A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she is forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment.A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she is forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment.A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she is forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment.
- Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 2 wins & 12 nominations total
- Julie Marsden
- (as C.C.H. Pounder)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDebbie Reynolds reportedly wanted to play the role of Doris Mann, loosely based on herself. However, director Mike Nichols personally requested Shirley MacLaine.
- GoofsWhen Suzanne speaks to the pianist before performing, "You don't know me", there is a visible red tape mark on the ground to instruct her where to stand.
- Quotes
Doris: Will you please tell me what is this awful thing I did to you when you were a child!
Suzanne: Okay, you want to know? Do you?
Doris: I want to know! Tell me!
Suzanne: Okay, FINE! From the time I was 9 years old, you gave me sleeping pills!
Doris: That was over-the-counter medication, and I gave it to you because you couldn't sleep!
Suzanne: Mom! You don't give children sleeping pills when they can't sleep!
Doris: They were not sleeping pills! It was store-bought and it was perfectly SAFE! Now don't blame ME for your drug-taking! I do not blame my mother for my misfortunes or for my drinking!
Suzanne: Well, you don't acknowledge that you drink. How could you possibly blame your mother for something you don't even do? Remember my 17th birthday party when you lifted your skirt up in front of all those people, including that guy, Michael?
Doris: I did not lift my skirt, it TWIRLED UP! You only remember the bad stuff, don't you? What about the big band that I got to play at that party? Do you remember that? No! You only remembered that my skirt accidentally TWIRLED UP!
Suzanne: And you weren't wearing any underwear.
Doris: Well...
- SoundtracksI'm Checkin' Out
Written by Shel Silverstein
Performed by Meryl Streep and Blue Rodeo
Blue Rodeo appears courtesy of Risque Disque, Inc.
WEA Music of Canada, Ltd.
Mike Nichols is as close to a William Wyler as the New Hollywood (post-1967) gives us. His movies are both impeccable and emotionally taut. They feature the very best production values and impressive acting. And they take chances carefully, which isn't actually an oxymoron. Nichols knows he's pushing boundaries, but within the established forms. Even this movie, with its insider look at Hollywood, feels ingenious in a safe way, with echoes of "The Bad and the Beautiful" but with everyone toned down to a perfect realism.
One of the tricks of this movie, which is a little over the top in so many small ways (again, careful restraint all around), is keeping the acting believable. And foremost is Meryl Streep, lovable and sympathetic but not quite admirable or otherworldly the way older generation actresses so often get portrayed. Streep as a drug-troubled actress is a wonder, and right behind, with deliberate hamminess, is the woman playing her mother, Shirley MacLaine. Add Gene Hackman and Richard Dreyfuss in smaller roles, a cameo by Rob Reiner, and a pretty boy role for Dennis Quaid, and you can see there is something cooking here.
So why isn't this a great movie? It has the trimmings of greatness, even beyond the acting. Story by Carrie Fisher, music written by Carly Simon (and performed by the cast). Photography by German import Michael Ballhaus (who by the 1990s was also working for Coppola and Scorcese).
Well, some might say it really is great. Even though it is lightweight, even airy as a farce, and even though it leaves you only slightly glad, or happy, at the end rather than transformed, you could argue that Nichols intended something with this flavor, and achieved it. Could be. But for a simple example, take his second movie, "The Graduate," and notice the same tone, humor and irony laced with important topical and emotional strains. How different the effect there, and maybe for a couple of reasons. One, I think, is the subject matter here is the famously glib, plastic, unsympathetic world of overly rich, tabloid saturated Hollywood itself. Another is the inherent plot. What happens? A woman overcomes her addiction to star in another movie, and she seems to move a little forward in her relationship with her mother. Enough? Maybe not.
But knowing it's not trying to change the world, you might appreciate the illusory nature of the medium, exposed for us in a whole bunch of different ways (moving props, back projection, doubles used for blocking and framing, lights and camera in action, screening rooms and overdubbing, and so on. This is the stuff behind the drama enacted by Streep and MacLaine and the rest. It's worth watching in its own right.
And Nichols and Ballhaus have filmed this to glossy perfection, layering and moving and keeping the long takes going as long as possible (with an apology by Hackman, as a movie director, to Streep, the actress playing the actress, for using such long takes all the time). It's almost as if Nichols is making fun of himself, and the excesses that cause the cast and crew to go a little crazy.
Brilliant and entertaining? Completely. Probing or socially satirical in any way? No, not even into Hollywood, which is safely behind all these layers. Still, a film not to miss.
- secondtake
- Aug 27, 2010
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Recuerdos de Hollywood
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $22,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $39,071,603
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $7,871,856
- Sep 16, 1990
- Gross worldwide
- $39,071,603
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1