|
SPIKED TEA & SYMPATHY For what it is, and admit up front I’m not sure what “it” is, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is well done. Being charitable, out of my admiration for Jack Clayton, who directed Simone Signoret to an Oscar in Room at the Top, who guided Deborah Kerr to a triumph of daring in The Innocents and who chose Anne Bancroft for the baby plopper in The Pumpkin Eater. The first question to be asked: For whom was this downer made? It’s an audience tolerance tester, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say at least eighty percent of viewers will be gone by the first half-hour. Most of the remaining will sneak out before the end. The movie is in trouble as soon as we see Maggie Smith looking like a gaunt Vanessa Redgrave. Sure, she’s sort of defanged her tics, and yes it would be difficult to argue anything is wrong with the performance over all, yet it’s her altogether that’s insufferable. We can’t believe she’s putting herself through this morose “poor me” drivel; this is matinee theatre club stuff for fur-clad hags who, between sips of spiked tea, condescend with false sympathy. The premise of the movie is spinster boozer Judith blames the Catholic Church for her miserable, passionless life. She lives in 1950s Dublin, which partially excuses the more profound lack of intellectual curiosity, but at least she’s onto something fishy. (She’ll likely hit the bottle big time when hearing about supposed celibates preaching morality while they’re molesting the parish kids who hadn’t yet guessed confession wasn’t as beneficial to the soul as it was a gateway to action.) Feeling strong after a dry-out, she’s smug enough to throw her only link to companionship out a car window, recommitting herself to the solitary life she wants to shed. If Bob Hoskins isn’t anyone’s choice as mate, equally depressing is Shirley Jones not being around to deprogram the Church’s mandatory guilt in autoeroticism. Wendy Hiller wears a great high collar at the beginning. Recommended as a cure for insomnia. John Huston had at one time wanted to make a version with Katharine Hepburn.
Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
