Dolores Claiborne

Tags

1990's, Christopher Plummer, David Strathairn, Dolores Claiborne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John C. Reilly, Judy Parfitt, Kathy Bates, Mystery, Stephen King, Taylor Hackford

Film Title

Dolores Claiborne

Director

Taylor Hackford

Cast

• Kathy Bates as Dolores Claiborne
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Selena St. George
• Judy Parfitt as Vera Donovan
• Christopher Plummer as Detective John Mackey
• David Strathairn as Joe St. George
• John C.Reilly as Constable Frank Stamshaw

Based on the novel by Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne is a sombre and compelling mystery headlined by a superb performance by Kathy Bates. Evocatively scored by Danny Elfman and featuring an interesting flashback structure, Taylor Hackford has created a chiller that leaves you guessing till the very end.

On a coastal town in Maine, hard-working and tough-talking housekeeper, Dolores Claiborne is accused of murdering her elderly employer Vera Donovan. The chief detective, John Mackey, heads the investigation into the suspicious death and harbours a desire to imprison the woman as he believes she murdered her abusive husband Joe 20 years ago. Soon after, Dolores’s daughter Selena arrives to support her mother. Selena is a succesful writer struggling with a drink problem and suspicious of the events surrounding both Vera’s death and her father’s. Dolores hasn’t seen her daughter for years and attempts to get through to her, even though her daughter is unsure of her mother’s plea of innocence. Through the use of a flashback structure, subtle incidents in both of the women’s lives are revealed and we begin to understand more about them and their strained relationship with each other. Is Dolores innocent of the crime? Or is she in fact a double murderer? You’ll have to watch the film to find out.

Kathy Bates, starring in her second adaptation of a Stephen King novel after her Oscar-winning role in Misery, fixes the attention and steals the show as the title character. She at first appears to be a stony, bitchy woman, but as the mystery begins to unravel, she is shown to be something quite different. She is a tough woman, wounded by life but not beaten yet and Bates embodies the worn-down but still resilient spirit of the title character effortlessly. It truly is a testament to Bates’s ability that we are never sure if Dolores is well and truly innocent of the crime until the finale. Ably supporting her is Jennifer Jason Leigh as the suspicious and sullen Selena, who is never truly convinced of her mother’s innocence but forced to confront her own painful past in the process. Christopher Plummer savours his role as a resentful but motivated detective who will stop at nothing to make sure Claiborne is imprisoned. David Strathairn, seen in flashback as the abusive husband of Dolores , helps set the secondary conflict in motion because of his menacing presence. Also seen in glowing flashback is the excellent Judy Parfitt, as the overbearing rich woman who becomes an unlikely ally to Dolores before her mysterious death. John C. Reilly also appears in a small role as a sympathetic constable investigating the case.

Visually, Dolores Claiborne creates a chilling atmosphere, shading the Maine town in which Claiborne resides in blue and grey. This is counteracted by luminous flashbacks, bathed in an almost sepia tone, showing the ugliness that lies beneath a happy facade. Danny Elfman’s melancholy score accentuates most of the scenes with a sombre and evocative expression of suspicion and delving into the shocking past of the main character for answers.

Dramatic, enigmatic and enthralling, Dolores Claiborne is a mystery that grabs you from the opening frame and refuses to let go.

Short Cuts

Tags

1990's, Andie MacDowell, Anne Archer, Annie Ross, Bruce Davison, Buck Henry, Chris Penn, Drama, Ensemble Cast, Frances McDormand, Fred Ward, Huey Lewis, Jack Lemmon, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julianne Moore, Lili Taylor, Lily Tomlin, Lori Singer, Los Angeles, Lyle Lovett, Madeleine Stowe, Matthew Modine, Peter Gallagher, Raymond Carver, Robert Altman, Robert Downey Jr, Short Cuts, Tim Robbins, Tom Waits

Film Title

Short Cuts

Director

Robert Altman

Starring :

• Andie MacDowell as Ann Finnigan
• Bruce Davison as Howard Finnigan
• Jack Lemmon as Paul Finnigan
• Julianne Moore as Marian Wyman
• Matthew Modine as Dr. Ralph Wyman
• Anne Archer as Claire Kane
• Fred Ward as Stuart Kane
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lois Kaiser
• Chris Penn as Jerry Kaiser
• Robert Downey, Jr. as Bill Bush
• Madeleine Stowe as Sherri Shepard
• Tim Robbins as Gene Shepard
• Lily Tomlin as Doreen Piggot
• Tom Waits as Earl Piggot
• Frances McDormand as Betty Weathers
• Peter Gallagher as Stormy Weathers
• Annie Ross as Tess Trainer
• Lori Singer as Zoe Trainer
• Lyle Lovett as Andy Bitkower
• Huey Lewis as Vern Miller
• Buck Henry as Gordon Johnson
• Lili Taylor as Honey Piggot Bush

Based on several stories by Raymond Carver, Short Cuts is Robert Altman’s intense, sprawling and minutely observed look into the eventful lives of 22 residents of L.A over a couple of days. Featuring a talented cast( as you may have guessed from the cast list above) that all contribute something to the story, Short Cuts works as an examination on the frailties of human behaviour, how people don’t realise how close we are to each other and how the smallest incident can have big consequences.

Without giving too much away and because I would probably need a lot of pages to write about all the stories, here is the brief outline of some of the stories. Doreen, a waitress struggles with her alcoholic husband Earl. To add to this she accidentally runs over the young son of news anchor Howard Finnigan. The boy’s mother Ann panics while her son slips into a coma, and she is harassed by the local baker Andy, as she has forgotten to pick up the boy’s birthday cake. Zoe, a talented yet depressed cello player lives next door and has a strained relationship with her musical mother, Tess. Gene Shepard, a single-minded policeman is playing away with Betty Weathers. This incurs the wrath of her estranged husband Stormy, who finds an interesting way to claim back what belongs to him in the house. Claire Kane works as a clown, while her husband Stuart goes on a fishing trip with his friends. On the trip, the men discover the corpse of a young woman in the river and debate what to do with it. Marian, an artist and her doctor husband Ralph have the couple over for dinner, venting their marital frustrations after one too many drinks. And the stories just keep on coming, fleshing out an interesting mosaic like microcosm of lives running congruent with each other.

Although the film runs for a long time, you probably won’t notice because of the intricate way the characters enter and leave each other’s lives. Altman, who often worked effectively with ensemble casts, further shows his craftsmanship with engaging us to the strange and unpredictable characters. Although the characters differ from each other, there is one thread that links many of them. The thread is hiding behind a facade; Marian paints to suppress her unhappiness, Zoe plays mournful music on her cello, Claire works as a clown to make money for herself and her husband. The film may not be to everyone’s taste, but one can’t help but marvel at the way Altman connects the many players of the cast and fashions a suburban tale of frustration, mental angst and dissatisfaction.

An intimate character study of a diverse group of people, Short Cuts is excellent and recommended viewing for the art of interconnecting stories and focusing on the effects of our choices in life.