on. It is no coincidence that this voter of a white-toothed film actor with patriotic convictions is shown as not just a simpleton, but also a simpleton self-confident and pretentious, while his naivety almost turns into the ruin of his life for him. And this generalization is much broader than a single hero – this is a typical young redneck voter for the authors, since the left-wing lawyer Saul Chamberlain (D. Franks) at the first meeting with an experienced eye calculates that he voted for Reagan. And Nina, a simple teacher who loves him not because he succeeds, but simply because he is who he is, where he caresses and where he drags him, lets him know that being happy in life is not just about jumping to the top of triumph and “being successful,” as the advertising industry, blessed by the president he voted for, hammers into. This means having a reliable life partner who will not abandon and will not betray - both in sorrow and in joy.
9 out of 10