It is entirely possible that "An Early Frost" may be the greatest telemovie ever aired by the networks. Whoever made the decision to keep it to a one-night affair instead of stretching it longer was a genius. It's 1985 and this is the first time AIDS is discussed, so it's better to grab people once than expect them to keep revisiting the story. Here is a movie so polished and so important, with a cast so impressive that to call them "slumming vets" as they would be in any other movie, is unfair. They are dedicated artists who knew how important it was to give this material the showing it deserved.
"An Early Frost" proves that in the 1980s, what was on American television mattered. HBO would have done it great justice (as they did other pieces like this), but I have trouble imagining a major network nearly 30 years later dedicating an evening to something so new and frightening to the general public. It would be the focus of a "very special episode" of a sitcom, but "An Early Frost" shows the true guts of American television in its prime. This is the same bravery of "Roots," of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman," of "Holocaust, of "North and South," of "Peter the Great," of "The Day After."
But the difference is that "An Early Frost" is small. It's about one family at one period of time. No costumes, no historical sweep, nothing fancy. Why run the risk of losing your message by burying it in glamor? Not this time. Definitely not this time.
You want the ultimate factoid here? "An Early Frost" was higher rated the evening it aired than football!
The film immediately sets itself up as something to which any family can relate. The family has a modest suburban home, mother Gena Rowlands teaches piano lessons and father Ben Gazzara runs a lumber company. They aren't poor, that's for sure. They do congregate in the living room for drinks wearing suits and evening attire, with chirpy Grandma Sylvia Sidney a fun little chatterbox. The big surprise on the night of Gena and Ben's anniversary is a visit by adored son Aiden Quinn.
Dinner is going along at a snappy pace, everyone so relaxed that Gena notes to Aiden if he ever has a girl he wants to bring home, "she's always welcome." Things are so idyllic and "normal," that when Aiden leaves the next day in a taxi (he's a lawyer who has to get back for a case), mom and dad stand in the street waving goodbye. Norman Rockwell couldn't have done it up better.
All is not as it seems. Aiden's partner, D.W. Moffett has trouble waking Aiden up and when he finally does, Aiden is feeling uncharacteristically lousy, though these two have such a lovely life that they discuss vacation plans.
"You didn't tell them, did you?" D.W. asks while Aiden is shaving, meaning coming out to his family. With one line, the idyll crumbles, or at least so it seems if it were any year but 1985. Since it was 1985, there is a slow unravel. Aiden goes to the doctor to discuss not feeling well.
At work, his persistent cough is so bad, he collapses and ends up in the hospital. The diagnosis is AIDS and Aiden is shocked. How could he possibly have AIDS? When Gena calls, not having heard from her son in a while, she decides she must go nurse him because, "he's alone." "I thought you said someone answered the phone," Ben asks, perhaps catching on a bit. "A friend," Gena tosses off, still insisting that what he needs is his mother to get him through pneumonia.
How early in the epidemic are we? Aiden's room is labeled "isolation" and the staff won't bring in his meals, only the doctor, who reminds Aiden that the only way to spread the virus is through sexual contact or blood, neither of which are a factor for Aiden. However, it may have come from D.W., who could be a carrier with no one knowing. Or, it could have been dormant in Aiden's system for years. The doctor informs him he's being released, which is not exactly the best news. How will Aiden continue with life as usual, how will he tell people he has "the gay plague?"
"I wonder how many other people will want to shake my hand when they find out what I've got," he wonders aloud to the doctor in a gaspingly poignant line. "Don't ask too many questions you can't answer," the doctor says wisely, but cautiously.
Playing it extra safe, Aiden makes up a bed in his office in their very large apartment. He's on edge, and it's perplexing to D.W., who reminds him, "I am just as scared as you are." For all of his talk of support and understanding, when he mindlessly goes to take a sip out of a coffee cup Aiden has just used, D.W. decides not to.
D.W.'s rather aloof behavior has a reason. He confesses to Aiden that while the latter was working on a big case, D.W. got his sexual needs fulfilled by going to bars and baths. "You're sorry and I have AIDS!" Aiden demands when D.W. offers a weak apology. The argument turns so that D.W. turns it on Aiden, bitching that he keeps D.W. from their life. The two howl until D.W. shouts about Aiden's family, "when are they going to find out who you are...after you're dead?"
Having tossed D.W. out, Aiden takes his mother's advice and pays a visit, under the guise of recuperating from pneumonia with a mother's love. Aiden tells his clucking parents, "I'm sick...it's not just pneumonia. I have AIDS." Ben catches on quickly, but Gena has to hear Aiden say he's gay before she realizes it.
Gena asks, "would you have ever told us if you didn't get this..." "...disease?" says Aiden, finishing her sentence. "I don't know," is his honest answer. Gena fully admits she doesn't "approve," but follows it up with, "you're my son--I wouldn't let anything in the world separate us." This leads into an argument that proves why "An Early Frost" is so vital. Aiden bangs his hand angrily because he knows his father is furious, but Gena reminds him that as much as he didn't want to be judged by them, he has no right to judge. That's an awfully powerful statement, stepping away from the AIDS-suffer-as-victim scenario and adding an impressive amount of depth.
The conversation between Ben and Aiden is more by-the-book, at least at the start, but changes when Aiden admits, "I'm ashamed. I can't even look anyone in the face anymore because I know what they're thinking. Same thing that you are. That I'm queer, that I deserve to have this because of what I've done." Ben is angry because he accuses Aiden of handling this in a way that's convenient to his own needs. Neither is right, but the script is fair to both. "I never thought the day would come when you would sit in front of me and I would have no idea who you are," Ben retaliates. As a defense mechanism to shield him from having to think of the disease, he's hung up on Aiden having lied about himself for so long.
Aiden might have expected understanding from his sister, who has known he was gay, but when he confesses he has AIDS, her son runs into the room to hug his uncle and she grabs the kid, keeping him from doing so. Self-perception of "I understand" is not the same as reality, this family is finding out at top speed.
When Aiden starts to shake at dinner and decides to go to bed, he bends over to kiss Gena, but Ben forbids it. "That's right Dad, you might catch it just from looking at me," Aiden says in frustration. In their bedroom later, Gena insists that Ben read up on the facts because he is dying and needs care. "He can get it from his own kind," Ben snaps. "We're his own kind," Gena replies. Once again, the vantage point of 30 years on makes it seem like Gena is the comforting fully-understanding mother and Ben is the ignorant firebrand. But, it's not quite so black and white.
In the middle of the night, Aiden is convulsed in a horrifying seizure. Ben is irate when the ambulance drivers refuse to help after finding out Aiden has AIDS. Ben rages, pounds his fist, hits the driver, but it doesn't work, they bolt. Ben grabs Aiden and they take him to the hospital. Gena Rowlands is in ideal form at the hospital, when she very calmly explains to the doctor that her knowledge of AIDS is limited and insists on knowing his chances of survival. A brutally honest doctor admits he's never known an AIDS patient who didn't die. The magnitude of the truth finally hits Gena here, but she doesn't overact or go into histrionics. It's the doctor who does that, railing at her that her son is not the only patient and rather than fight with her, he wants to "save my energy for my patients." He tells her all she can do is support her son and "encourage him to live his life."
"Lie to him," Gena replies.
"Let him have his hope," says the doctor.
Ultimately, they are saying the same thing, just with different vantage points. All bases are covered and no one is judged as right or wrong. That's beautiful and sensitive handling, not to mention honest, though complicated, which is more truthful than expected.
Aiden joins a support group at the hospital where ideally-cast John Glover tries to keep everyone laughing in the face of serious issues like loss of job, straight people infected and such. The main point underneath is that they are all lonely and scared, especially with the announcement that one of the members died the previous day. Aiden is very annoyed by John's flippancy, not yet realizing that it's his way of keeping the discussions from being so gloomy as to be unbearable. Aiden rushes out, rashly deciding, "I don't belong here."
John won't let him off the hook that easily, showing up in Aiden's room joking that "it's the only fraternity I ever rushed that let me in." Aiden is in no mood for gallows humor. Soon enough, Aiden warms up to John, offering him a brownie, to which John replies, "I really shouldn't, I'm watching my weight." It's that bit of sass that endears him to Aiden.
Where does the title of the movie come from? Wise Grandma Sylvia, tending to her roses, hoping that "an early frost doesn't come and nip them in the bud." Yes, it's a bit heavy-handed, but it barely registers when Sylvia, having just learned the news, tells Gena she doesn't want to be kept from the truth, proving her spirit is strong and understanding. Stretching back across the decades to summon up her skills, Sylvia's monologue here is devastating, describing how she expected never to cry over loss again after her husband died because she would be next, everyone else being younger. It's not a long scene, but so effective, the melodrama kept to the soundtrack and not her performance.
Let's not forget that on top of the disease, the family is still shell-shocked about Aiden being gay. Gena tries to understand, but can't comprehend why they are not together at such a crucial time. It's not the time for Aiden to explain why. He doesn't have a chance anyway, because John comes barging in. "Does that man have..." Gena asks, seeing the disease at its worst. When Gena relates John's saga to Ben, the latter walks from room to room trying to get away from her, but Gena declares strongly that the loneliness and lack of support "is not going to happen to our son!"
As John gets sicker and sicker, Aiden bonds with him helping him draw up a will and realizing how much worse it would all be if he had no one. Fine, people are changing their minds a bit too fast and conveniently, but again, the decision to keep this to a single night more than justifies it.
When Aiden is sent home, it's Ben who picks him up, but not all is copacetic. At home, D.W. is waiting for him. Gena has invited him to stay, though D.W. has offered to go to a hotel, and Ben wants to know who the hell he is. D.W. is carrying around an awful lot of guilt, for which Aiden forgives him, but Aiden still will not return home. "I can't put you through that," Aiden tells him, referring to how hard it will be as he gets sicker.
Cantankerous Ben gets splayed at dinner by this mother-in-law, though with a light touch. It doesn't help, Ben is resolute. Aiden backs away when Sylvia goes to kiss him goodbye. "It's a disease, not a disgrace," she insists. She compares it to the cancer that killed her husband, but this is a moment that doesn't quite ring true. Yes, it's Sylvia's way of comprehending what is going on, but the bit about people being afraid to catch cancer from her husband is unconvincing.
With D.W. in the house, Ben is more taciturn than usual. D.W. explains that it's always been a source of contention that Aiden never told his family about him, but Ben claims to be happier never knowing. Ben delivers the harshest line of the entire movie, when he growls, "why couldn't it have been you?" That's one of those times you have to stop and catch your breath! D.W. says he wishes it had been him because, "I don't know how I'm going to live without him." "He not going to die. Those doctor don't know what they are talking about," Ben counters and then launches into a story about how Aiden overcame a broken leg to get back into sports. Ben says it was his pushing that got Aiden well. "He's not going to make it without you this time either," D.W. tells him honestly.
The climax comes when Aiden tries to kill himself in the garage. Luckily, Ben wakes up early to exercise and sees the smoke coming from the garage, rushing in to save his son. "What kind of a stupid stunt was that?" an irate Ben demands to know. Their ensuing conversation is a mine field, but stunning. Aiden says he was hoping Ben would find him dead. "It's what you want, Dad, to find me dead?" he asks. He also wanted to do it so he didn't have to suffer the inevitable ravages of the disease. In a few sentences, Aiden unloads a lifetime of experiences with his father, and Ben's reply is remarkable. "That's right, you call me anything you want, you hit me, as long as you don't give up," before grabbing his son and letting him collapse into his fatherly embrace while whispering "I don't want you to die" over and over.
That leaves only Aiden's sister Sydney, who has not been in the same room as him the whole time because she's pregnant and afraid, despite her shame in feeling the shame. Hours before he's due to return home, they make up and she even hugs him.
When Aiden leaves, it's by taxi, the exact way he left at the very beginning of the movie. The dialogue is also the same, word for word.
Gena: "You should have let us drive you."
Aiden: "You know how I hate saying goodbye at airports."
Early in the movie, one would barely notice that exchange, but the same words in this context are heartbreaking. What he's really saying is that he can't face saying goodbye to his parents at all, as this could easily be the last chance he has to do so. Gena and Ben are in the street watching the taxi disappear, just like before, though this time they are not nonchalantly waving, but instead holding each other up.
There are more than a few decisions made by the creators of "An Early Frost" that are truly remarkable and longsighted. For instance, how Aiden's character got the virus is never explained. It was an answer most patients of the first generation knew. It could have been either a dormant virus or one given to him by a boyfriend who cheated. It would be very easy to pick the latter and give the story a clearcut villain, but "An Early Frost" is not about blame. It's about coping and learning. Okay, so Gena and Sylvia accept the facts a bit too easily, but that was something that actually happened in the early days. We heard stories about families turning their backs on gay sons with AIDS, but it wasn't everyone's story. There were compassionate families who preferred learning about it with an intense crash course of reality rather than turn away from it. By having John Glover play an over-the-top gay man while Aiden has not the least hint of a stereotypical affectation might seem a bit callous, but it's there to combat prejudice about homosexuality, the second most important issue in "An Early Frost." It's campy John who has the best outlook, despite the tragedy of complete loneliness. When choices like these can be explained and understood not as conveniences of the plot, but rather real-life occurrences, there really isn't a complain to be made about "An Early Frost." It's not severe, it's not soft. It's not rosy, it's not tough. It just is.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Hold the Dream (1986)
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.
Hey, it's it's good enough for Gaul and Caesar, it's good enough for Barbara Taylor Bradford.
Emma Harte est omnis divisa in partes tres.
We've seen A Woman of Substance. Now it's time for the second part of the Emma Harte saga. If Bradford is not as flashy as Danielle Steele, as giddily head-scratching as Judith Krantz or as blissfully wild as Jackie Collins, she does have a certain loopy authority and gravitas in her writing and "Hold the Dream" clings to that seriousness as tightly as possible, following the lead set by "A Woman of Substance." That can be construed as taste, but it can also be construed as boring.
I guess "A Woman of Substance" was a big enough hit that by the time "Hold the Dream" was made, slumming vets signed up in droves.
Jenny Seagrove gets a morning call from Granny Deborah Kerr (whose slumming days ended here, since this was her last credit, but she still has her skills fully intact, not that she needs even 10% of them). There's a big deal that would have the company Deborah started buying another one, and Deborah wants to make sure Jenny handles the negotiations properly. Indeed, she's as steely as the old lady, playing such hardball that one of the current owners snaps, "they're all vultures." Jenny's tactics put the kibosh on the takeover, but when she reports this to Deborah, it seems Deborah had set this all up, shrewd-though-poorly-dressed matron that she is.
We are introduced to a few more of Deborah's grandchildren and relatives to get the plot started, but at the onset, they are all interchangeable, except, of course, miniseries expert Stephen Collins, who is secretly in love with Jenny. Also around is Liam Neeson, Deborah's oldest friend, done up here with a frightful white beard and a voice that sounds like he's chewing rocks.
Deborah senses her time running the empire is ending and one by one, people are lining up to either screw her over or share in the spoils. Worst of all the hangers-on is Claire Bloom, Deborah's daughter, who is bitter that Deborah sacrificed motherhood for her career. Deborah tries to mend fences, but Claire is unmoved. Her son is getting divorced because he's in love with one of another of the brood. This is news to Claire, though she does caustically note that, "you always wanted one of the Harte girls to marry a title." Deborah slips into and Olivia de Havilland-style softness of speech, but it doesn't work. Claire is hard and unyielding.
Liam is responsible for getting Deborah to a surprise 80th birthday party, and after some reminiscing and kind words, she accuses him of being as "full of the blarney as ever." Liam's grandson Stephen is there, introduced him to Fiona Fullerton, obviously an American just by the way she dresses. Jenny is upset that her husband isn't there, always putting his newspaper career first. Everyone there has a plan. Dominic Jephcott, one of Deborah's grandsons, is bent on revenge and hooked onto Nicholas Farrell, whose company was supposed to be bought before Jenny ruined the deal (and this Nicholas and his father). Stephen is in love with Jenny, but it's a secret. Claire cozies up to her son Paul Geoffrey and his mistress, obviously trying to debunk whatever Deborah is hoping to get from Paul's divorce. However, when his wife shows up spitting mad, it creates a bit of a scene.
The dancing starts with an idiotic synthesizer or something, and when asked what dance she'll dance, Deborah answers for everyone who has ever hated fad music, "I'm waiting for the waltzes." Deborah then sees Stephen mooning over Jenny and even Fiona notices it. In fact, it's the talk of the dance floor.
There are a cake, candles, a large cake knife and then Liam is requested to speak for all the assembled about Deborah, though it's relatively painless. After all, this movie has crammed more plot into the first half hour than one would think possible, so no one gets more than a few sentences at any one time. Deborah then speaks, drawing on that well of old-style training that netted her half a dozen or so Oscar nominations (no wins, sadly). The big surprise is that Deborah is going to cede the empire to the grandchildren so she and Liam can take a cruise around the world. An in-law is put in charge of the whole shebang, and even he seems shocked. Jenny gets the department stores. "I challenge you to hold my dream," Deborah coos.
Later on, Jenny's husband Nigel Havers is, as he always seems to be, upset. He feels she shouldn't be working, just a wife and mother. Some extremely unseemly and gross kissing ends the conversation, but Jenny refuses to let this discussion fall away to sexual interruption. At the same time, Stephen and Fiona are going at it, but even she can tell he's not thinking of her. Fiona, angry at Stephen, stands up naked and asks, "what makes you keep coming back to me bed all the time, all hot and bothered and raring to go, when the one you really want is" Jenny. Hopefully this is Fiona's final scene, because she's pretty darn awful.
The corn factor zooms off the charts when Deborah shows up at Liam's and he gives her an engagement ring he had bought decades earlier, but didn't use because he thought she was too good for him (if you remember from "A Woman of Substance," she was a maid-turned-zillionaire, and he knows that, so it's a rather silly idea. She wants it. "Are we finally engaged?" she asks. "Let's just say we're engaged to be closest of companions for the rest of our lives." There's an awkward kiss, if only because Deborah is very old and, under the make-up and hair, Liam is soooooo much younger. As we've been waiting for the whole time, Liam clutches his arm and then his chest, the surefire cinematic hint of a heart attack. They have just enough time to admit their love for each other before he expires and she's left to cry her way to award nominations. "I'm the last one," a pale Deborah tells her granddaughters as she looks at all the headstones in the cemetery.
After feeding her twins in a silk shirt that any new mother would know not to wear, Jenny has to go take care of her third child, her husband, who announces glumly he has resigned from the company, because "I've never like administrative work, I'm not good at it." It takes not only a scene in the living room, then in the dining room, two places he can knock back the booze. Jenny is not happy at this turn of events, but once again, Nigel placates her physically, in a joyless strangely neutered sex scene.
As second high-volume scene is next, a typical soap scene where the Paul's jilted ex-wife shows up at the family manse, drunk, and accosts her husband and his new gal, Sara-Jane Varley, yet another member of the family. The wife staggers out to her car (yup, her car) and gives her Medea-like portents of doom. Just so we don't think everyone is fond of high decibel yelling, there's a scene out of nowhere where Deborah ruminates on the dead of her husband decades ago, staring straight ahead and almost in a catatonic whisper. "Yes, we know, darling," her daughter says, though Jenny sees something is very wrong.
It seems Paul's wife had left, in her car, to do exactly what we expected her to do. Cue the police asking questions about the body and car in the pond. Claire calls Jenny in hysterics, and when Claire informs her that Paul is a suspect in what not may be a drowning, Jenny realizes it could be true, and in a perfect Deborah Kerr imitation (though I don't think it's conscious). "There is nothing to do...just stay calm and leave everything to me," Jenny tells her, whipping the family into their tasks and then calling the newspaper to tell them not to print anything about it. Her family owns the newspaper, so the editor finds it an odd request since the news will be everywhere else. Jenny is becoming a steely savvy woman with every passing (boring) scene. She next takes on Sara-Jane, who wants to go be with Paul. Jenny puts the kibosh on that and naturally, Sara-Jane listens.
Not impressed is Nigel, who rushes off to Jenny to scold her for threatening the editor at the newspaper he runs. Jenny reminds him that Deborah owns the paper and has given her Power of Attorney. That's news to her hubby.
In NYC, cousin/son/uncle/brother/ Valentine Pelka visits with Stephen, who is building a grand edifice. Stephen is upset Jenny has to take control, though Valentine says it's because "she's the strong one." Or has the biggest shoulder pads. Naturally, Stephen wants to be with her, but can't.
Jonathan and Nicholas are forever plotting, doing everything but laughing over a cauldron filled with little children to prove how evil they are. Jenny sees them and tells one of the female cousins (if you can keep track of them, good for you, I can't) she thinks she has one of Deborah's "cold feelings," puts her hand on her chin and then we know she's about to enter smarter-than-everyone mode. As if we haven't the last gazillion scenes establishing Jenny as a younger Deborah, when she gets news from Texas that a family oil tanker in trouble, naturally she makes sure that "all the families are taken care of." When Jenny tells Deborah (who is showing her character's slow decline by now adopting a crooked spine and a really bad wig, Deborah is at first sad, but then fiery, demanding to know what is being done about the oil spill.
On the phone with her man in Texas, Jenny pontificates, "there are only four things that are important: the injured men, their families, the wildlife and the good name" of the company. Bravo, heroine, you have hart (or Harte, the company that must have the good name intact). But, we've known that in literally every scene for longer than anyone can remember. When she tells Nigel she has to go to Texas, he kicks up another fuss. He accuses her of becoming her grandmother when fancy psychological terms that aren't real (I tried looking them up). This whopper of a scene finds Nigel admitting he hates Deborah for stuff from the first movie, horrifying Jenny by referred to her new personal as a "cold calculating carbon copy of herself." He almost had perfect alliteration there. Two can play at that game, as she castigates Nigel for marrying her for the "money and power" he knew she would inherit as Deborah's heir.
Naturally, Jenny has to go to New York City, because no one else involved in the oil spill had the smarts to figure out holding a press conference promising no danger would be a good idea. Really, no one.
Enter James Brolin, looking fetching in his beard and tight-fitting suit. He's a banker involved with Stephen's business and now Jenny's. He doesn't know Stephen has the hots for her, so he goes over her assets (as a person), looking to make a move on her, much to Stephen's discomfort. But, this is how Stephen finds out Jenny is in town, sending her a horrid arrangement of violets. Jenny is touched and calls Stephen to make plans. Strangely, when she suggests getting together, he begs off. Ten seconds later, he calls her back (he knows the phone number of where she happens to be) without any aid and decides to say yes to her invitation. He is very standoffish, but Jenny calls him on it and he drops the facade. "It is such a relief to be able to talk to you again," Jenny notes. It's not exactly romantic, but it gives him hope.
Stephen warned Jenny about James, so she is guarded when they meet, but she tramples on him, agreeing only to discuss his offer to buy the oil company they own with Deborah.
Then it's off to Stephen's Connecticut fixer-upper for the weekend. She attends wearing a head band, more shoulder pads than ever and some very fashionable boots. "It has an air of permanence, are you planning to set down roots?" Jenny asks. It takes a local neighbor to inform Jenny that Stephen is in love with her. There she goes with the pensive blank look again, but decides to go with it!
She grabs the wine, a few glasses and stands by the fire so that Stephen knows what she wants. Four hundred violins are helpful too. He walks over to her...
She asks him to sit next to her so she ask Stephen if he's in love with her, since they have been honest with they each other "since we were children." She speaks in a whisper, her way of playing coy, so grab the remote or else you're sunk, though frankly, you know al the words to this conversation already since this scene is in virtually every romance miniseries. They kiss and if Jenny is about as sexy as a plastic chair, Stephen knows how to play this. Mercifully we are spared everything that happens after she unsnaps her bra.
Stephen has a rule, that he never fools around with married women, though he waits until after they have had sex to mention it. They confess their love and mutual desire at the airport before Jenny returns to England. Due to some heavy drinking, Nigel calls Jenny to make dinner plans and then races his sports car to meet her. That leads to our second car accident of the movie, but Nigel survives, barely. Stephen calls, offering to fly to London, knowing full well that Jenny can't exactly leave her husband now, but he understands and agrees to wait.
Time for a trial! We've had every necessary scene to make a miniseries except a trial, so as the second half of the miniseries starts up, Paul is on trial for perhaps having a hand in his wife's death. A maid exonerates Paul, who strides out of the courtroom with his mother, Claire, but not everyone is so convinced justice was perfectly served.
Assuming a "never mix, never worry" type attitude, Nigel is downing bottles of wine and painkillers when Jenny pays a hospital visit. This near-death experience has made him sure the marriage can be saved, but just as Jenny is about to opine differently, the doctor interrupts. The doctor is worried about Nigel's drinking. Frankly, I am too. How does one get wine into a hospital? Come on, that can't be easy! But, the doc tells Jenny that Nigel must stay out of any "stressful" situations and needs a shrink ASAP. That means Jenny can't say anything about the marriage, but that's fine, because Stephen has come to her and all is right in her world. For a few minutes. "We'll be together eventually for the rest of our lives," naive goon Stephen tells Jenny, who knows she can't be with him fully until Nigel is well again.
Accosting Jenny outside her office, David Swift, the father of plotter Nicholas (and Dominic). She prefers to avoid him but he has a convenient attack of...something and gets an invitation to her office, where he gives her some important information and has another of those attacks of...something.
Nigel, scheming on behalf of his long-dead family members, asks Deborah to return him to the position of Managing Director for her company. By using the past as a weapon, he expects Deborah to cave. "I never mix sentiment with business," the matron declares, "but I'm not saying no" and agrees to think about it.
A wedding happens quickly and then it's Christmas, where Deborah and Stephen sing a few lines, but Deborah opts to stay behind while everyone joins the carolers. Then comes what should be a touching scene between twin granite dames, Deborah and Claire. Claire begs for a lifetime of forgiveness and gets it, which we can only assume Deborah ain't gonna be around much longer.
Claire gets sucked into Nigel's plot, without knowing it, and then asks Stephen which of his hotels would be perfect for a "second honeymoon." He then tries to kiss Jenny and she rebuffs him. This leads to yet another argument. "When something's not right, don't be afraid to let it go," Deborah tells a crestfallen Jenny, pushing out every syllable as if one of them will be her last. But, for the second time in ten minutes, she keeps going despite all the clues of imminent demise.
Jenny and Stephen go to the field where they grandparents first fell in love, blah, blah, blah and then they spot Deborah. I'm not sure how she got there, because the only car is the one Jenny and Stephen came in. "Don't stay too long," Jenny warms Deborah, as it's cold out. "No, it's time to go," Deborah says. It this where she croaks? Nope, sorry. Not yet.
Instead, she heads to her department store, where she remembers very little and struggles to get to her office. Clutching a picture of her long-dead husband, she can barely walk or see and falls to the floor, which is where Jenny finds her. Deborah goes into the kind of acting that had died about 40 years earlier as she scoops out every word, telling Jenny "you must hold my dream, but you also have to have your own." That phrase alone takes 12 minutes and whenever one cites the title, it's never a good sign. Deborah's eyes flutter and her head falls back. NOW she's dead. There is still a quarter of the miniseries left, but Deborah's part is done (and, unfortunately, a long and interesting career). A church funeral and some time for the family at the grave are to be expected, as is Jenny, all in black, staring out from the family home as Stephen comes up beside her.
With our vet out of the picture (John Mills doesn't count, since he doesn't get more than a sentence at any given time), we are in the home stretch, but unfortunately, I'm having trouble caring about any of these characters. None of them are any fun and there are just too many of them!
But there is a will reading, by lawyer John Mills (this isn't even slumming, it must be a favor owed to someone) though the contents are no surprise. What is a surprise are five codicils. In the first, she leaves money and a diamond ring from his grandfather to Stephen. Valentine is given money, a house and 35% of a Canadian newspaper. The third codicil gives Nigel only 5%! The other 60% is for Jenny. Lastly, some properties originally promised elsewhere are given to her no-dialogue daughter. That's a problem because Dominic had been counting on selling those properties to prop up the business he has going with Nicholas. He objects, loudly, and is then told he gets to pick two paintings instead. Deborah also prepared for the inevitable squabbling by proving she was of sound mind. The room erupts in childish prattle until Jenny silences the whole family.
Jenny and Papa Paul Daneman figure out that Dominic has a scam going, but they need to prove it, so Paul suggests a real estate sale.
Equally angry, Nigel and Jonathan plot. Nigel wants to sell Dominic his shares, but not in secret. Jonathan insists it be done with the approval of the board.
Ever wonder if love can blossom on a rocking horse? I didn't either, but Stephen and Jenny make out while she's riding one in Liam's old house, where she declares she wants to live with Stephen. Jonathan snakes out of the real estate deal meant to expose his dirty dealings, but Nicholas picks it up, so there is still hope. But, it's not enough to "hang [Dominic] with." Luckily, there is proof to be found, where they can at least "challenge" Dominic.
Nigel wants to "patch up our marriage," with a whole bunch of conditions, but Jenny insists on divorce, even when Nigel threatens to sue for custody of the kids and move to Canada. Papa Paul is a bit more level-headed about the situation, convinced that Nigel will go for "a settlement."
A board meeting is called and Dominic is confronted by the whole family. He tries to weasel out of it, even taking his cousin down with him, but Paul fires him. "I can hire and I can fire. And I'm firing you!" he tells Dominic. Dominic has to be forcibly ejected from the room as he sputters threats. That takes care of a plot that was never interesting, or, at least, at the bottom of the interest pile.
Now we have to deal with Nigel, who will not take money from Papa Paul, but will take the newspapers, the ones he feels were stolen by Deborah from his family. "Once I've got that, I'll start divorce proceedings," Nigel tells Paul, referring to the newspaper shares.
Jenny rushes to the Concorde and Stephen (for another very unsettling sex scene) because she believes Nigel has been taken care of by her father. However, it's not that easy. Since Nigel refuses to wait any longer, he takes Paul in his private plane to Nice. Cue the phone, cue Stephen finding out bad news and steeling Jenny for it, cue Jenny uttering, "no, no, no" at the news that her husband and father were both killed when the plane crashed. There is even some crazy thrashes and mussed hair, with Stephen unable to touch her. In fact, "I can't bear to be touched by anyone," she tells her mother after the funeral.
She boots Stephen because she blames herself for their deaths. "I have my work," she tells Stephen, who reminds her that Deborah also told her to have a dream of her own. "It's a harsh world...there is no time for dreams," she says, robotically (which isn't that different from the way she's acted at any other point, one of the worst-acted leads I can find in a miniseries).
It would be nice if, instead of limping along, we raced to reunite the main lovers, but no, that's just not how it's done here. Fiona returns to the movie after her brief scenes at the beginning, to say goodbye to Stephen, who has decided to move back to England to be near Jenny when she inevitably remembers she needs him. Also back is James Brolin, billed as a "special guest star," but having lazed around his trailer for the last few hours after only two scenes. Fiona and James have had a torrid love affair because Fiona believed James would leave her wife for her and the child they have together. That was never James' intention and he even questions the paternity of the child since he knows she's been hanging out with Stephen (platonically, it turns out).
Why is this of any importance? Because he has the hots for Jenny and their business relationship is rekindled. He still wants her oil stocks, but eventually he does reveal who the secret buyer is. When Jenny informs the oil company board, they are livid and offer her more money. No, but she wants more of a say in the company and they approve her conditions. This infuriates James, whose reputation is on the line about to lose a deal "to a slip of a girl." He gets blotto, so by the time she arrives in an Alexis Colby business suit, he's ready to rape her. They fight for a while, but she kicks him where it counts and is able to escape. Why toss a rape scene in when we should be wrapping up? Take a wild guess! You don't need me to tell you.
But, before that, Jenny does what virtually every rape victim in 1980s movies does, she takes a shower. Not like Pia Zadora in "The Lonely Lady," the weirdest rape-and-shower combo in all of film history. Then a cousin comes to comfort her, seeing Jenny all bruised. "That's dreadful! I'll all a doctor," Cousin Inept-Acting says, with about as much gusto as if she were having the post office stop mail delivery while they go on vacation. They hug, which is the first time she's let anyone do that since the deaths of her father and husband.
Next time we see Jenny, she's riding a white horse back in Yorkshire where Stephen just happens to be sitting and daydreaming, the place, of course, where their parents fell in love almost two miniseries ago. Well, if you didn't figure out the ending two paragraphs ago, here it is: she asks him for the ring her grandmother left him, "not as a gift, but as your future wife." And that, my friends, ends this saga.
Never wildly interesting, "Hold the Dream" is really a lukewarm project. "A Woman of Substance" benefitted greatly from finer acting. This one has, well, Jenny Seagrove. That's not much. Stephen Collins, with a bad British accent, does better than everyone else, but he is a pro at this sort of tripe.
Don't go far, there's a third coming soon.
Hey, it's it's good enough for Gaul and Caesar, it's good enough for Barbara Taylor Bradford.
Emma Harte est omnis divisa in partes tres.
We've seen A Woman of Substance. Now it's time for the second part of the Emma Harte saga. If Bradford is not as flashy as Danielle Steele, as giddily head-scratching as Judith Krantz or as blissfully wild as Jackie Collins, she does have a certain loopy authority and gravitas in her writing and "Hold the Dream" clings to that seriousness as tightly as possible, following the lead set by "A Woman of Substance." That can be construed as taste, but it can also be construed as boring.
I guess "A Woman of Substance" was a big enough hit that by the time "Hold the Dream" was made, slumming vets signed up in droves.
Jenny Seagrove gets a morning call from Granny Deborah Kerr (whose slumming days ended here, since this was her last credit, but she still has her skills fully intact, not that she needs even 10% of them). There's a big deal that would have the company Deborah started buying another one, and Deborah wants to make sure Jenny handles the negotiations properly. Indeed, she's as steely as the old lady, playing such hardball that one of the current owners snaps, "they're all vultures." Jenny's tactics put the kibosh on the takeover, but when she reports this to Deborah, it seems Deborah had set this all up, shrewd-though-poorly-dressed matron that she is.
We are introduced to a few more of Deborah's grandchildren and relatives to get the plot started, but at the onset, they are all interchangeable, except, of course, miniseries expert Stephen Collins, who is secretly in love with Jenny. Also around is Liam Neeson, Deborah's oldest friend, done up here with a frightful white beard and a voice that sounds like he's chewing rocks.
Deborah senses her time running the empire is ending and one by one, people are lining up to either screw her over or share in the spoils. Worst of all the hangers-on is Claire Bloom, Deborah's daughter, who is bitter that Deborah sacrificed motherhood for her career. Deborah tries to mend fences, but Claire is unmoved. Her son is getting divorced because he's in love with one of another of the brood. This is news to Claire, though she does caustically note that, "you always wanted one of the Harte girls to marry a title." Deborah slips into and Olivia de Havilland-style softness of speech, but it doesn't work. Claire is hard and unyielding.
Liam is responsible for getting Deborah to a surprise 80th birthday party, and after some reminiscing and kind words, she accuses him of being as "full of the blarney as ever." Liam's grandson Stephen is there, introduced him to Fiona Fullerton, obviously an American just by the way she dresses. Jenny is upset that her husband isn't there, always putting his newspaper career first. Everyone there has a plan. Dominic Jephcott, one of Deborah's grandsons, is bent on revenge and hooked onto Nicholas Farrell, whose company was supposed to be bought before Jenny ruined the deal (and this Nicholas and his father). Stephen is in love with Jenny, but it's a secret. Claire cozies up to her son Paul Geoffrey and his mistress, obviously trying to debunk whatever Deborah is hoping to get from Paul's divorce. However, when his wife shows up spitting mad, it creates a bit of a scene.
The dancing starts with an idiotic synthesizer or something, and when asked what dance she'll dance, Deborah answers for everyone who has ever hated fad music, "I'm waiting for the waltzes." Deborah then sees Stephen mooning over Jenny and even Fiona notices it. In fact, it's the talk of the dance floor.
There are a cake, candles, a large cake knife and then Liam is requested to speak for all the assembled about Deborah, though it's relatively painless. After all, this movie has crammed more plot into the first half hour than one would think possible, so no one gets more than a few sentences at any one time. Deborah then speaks, drawing on that well of old-style training that netted her half a dozen or so Oscar nominations (no wins, sadly). The big surprise is that Deborah is going to cede the empire to the grandchildren so she and Liam can take a cruise around the world. An in-law is put in charge of the whole shebang, and even he seems shocked. Jenny gets the department stores. "I challenge you to hold my dream," Deborah coos.
Later on, Jenny's husband Nigel Havers is, as he always seems to be, upset. He feels she shouldn't be working, just a wife and mother. Some extremely unseemly and gross kissing ends the conversation, but Jenny refuses to let this discussion fall away to sexual interruption. At the same time, Stephen and Fiona are going at it, but even she can tell he's not thinking of her. Fiona, angry at Stephen, stands up naked and asks, "what makes you keep coming back to me bed all the time, all hot and bothered and raring to go, when the one you really want is" Jenny. Hopefully this is Fiona's final scene, because she's pretty darn awful.
The corn factor zooms off the charts when Deborah shows up at Liam's and he gives her an engagement ring he had bought decades earlier, but didn't use because he thought she was too good for him (if you remember from "A Woman of Substance," she was a maid-turned-zillionaire, and he knows that, so it's a rather silly idea. She wants it. "Are we finally engaged?" she asks. "Let's just say we're engaged to be closest of companions for the rest of our lives." There's an awkward kiss, if only because Deborah is very old and, under the make-up and hair, Liam is soooooo much younger. As we've been waiting for the whole time, Liam clutches his arm and then his chest, the surefire cinematic hint of a heart attack. They have just enough time to admit their love for each other before he expires and she's left to cry her way to award nominations. "I'm the last one," a pale Deborah tells her granddaughters as she looks at all the headstones in the cemetery.
After feeding her twins in a silk shirt that any new mother would know not to wear, Jenny has to go take care of her third child, her husband, who announces glumly he has resigned from the company, because "I've never like administrative work, I'm not good at it." It takes not only a scene in the living room, then in the dining room, two places he can knock back the booze. Jenny is not happy at this turn of events, but once again, Nigel placates her physically, in a joyless strangely neutered sex scene.
As second high-volume scene is next, a typical soap scene where the Paul's jilted ex-wife shows up at the family manse, drunk, and accosts her husband and his new gal, Sara-Jane Varley, yet another member of the family. The wife staggers out to her car (yup, her car) and gives her Medea-like portents of doom. Just so we don't think everyone is fond of high decibel yelling, there's a scene out of nowhere where Deborah ruminates on the dead of her husband decades ago, staring straight ahead and almost in a catatonic whisper. "Yes, we know, darling," her daughter says, though Jenny sees something is very wrong.
It seems Paul's wife had left, in her car, to do exactly what we expected her to do. Cue the police asking questions about the body and car in the pond. Claire calls Jenny in hysterics, and when Claire informs her that Paul is a suspect in what not may be a drowning, Jenny realizes it could be true, and in a perfect Deborah Kerr imitation (though I don't think it's conscious). "There is nothing to do...just stay calm and leave everything to me," Jenny tells her, whipping the family into their tasks and then calling the newspaper to tell them not to print anything about it. Her family owns the newspaper, so the editor finds it an odd request since the news will be everywhere else. Jenny is becoming a steely savvy woman with every passing (boring) scene. She next takes on Sara-Jane, who wants to go be with Paul. Jenny puts the kibosh on that and naturally, Sara-Jane listens.
Not impressed is Nigel, who rushes off to Jenny to scold her for threatening the editor at the newspaper he runs. Jenny reminds him that Deborah owns the paper and has given her Power of Attorney. That's news to her hubby.
In NYC, cousin/son/uncle/brother/ Valentine Pelka visits with Stephen, who is building a grand edifice. Stephen is upset Jenny has to take control, though Valentine says it's because "she's the strong one." Or has the biggest shoulder pads. Naturally, Stephen wants to be with her, but can't.
Jonathan and Nicholas are forever plotting, doing everything but laughing over a cauldron filled with little children to prove how evil they are. Jenny sees them and tells one of the female cousins (if you can keep track of them, good for you, I can't) she thinks she has one of Deborah's "cold feelings," puts her hand on her chin and then we know she's about to enter smarter-than-everyone mode. As if we haven't the last gazillion scenes establishing Jenny as a younger Deborah, when she gets news from Texas that a family oil tanker in trouble, naturally she makes sure that "all the families are taken care of." When Jenny tells Deborah (who is showing her character's slow decline by now adopting a crooked spine and a really bad wig, Deborah is at first sad, but then fiery, demanding to know what is being done about the oil spill.
On the phone with her man in Texas, Jenny pontificates, "there are only four things that are important: the injured men, their families, the wildlife and the good name" of the company. Bravo, heroine, you have hart (or Harte, the company that must have the good name intact). But, we've known that in literally every scene for longer than anyone can remember. When she tells Nigel she has to go to Texas, he kicks up another fuss. He accuses her of becoming her grandmother when fancy psychological terms that aren't real (I tried looking them up). This whopper of a scene finds Nigel admitting he hates Deborah for stuff from the first movie, horrifying Jenny by referred to her new personal as a "cold calculating carbon copy of herself." He almost had perfect alliteration there. Two can play at that game, as she castigates Nigel for marrying her for the "money and power" he knew she would inherit as Deborah's heir.
Naturally, Jenny has to go to New York City, because no one else involved in the oil spill had the smarts to figure out holding a press conference promising no danger would be a good idea. Really, no one.
Enter James Brolin, looking fetching in his beard and tight-fitting suit. He's a banker involved with Stephen's business and now Jenny's. He doesn't know Stephen has the hots for her, so he goes over her assets (as a person), looking to make a move on her, much to Stephen's discomfort. But, this is how Stephen finds out Jenny is in town, sending her a horrid arrangement of violets. Jenny is touched and calls Stephen to make plans. Strangely, when she suggests getting together, he begs off. Ten seconds later, he calls her back (he knows the phone number of where she happens to be) without any aid and decides to say yes to her invitation. He is very standoffish, but Jenny calls him on it and he drops the facade. "It is such a relief to be able to talk to you again," Jenny notes. It's not exactly romantic, but it gives him hope.
Stephen warned Jenny about James, so she is guarded when they meet, but she tramples on him, agreeing only to discuss his offer to buy the oil company they own with Deborah.
Then it's off to Stephen's Connecticut fixer-upper for the weekend. She attends wearing a head band, more shoulder pads than ever and some very fashionable boots. "It has an air of permanence, are you planning to set down roots?" Jenny asks. It takes a local neighbor to inform Jenny that Stephen is in love with her. There she goes with the pensive blank look again, but decides to go with it!
She grabs the wine, a few glasses and stands by the fire so that Stephen knows what she wants. Four hundred violins are helpful too. He walks over to her...
She asks him to sit next to her so she ask Stephen if he's in love with her, since they have been honest with they each other "since we were children." She speaks in a whisper, her way of playing coy, so grab the remote or else you're sunk, though frankly, you know al the words to this conversation already since this scene is in virtually every romance miniseries. They kiss and if Jenny is about as sexy as a plastic chair, Stephen knows how to play this. Mercifully we are spared everything that happens after she unsnaps her bra.
Stephen has a rule, that he never fools around with married women, though he waits until after they have had sex to mention it. They confess their love and mutual desire at the airport before Jenny returns to England. Due to some heavy drinking, Nigel calls Jenny to make dinner plans and then races his sports car to meet her. That leads to our second car accident of the movie, but Nigel survives, barely. Stephen calls, offering to fly to London, knowing full well that Jenny can't exactly leave her husband now, but he understands and agrees to wait.
Time for a trial! We've had every necessary scene to make a miniseries except a trial, so as the second half of the miniseries starts up, Paul is on trial for perhaps having a hand in his wife's death. A maid exonerates Paul, who strides out of the courtroom with his mother, Claire, but not everyone is so convinced justice was perfectly served.
Assuming a "never mix, never worry" type attitude, Nigel is downing bottles of wine and painkillers when Jenny pays a hospital visit. This near-death experience has made him sure the marriage can be saved, but just as Jenny is about to opine differently, the doctor interrupts. The doctor is worried about Nigel's drinking. Frankly, I am too. How does one get wine into a hospital? Come on, that can't be easy! But, the doc tells Jenny that Nigel must stay out of any "stressful" situations and needs a shrink ASAP. That means Jenny can't say anything about the marriage, but that's fine, because Stephen has come to her and all is right in her world. For a few minutes. "We'll be together eventually for the rest of our lives," naive goon Stephen tells Jenny, who knows she can't be with him fully until Nigel is well again.
Accosting Jenny outside her office, David Swift, the father of plotter Nicholas (and Dominic). She prefers to avoid him but he has a convenient attack of...something and gets an invitation to her office, where he gives her some important information and has another of those attacks of...something.
Nigel, scheming on behalf of his long-dead family members, asks Deborah to return him to the position of Managing Director for her company. By using the past as a weapon, he expects Deborah to cave. "I never mix sentiment with business," the matron declares, "but I'm not saying no" and agrees to think about it.
A wedding happens quickly and then it's Christmas, where Deborah and Stephen sing a few lines, but Deborah opts to stay behind while everyone joins the carolers. Then comes what should be a touching scene between twin granite dames, Deborah and Claire. Claire begs for a lifetime of forgiveness and gets it, which we can only assume Deborah ain't gonna be around much longer.
Claire gets sucked into Nigel's plot, without knowing it, and then asks Stephen which of his hotels would be perfect for a "second honeymoon." He then tries to kiss Jenny and she rebuffs him. This leads to yet another argument. "When something's not right, don't be afraid to let it go," Deborah tells a crestfallen Jenny, pushing out every syllable as if one of them will be her last. But, for the second time in ten minutes, she keeps going despite all the clues of imminent demise.
Jenny and Stephen go to the field where they grandparents first fell in love, blah, blah, blah and then they spot Deborah. I'm not sure how she got there, because the only car is the one Jenny and Stephen came in. "Don't stay too long," Jenny warms Deborah, as it's cold out. "No, it's time to go," Deborah says. It this where she croaks? Nope, sorry. Not yet.
Instead, she heads to her department store, where she remembers very little and struggles to get to her office. Clutching a picture of her long-dead husband, she can barely walk or see and falls to the floor, which is where Jenny finds her. Deborah goes into the kind of acting that had died about 40 years earlier as she scoops out every word, telling Jenny "you must hold my dream, but you also have to have your own." That phrase alone takes 12 minutes and whenever one cites the title, it's never a good sign. Deborah's eyes flutter and her head falls back. NOW she's dead. There is still a quarter of the miniseries left, but Deborah's part is done (and, unfortunately, a long and interesting career). A church funeral and some time for the family at the grave are to be expected, as is Jenny, all in black, staring out from the family home as Stephen comes up beside her.
With our vet out of the picture (John Mills doesn't count, since he doesn't get more than a sentence at any given time), we are in the home stretch, but unfortunately, I'm having trouble caring about any of these characters. None of them are any fun and there are just too many of them!
But there is a will reading, by lawyer John Mills (this isn't even slumming, it must be a favor owed to someone) though the contents are no surprise. What is a surprise are five codicils. In the first, she leaves money and a diamond ring from his grandfather to Stephen. Valentine is given money, a house and 35% of a Canadian newspaper. The third codicil gives Nigel only 5%! The other 60% is for Jenny. Lastly, some properties originally promised elsewhere are given to her no-dialogue daughter. That's a problem because Dominic had been counting on selling those properties to prop up the business he has going with Nicholas. He objects, loudly, and is then told he gets to pick two paintings instead. Deborah also prepared for the inevitable squabbling by proving she was of sound mind. The room erupts in childish prattle until Jenny silences the whole family.
Jenny and Papa Paul Daneman figure out that Dominic has a scam going, but they need to prove it, so Paul suggests a real estate sale.
Equally angry, Nigel and Jonathan plot. Nigel wants to sell Dominic his shares, but not in secret. Jonathan insists it be done with the approval of the board.
Ever wonder if love can blossom on a rocking horse? I didn't either, but Stephen and Jenny make out while she's riding one in Liam's old house, where she declares she wants to live with Stephen. Jonathan snakes out of the real estate deal meant to expose his dirty dealings, but Nicholas picks it up, so there is still hope. But, it's not enough to "hang [Dominic] with." Luckily, there is proof to be found, where they can at least "challenge" Dominic.
Nigel wants to "patch up our marriage," with a whole bunch of conditions, but Jenny insists on divorce, even when Nigel threatens to sue for custody of the kids and move to Canada. Papa Paul is a bit more level-headed about the situation, convinced that Nigel will go for "a settlement."
A board meeting is called and Dominic is confronted by the whole family. He tries to weasel out of it, even taking his cousin down with him, but Paul fires him. "I can hire and I can fire. And I'm firing you!" he tells Dominic. Dominic has to be forcibly ejected from the room as he sputters threats. That takes care of a plot that was never interesting, or, at least, at the bottom of the interest pile.
Now we have to deal with Nigel, who will not take money from Papa Paul, but will take the newspapers, the ones he feels were stolen by Deborah from his family. "Once I've got that, I'll start divorce proceedings," Nigel tells Paul, referring to the newspaper shares.
Jenny rushes to the Concorde and Stephen (for another very unsettling sex scene) because she believes Nigel has been taken care of by her father. However, it's not that easy. Since Nigel refuses to wait any longer, he takes Paul in his private plane to Nice. Cue the phone, cue Stephen finding out bad news and steeling Jenny for it, cue Jenny uttering, "no, no, no" at the news that her husband and father were both killed when the plane crashed. There is even some crazy thrashes and mussed hair, with Stephen unable to touch her. In fact, "I can't bear to be touched by anyone," she tells her mother after the funeral.
She boots Stephen because she blames herself for their deaths. "I have my work," she tells Stephen, who reminds her that Deborah also told her to have a dream of her own. "It's a harsh world...there is no time for dreams," she says, robotically (which isn't that different from the way she's acted at any other point, one of the worst-acted leads I can find in a miniseries).
It would be nice if, instead of limping along, we raced to reunite the main lovers, but no, that's just not how it's done here. Fiona returns to the movie after her brief scenes at the beginning, to say goodbye to Stephen, who has decided to move back to England to be near Jenny when she inevitably remembers she needs him. Also back is James Brolin, billed as a "special guest star," but having lazed around his trailer for the last few hours after only two scenes. Fiona and James have had a torrid love affair because Fiona believed James would leave her wife for her and the child they have together. That was never James' intention and he even questions the paternity of the child since he knows she's been hanging out with Stephen (platonically, it turns out).
Why is this of any importance? Because he has the hots for Jenny and their business relationship is rekindled. He still wants her oil stocks, but eventually he does reveal who the secret buyer is. When Jenny informs the oil company board, they are livid and offer her more money. No, but she wants more of a say in the company and they approve her conditions. This infuriates James, whose reputation is on the line about to lose a deal "to a slip of a girl." He gets blotto, so by the time she arrives in an Alexis Colby business suit, he's ready to rape her. They fight for a while, but she kicks him where it counts and is able to escape. Why toss a rape scene in when we should be wrapping up? Take a wild guess! You don't need me to tell you.
But, before that, Jenny does what virtually every rape victim in 1980s movies does, she takes a shower. Not like Pia Zadora in "The Lonely Lady," the weirdest rape-and-shower combo in all of film history. Then a cousin comes to comfort her, seeing Jenny all bruised. "That's dreadful! I'll all a doctor," Cousin Inept-Acting says, with about as much gusto as if she were having the post office stop mail delivery while they go on vacation. They hug, which is the first time she's let anyone do that since the deaths of her father and husband.
Next time we see Jenny, she's riding a white horse back in Yorkshire where Stephen just happens to be sitting and daydreaming, the place, of course, where their parents fell in love almost two miniseries ago. Well, if you didn't figure out the ending two paragraphs ago, here it is: she asks him for the ring her grandmother left him, "not as a gift, but as your future wife." And that, my friends, ends this saga.
Never wildly interesting, "Hold the Dream" is really a lukewarm project. "A Woman of Substance" benefitted greatly from finer acting. This one has, well, Jenny Seagrove. That's not much. Stephen Collins, with a bad British accent, does better than everyone else, but he is a pro at this sort of tripe.
Don't go far, there's a third coming soon.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Evergreen (1985)
I must admit I'm biased when it comes to "Evergreen" because I watched it three times when it originally aired. A ban on watching television during the week in my household did not include taping programs and watching them on the weekends or holidays. And thus, for some reason, I really connected to "Evergreen."
However, that doesn't mean it's a perfect miniseries. It just means it grabbed me at the time, but of course, I was a lot younger then. Let's see how I feel as an adult.
The biggest asset in "Evergreen" is, of course, its leading lady, Lesley Ann Warren. She had already survived both "Beulah Land" and "Pearl," two incredibly stupid miniseries, though through no fault of her own. In fact, she's the highlight of the latter, the only one who bothered to act. It's also three years after her greatest performance, that of Norma in the film "Victor/Victoria." Indomitable and believable, Lesley Ann Warren can survive anything with class and finesse, as proven through six hours of "Evergreen."
Here is an interesting case of a miniseries that had the option to go full-on romance or mix it with a lot of history. The novel on which it's based hedges a great deal, but the miniseries opts for simple fluff. Unfortunately, with three nights of air time, that's not always enough. Lesley and co-star Armand Assante are fantastic, but as the hours wear on, they become less and less important; the other generations simply are not interesting (think Jane Seymour in "East of Eden"--once she disappears from being in nearly every scene, the Bottoms brothers aren't quite up to her level of contribution).
Here is an interesting case of a miniseries that had the option to go full-on romance or mix it with a lot of history. The novel on which it's based hedges a great deal, but the miniseries opts for simple fluff. Unfortunately, with three nights of air time, that's not always enough. Lesley and co-star Armand Assante are fantastic, but as the hours wear on, they become less and less important; the other generations simply are not interesting (think Jane Seymour in "East of Eden"--once she disappears from being in nearly every scene, the Bottoms brothers aren't quite up to her level of contribution).
This saga (based on the Belva Plain novel) begins in 1909, where a baffled Lesley has just arrived in America from Poland, plopped onto the Lower East Side by a woman who tries to steal her purse and is then crammed into a relative's apartment. She practices her English at her sewing machine in a factory and her cousin wants to marry her off a year after her arrival. All of this happens in the first five minutes or so without much exposition because, as miniseries fans, we have of course been down this road many times. Immigrant stories, poor like this one or rich like "Zoya" always follow the same course, so let's be thankful the creators here gave us a break and raced through this part. Stereotyping hits us over the head here like a cement block, but we had to expect that.
Not the first man I would pick to play a poor Jew is Armand Assante, having survived "Rage of Angels" (the actor, not his character, who met a grisly death there). Lesley's cousin has set them up on a date but didn't tell Lesley, who is shy. "I almost didn't show," he says, "they try to marry me off to every girl who gets off a boat." Jeez, that's a lot of women and I can't imagine they all look like Lesley, so be thankful, both of you! "Evergreen" employs only the direst looking extras, so pairing up the only two pretty people we've met yet is a big deal!
It's here that Lesley finally admits her reason for not wanting to be married, and though it's a lovely speech, it comes down to this: vanity. She doesn't want to age prematurely because she's caring for a family and working herself into middle age at 30 or so like her haggard cousin. "Come, let me introduce you to the other America," Armand says, finding out she's never seen any of the city but the Lower East Side (not that the rest of Manhattan in 1909 was at all indicative of America, but point taken).
They get awfully personal very quickly. Somehow a discussion of his job comes up and suddenly he's doing an ad for American patriotism, saying, "I have faith in America, I have faith in God…" Is he the first Jewish televangelist? They walk all the way to Central Park, which is quite a hike from the Lower East Side, but they are both so very interested in each other. Armand promises Lesley "one day I will take you to dinner" at the Plaza and they merrily pass the mansions of the super wealthy.
CHARACTER FLAW ALERT: Armand seems like a very nice man and he's liking Lesley, but he promises one day he'll be as rich as the people who own the mansions, though there's a wrinkle in that he's Jewish. As we all know, once a character show base ambition for something like money, there's trouble a-brewin'.
Lesley is more practical and decides to apply for a job at the mansions doing menial work. When she's hired, Lesley can't believe that she's living in a room with electric lights and a bathtub. The Jewish owner of the manse is Ian McShane, who is awfully kind to Lesley, at least partly because he's a horn dog.
He strikes up a conversation with her over breakfast and tells her to cancel a date with Armand because he wants to take her out. As expected, he picks the most glamorous establishment and Lesley, in the same outfit she's worn the whole time, is dazzled and doesn't know how to behave. While licking everything she can from the fork, she tells Ian that her parents and sisters are all dead. As for Ian, "everything has been done for me," explaining his silver spoon syndrome. Ian lays it on thicker than tar, not only in the restaurant, but back at home when he shows Lesley a painting he claims his mother says looks like Lesley.
And up swell the violins, the whole damn string section, in fact, so Ian can plant a very chaste kiss on her. She likes it, but knows she can't go further. This makes her time with Armand a bit stilted. Then again, he brings news of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, a surefire mood killer. Lesley winces for a moment, but then goes off into a fantasy about seeing Italy, because she's read about it in Ian's book. Armand is livid when he hears this since he's permanently chip-on-shoulderish when it comes to the rich. But, a scene later, any romantic notions Lesley possesses about Ian are shattered when it's announced he's about to be married.
This means that Lesley has to marry Armand. Well, it's doesn't exactly mean that, but the vagaries of romance novels and epics teach us it does. You never saw a less enthusiastic bride than Lesley, who stares blankly beyond Armand, who is unsettled to see this look in her eyes. Armand may have the beginnings of a capitalist prick, but he clearly adores his wife and she claims to be happy with him. We then go right to Lesley feeling her baby kick to the kid being five.
Armand has a money making scheme and wants Lesley to ask her former employers for a loan. She refuses, not explaining why, but he insists. When she gets there, Ian is the only one around since the rest, servants and all, are in the country. She wants only to ask Ian's mother, but Ian insists on doing the lending. "It would give me pleasure to do something for you," Ian notes and Lesley, suddenly a banking expert, explains the terms of the loan and Ian writes out a check. He confesses his longtime love for her, claiming to think about her every day. Romantic that she is, Lesley dashes across the room, the string section even busier than before, to kiss him. They have sex and Lesley feels terribly guilty.
For someone who used to be so anti-money, Armand is awfully excited to have some to start a real estate venture, but he's also confused as to why Ian wrote out of the check and not his mother. He questions why Ian would simply write out a check, though he doesn't pursue it because the check isn't rubber.
Cue pregnancy. Oh, come on, you aren't really surprised, are you? This happens in every similar tale. She tells the doctor it wasn't planned. "Some people call that an accident," he says, as if she's 11 years old, "I call it a miracle." Pro-life before such a thing existed, the doctor reminds her that "every child brings its own good fortune." As she walks home gloomily, Armand honks at her from his brand new car! "That's a baby and a motorcar on the same day!" Armand exclaims in delight when Lesley coyly tells him of her pregnancy (thank goodness Maury Povich and his incessant DNA tests are 100 or so years in the future). Hopefully, the excitement is in that order.
By 1928, things are booming for Lesley and Armand. They have bought an enormous house, Lesley wears a fox stole, the kids are enrolled in private school and they even have a cook! There is a supremely awkward moment at the daughter's birthday party where Lesley's cousin says, "you don't look like your mother, you don't look like your father, whose child are you?" Thankfully, everyone else is chattering and no one hears. AWKWARD! But, if she notices, it shouldn't be too long before others notice too. To make it even worse, at least for the viewers since we know the truth, Armand delivers a lengthy speech about the bond between fathers and daughters. DOUBLE AWKWARD!
After gooey sweetness like that, it's about time for some angst, wouldn't you say? Right on cue, the son decides he's bored with synagogue and doesn't want to go one particular Saturday so he can play with his friends. "None of my other friend have to go to shul," he whines. "None of your other friends are my son," Armand rages in return. Are you absolutely sure? After all, you're not really your daughter's father, but that's a plot point for way down the road.
Lesley and her daughter bump into Ian and his mother, the latter chirping to the daughter, "you don't look like your mother, you must look like your father" and then Ian joins them, staring at the girl.
A real corker of a scene follows. While the bratty daughter is practicing piano (badly), Armand sees in the paper that Ian's mother has died, but Lesley refuses to go to the funeral. Armand thinks it's because she's "risen too far in the world" and reminds her what that family did for them. True, but of course we know there's far more to it than that! Incidentally, so does her daughter, though not exactly what. "You wish I'd never been born!" she snaps as Lesley brushes her hair. "I'm not pretty, I'm plain," the girl says, ending the scene with a dippy non-sequiter.
As if this night can't get any sadder, Lesley's cousin's husband, Ron Rifkin, comes to borrow money and Armand refuses him, not willing to "put my family in danger." So, Ron does what a lot of people did after the bottom fell out of the stock market, he jumps. Armand is guilt-stricken big and bad when he gets the call. Also ruined is Armand's business partner, Brian Dennehey and, in fact Armand's whole real estate business. Bad news comes in threes, so when Armand gets home, he's greeted by the news that Ron had no life insurance.
To cut down on the pathos for a bit, Ian shows up to see Lesley, but is greeted instead by the surly daughter. He leaves a big box, which happens to contain the painting from his house his mother always swore reminded her of Lesley. Dour daughter suggests selling the painting, but Lesley mandates, "nobody is selling this painting." Ian pays another visit, this time to make sure the daughter is his and Lesley is forced to admit it. He then decides to take Lesley and the daughter away so they can all be together. Oh, yeah, that's going to go over well with Armand! She admits she loves Ian, but can't leave her husband. He begs her to consider his proposal, giving her until 4pm the next day to deliver an answer. Lesley does her best thinking in a negligee that evening, and goes to the rendezvous spot at 4pm the next day. "I cannot leave him," she tells a crestfallen Ian.
The first of "Evergreen's" three parts ends here (with more cascading violins). In roughly two hours, we have wedged in everything but the slumming vet (and WWI which slipped by unnoticed). Torn between two lovers, paternity questions, humble beginnings, death, bratty children and a brave heroine to tie it all together.
Part Two begins on a high note. Lesley's grown son, Tony Soper, has gotten into Yale and his little sister (who hasn't aged, even though there's a new actor playing the son) has knitted him a big sweater. Even more, Armand and Brian have gotten a big loan to expand their business. When the son makes a toast, he lays on the schmaltz. "To my mother, who is a goddess. To my growing-up sister, who is not a little devil, who is an angel, and to my father, who gives me a lot of trouble sometimes, but who is truly a king among men."
At Yale, the new freshman meets WASP drunk Boyd Gaines (giving an over-ripe performance that would not anticipate his 147 Tony Awards). The matriarch of the family is Betty Buckley (bingo, now we have the slumming vet, who actually had a Tony by this point). The problem is that Boyd's family hates Jews, well, except daughter Kate Burton, who falls in love with him. Romeo and Juliet have arrived, as they always do in a romance miniseries. "It won't be easy for me, being in love with a Jew," Kate chirps. "Don't worry, I love a good challenge," Tony laughs. Boyd is not in a joking mood when he warns Tony to stay away from his sister. Not only is Armand displeased, he throws the persecution of Jews in Germany into the conversation! "I won't change," Tony promises. "Cut off my right arm," is the reply to that, before Armand decrees that they will get over their supposed love and find people of similar religions to marry. "Don't bring the unthinkable to pass," Armand says as he hugs his son, sounding more like John Gotti than a Jewish real estate mogul.
With Armand and Lesley upset over Tony's decision, their daughter grows up to be Joan Allen, who can't get her parents' attention, and growls at them because of it. She is told her brother "will not be sitting here again." He married secretly the day before and both families have cut them off.
If Tony and Kate are Romeo and Juliet, Lesley, who hasn't been around much, is Lady Macbeth, mopping a perfectly clean floor at 3am. She gets one of those yowling explosions that every actress in a miniseries has (Lesley's experience in a musical version of "Gone With the Wind" about a decade earlier must have helped greatly), beating her husband and then crumpling into his arms. It only lasts a few moments so we can return to Tony and Kate getting smashed on a bottle of wine because he's gotten a job selling kids shoes. Zzzzzzzzzzz. This is the downside of generational sagas. Not all of the generations are interesting. Take this moment: Tony comes home and Kate is knitting. We know what that means immediately, but it takes what seems like an hour for Kate to tell Tony. Paint by numbers, this whole section of the miniseries is without any surprises. "Little babies don't cost that much," Kate says. That's a humdinger of a line, a scene-ender, no less!
Joan defies her father and visits her brother, though Armand says he wants to hear no mention of it. When Joan returns, Lesley is thrilled to hear she'll be a grandmother, news they decide to lay on Armand. "This is not my grandchild, because my grandchild is a Jew. [Tony's] child is nothing. He's a nothing," is all he cares to say on the matter.
Let's see how the other family reacts? Kate goes to see her folks. Betty is in the garden, gardening gloves on and holding a cigarette while the gardener does the actual work. "I don't think your father is going to be very happy to hear this news," Betty says, stifling a smile because she's actually thrilled. Papa is Robert Vaughn, wheelchair bound and crabby as all hell. "You're a fool," he chastises her, but it's obvious he wants to crack and get his daughter back.
That went better than expected, so Lesley is the next to crumble, going to see Tony at the shoe store. From there, she goes to Armand and Brian's office. Brian takes the news of a male grandchild to be of great importance, but Armand sticks to his policy. "When did you become unforgiving?" Brian snarls and Armand tells Lesley she can have the family over for dinner. "Don't expect me to say a word the whole night. I can't get involved," Armand adds, though not very believably. In fact, Tony and Kate get invites from both families.
Check your rulebooks. You know when people achieve sublime happiness in a miniseries, not only the rug, but the whole floor is about to pulled from under them. Joan answers the phone call from Boyd saying Tony and Kate have been killed in a car accident, but the baby is alive. Armand is there and then they have to tell Lesley. All she needs to do is see their faces to know.
It's time for a trial. You knew one had to pop up eventually. Which grandparents should have custody of the baby? Well, Brian actually has an interesting take, grumbling that "the Catholics and the Jews should write the laws. No one else understands about family." That's not particularly helpful, but it's said with conviction. We are actually spared court theatrics, just told that the judge granted custody to Kate's parents. Armand feels guilty. "I killed him," he says, referring to both Ron, the jumper, and Tony, hit by a truck. "I cannot help. I am empty," Lesley says, unable to give him the sympathy or forgiveness he needs.
In case you care, and I'm absolutely positive I don't, Ian is still around. He and Lesley meet for lunch at the very same restaurant they went to all those years ago (which has the same decor and all). After lunch, they go up to a cozy lodge in the mountains, swim, dance and talk about Joan before, well, we have to guess as the darkness overtakes everything.
By 1946, the grandkid is wheeling around Robert Vaughn, giving him a lesson in civics, telling the kid it's wrong for Jews to be moving into the neighborhood. "Colored with coloreds, Americans with Americans," Robert says. "David Freidman thinks he's an American," the kid replies. "Well, he's misinformed." Egad, that's awfully strong dialogue for marshmallow stickiness like "Evergreen!" It seems that Robert and Betty haven't told the kid the truth about half his family. Armand and Lesley are moving out to the suburbs to a big house of their own.
Into their lives comes Jan Triska, a Plastic Surgeon who outran the Nazis and managed to get to America. Everyone wants to set him up with Joan. As he tickles the ivories, they have a very deep conversation, perhaps the deepest so far, but it's way too late and far too stilted to pull in yet another mysterious new character. His proposal is rather clumsy, but she accepts anyway. Lesley and Armand are happy in bed knowing their daughter's future is secure.
Uh huh, until it's not.
And that brings the second portion to a close, and a rather happy one.
And just for that, the final portion of the miniseries starts as sadly as possible. We're told that Robert Vaughn has already died (after less than six minutes of screen time total) and Betty Buckley is sporting bad make-up, so when she tells her little grandson, "I'm going to die soon," he shouldn't really be surprised. Understandably, the kid wonders where he's to go, and though Boyd says he wants him, Betty feels it would be best if this little blond kid went with "your father's people." The kid definitely isn't pleased to hear the new people are Jewish and trots out Robert's ethnic slurs before cozying up to the Jewish kid in school. That doesn't go well.
The day of the hand-off arrives and, true to form, Lesley has more food than twenty people could eat, living up to at least one stereotype. The whole episode is very awkward, with only Lesley able to manage a chipper demeanor. Armand is scared and the kid is just petulant, though he softens a bit when seeing a picture of his father. Even more bizarre is the conversation between Lesley and Boyd, who removes enough luggage from the car to clothe 12 kids. Lesley says she personally knows what it's like to be "uprooted" at a young age and they talk about how Tom and Boyd met. "A young man falls off his bike and so many lives are changed," opines Lesley.
The kid runs away and is brought back by the police, and Lesley begs Armand to stay out of this particular conversation. She's rewarded with his loyalty.
With that settled, Lesley turns her attention to Joan, who speaks in riddles about her marriage. "Sometimes I think I love him too much," is one such line. What does it mean? Beats me.
For his birthday, the kid wants to join the local club, but they don't allow Jews. Armand has matured in his thinking somewhat and tells him he can be Jewish, Christian, whatever he wants, and if he wants to join the club, to do it. This means the kid has some thinking to do.
At a fancy banquet for a building Armand and Brian have created, Ian shows up to be introduced around and Armand reminds everyone that it was Ian who gave him the first seed money they ever received. A round of picture taking leaves Ian alone at the table with Joan and her husband. "Are you a father…you seem like someone who should have children," Joan notes, with Ian fumbling and lying that he's not. Then Ian and Lesley get some time together to catch up on 18 years. Ian invites her to dance and Lesley smiles, saying, "I suppose there is no harm in two people dancing." Not in real life, no, but this is a miniseries, where worlds are changed by a look or a mistaken gesture.
There's an inside joke on the dance floor that I had to stop and share with you. Ian wants to meet Lesley the next day, but she says no, she's going to a matinee of "The King and I." The dance ends and Lesley's son-in-law asks her to dance, leaving Ian and Joan to wait uncomfortably until deciding to dance together. Once they start, the take over the floor, the music swells and everyone else stops. The inside joke, of course, is that it very much resembles the climactic moment in "Shall We Dance?" in "The King and I." Do with that information what you please.
Ian shows up at the theater when it lets out, spotted by Armand, who sees the two of them together (neither the theater nor the marquee are correct, FYI). The car ride home is uncomfortable for both, though it's not until they get home that Armand tears into Lesley. Armand upends a table, but Lesley plays it well, sticking to the truth, though of course holding back the historical details surrounding it. Just when it seems she's calmed him, he slaps her hard across the face.
Let's jump ahead to 1959 (and pray lesley has no desire to see "The Sound of Music"). The kid is now grown up Mark Keyloun. He has been approached by Uncle Boyd to work in the oil business in the Middle East, which he claims makes Armand's building business seem "dull." Aunt Joan gives him some good advice and to do what he wants, not what Grandpa or Uncle Boyd wants. That leads him to worry about going to anti-Semetic Iran with Boyd.
Unexpectedly, we veer from the main characters long enough to dispense with Brian Dennehey, who develops an ulcer and decides to move to New Mexico. Just so you know.
Before starting work, Mark decides he wants to see Israel, which of course thrills his grandparents. A kindly bus driver, who use to drive a cab in Brooklyn, tells Mark that one must "walk into Jerusalem" the first time one goes, so as the faux Jewish music goes into overdrive, Mark rushes to see the Holy City.
With her cousin in the hospital, Lesley is already tired and worn out, but Joan finds out Jan is having an affair and needs her mother's sympathy. After all, Lesley is still the glue of the family. Lesley's advice is to "do nothing," and Joan can't understand why, but accepts it.
Enter Cecile Callan, a perky Dutch girl who works on a Kibbutz after having come to Israel simply for "SCUBA diving and boogying," but stayed to volunteer, even though she's not Jewish. Ah, how "history repeats itself" of them! The ominous music starts when we move over to Syria, where naturally the bad guys reside, spying on Cecile's Kibbutz and attempting to blow up a tractor. The Kibbutz residents are ready, having plans ready for such occurrences. This would be the exact moment Mark picks to arrive looking for Cecile. Mark takes to Kibbutz work like an old pro, skipping around and generally spreading mirth. He ten gets a shower scene during a Hebrew lesson. That's the first attempt at ANY sexuality in this entire miniseries. A scene later it gets even more hubba-hubba when Mark and Cecile go skinny dipping.
Mark also befriends a, well, friendless kid, a tough little boy who keeps watch in an abandoned water tower with a broom for a gun. They are both orphans, always a convenient bonding device. The three make a nice insta-family.
Armand gets a letter saying Mark is getting married, so he and Lesley rush off to Israel to try to get him to return. They do not want him staying in scary Israel. Neither looks excited when Armand says, "Israel…homeland" on the plane (where Lesley has a super-comfy middle seat, and of course does not dream of complaining).
This time, the Syrians hit the tractor and kill a man. That sends the Israelis into war mode (and the movie into a ton of repeat footage). Mark's lithe pal takes up his spot in the old water tower while kooky supporting characters get mowed down. Mark saves him just before the tower is blown up, but the next bomb hits them.
Armand and Lesley are waiting at the hotel for Mark's arrival, having no idea what has happened. It's left to Cecile to deliver the bad news. The kid survived, protected by Mark's body. Joan is worried about Armand, who has remained totally silent, but Lesley sends them all home. The pain kills Armand, whose funeral is next.
The only good news is Cecile calling, saying she wants to see Lesley, and of course we know something is up before Lesley does. Cecile, alas, is not pregnant, but only because she's already given birth to Mark's daughter.
And there you have it, everything is neatly wrapped up and ti…oh, wait, no it's not. There's another character we forgot (no, not Joan, who has gotten short shrift since birth). Yup, Ian. He comes for lunch, but arrives hours early to see the love of his life. He announces he's moving to Italy, and naturally, that has been a connection of theirs for what, 800 years? Now the whole damn orchestra booms its last and the miniseries ends.
I must admit, "Evergreen" isn't quite as spectacular as I remembered, but I was younger then. I don't think it was ever a great piece, but it's not terrible either. With Lesley Ann Warren at the helm, that would be utterly impossible. She's the heart of the movie and she does it beautifully. It's only a shame she can't be in every scene. Able assist comes from Armand Assante, who knows his way around these pieces as well as she does, but his character is created as the heavy, so he doesn't have as much chance to delight as Lesley, who glows being the loving wonderful centerpiece.
They get awfully personal very quickly. Somehow a discussion of his job comes up and suddenly he's doing an ad for American patriotism, saying, "I have faith in America, I have faith in God…" Is he the first Jewish televangelist? They walk all the way to Central Park, which is quite a hike from the Lower East Side, but they are both so very interested in each other. Armand promises Lesley "one day I will take you to dinner" at the Plaza and they merrily pass the mansions of the super wealthy.
CHARACTER FLAW ALERT: Armand seems like a very nice man and he's liking Lesley, but he promises one day he'll be as rich as the people who own the mansions, though there's a wrinkle in that he's Jewish. As we all know, once a character show base ambition for something like money, there's trouble a-brewin'.
Lesley is more practical and decides to apply for a job at the mansions doing menial work. When she's hired, Lesley can't believe that she's living in a room with electric lights and a bathtub. The Jewish owner of the manse is Ian McShane, who is awfully kind to Lesley, at least partly because he's a horn dog.
He strikes up a conversation with her over breakfast and tells her to cancel a date with Armand because he wants to take her out. As expected, he picks the most glamorous establishment and Lesley, in the same outfit she's worn the whole time, is dazzled and doesn't know how to behave. While licking everything she can from the fork, she tells Ian that her parents and sisters are all dead. As for Ian, "everything has been done for me," explaining his silver spoon syndrome. Ian lays it on thicker than tar, not only in the restaurant, but back at home when he shows Lesley a painting he claims his mother says looks like Lesley.
And up swell the violins, the whole damn string section, in fact, so Ian can plant a very chaste kiss on her. She likes it, but knows she can't go further. This makes her time with Armand a bit stilted. Then again, he brings news of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, a surefire mood killer. Lesley winces for a moment, but then goes off into a fantasy about seeing Italy, because she's read about it in Ian's book. Armand is livid when he hears this since he's permanently chip-on-shoulderish when it comes to the rich. But, a scene later, any romantic notions Lesley possesses about Ian are shattered when it's announced he's about to be married.
This means that Lesley has to marry Armand. Well, it's doesn't exactly mean that, but the vagaries of romance novels and epics teach us it does. You never saw a less enthusiastic bride than Lesley, who stares blankly beyond Armand, who is unsettled to see this look in her eyes. Armand may have the beginnings of a capitalist prick, but he clearly adores his wife and she claims to be happy with him. We then go right to Lesley feeling her baby kick to the kid being five.
Armand has a money making scheme and wants Lesley to ask her former employers for a loan. She refuses, not explaining why, but he insists. When she gets there, Ian is the only one around since the rest, servants and all, are in the country. She wants only to ask Ian's mother, but Ian insists on doing the lending. "It would give me pleasure to do something for you," Ian notes and Lesley, suddenly a banking expert, explains the terms of the loan and Ian writes out a check. He confesses his longtime love for her, claiming to think about her every day. Romantic that she is, Lesley dashes across the room, the string section even busier than before, to kiss him. They have sex and Lesley feels terribly guilty.
For someone who used to be so anti-money, Armand is awfully excited to have some to start a real estate venture, but he's also confused as to why Ian wrote out of the check and not his mother. He questions why Ian would simply write out a check, though he doesn't pursue it because the check isn't rubber.
Cue pregnancy. Oh, come on, you aren't really surprised, are you? This happens in every similar tale. She tells the doctor it wasn't planned. "Some people call that an accident," he says, as if she's 11 years old, "I call it a miracle." Pro-life before such a thing existed, the doctor reminds her that "every child brings its own good fortune." As she walks home gloomily, Armand honks at her from his brand new car! "That's a baby and a motorcar on the same day!" Armand exclaims in delight when Lesley coyly tells him of her pregnancy (thank goodness Maury Povich and his incessant DNA tests are 100 or so years in the future). Hopefully, the excitement is in that order.
By 1928, things are booming for Lesley and Armand. They have bought an enormous house, Lesley wears a fox stole, the kids are enrolled in private school and they even have a cook! There is a supremely awkward moment at the daughter's birthday party where Lesley's cousin says, "you don't look like your mother, you don't look like your father, whose child are you?" Thankfully, everyone else is chattering and no one hears. AWKWARD! But, if she notices, it shouldn't be too long before others notice too. To make it even worse, at least for the viewers since we know the truth, Armand delivers a lengthy speech about the bond between fathers and daughters. DOUBLE AWKWARD!
After gooey sweetness like that, it's about time for some angst, wouldn't you say? Right on cue, the son decides he's bored with synagogue and doesn't want to go one particular Saturday so he can play with his friends. "None of my other friend have to go to shul," he whines. "None of your other friends are my son," Armand rages in return. Are you absolutely sure? After all, you're not really your daughter's father, but that's a plot point for way down the road.
Lesley and her daughter bump into Ian and his mother, the latter chirping to the daughter, "you don't look like your mother, you must look like your father" and then Ian joins them, staring at the girl.
A real corker of a scene follows. While the bratty daughter is practicing piano (badly), Armand sees in the paper that Ian's mother has died, but Lesley refuses to go to the funeral. Armand thinks it's because she's "risen too far in the world" and reminds her what that family did for them. True, but of course we know there's far more to it than that! Incidentally, so does her daughter, though not exactly what. "You wish I'd never been born!" she snaps as Lesley brushes her hair. "I'm not pretty, I'm plain," the girl says, ending the scene with a dippy non-sequiter.
As if this night can't get any sadder, Lesley's cousin's husband, Ron Rifkin, comes to borrow money and Armand refuses him, not willing to "put my family in danger." So, Ron does what a lot of people did after the bottom fell out of the stock market, he jumps. Armand is guilt-stricken big and bad when he gets the call. Also ruined is Armand's business partner, Brian Dennehey and, in fact Armand's whole real estate business. Bad news comes in threes, so when Armand gets home, he's greeted by the news that Ron had no life insurance.
To cut down on the pathos for a bit, Ian shows up to see Lesley, but is greeted instead by the surly daughter. He leaves a big box, which happens to contain the painting from his house his mother always swore reminded her of Lesley. Dour daughter suggests selling the painting, but Lesley mandates, "nobody is selling this painting." Ian pays another visit, this time to make sure the daughter is his and Lesley is forced to admit it. He then decides to take Lesley and the daughter away so they can all be together. Oh, yeah, that's going to go over well with Armand! She admits she loves Ian, but can't leave her husband. He begs her to consider his proposal, giving her until 4pm the next day to deliver an answer. Lesley does her best thinking in a negligee that evening, and goes to the rendezvous spot at 4pm the next day. "I cannot leave him," she tells a crestfallen Ian.
The first of "Evergreen's" three parts ends here (with more cascading violins). In roughly two hours, we have wedged in everything but the slumming vet (and WWI which slipped by unnoticed). Torn between two lovers, paternity questions, humble beginnings, death, bratty children and a brave heroine to tie it all together.
Part Two begins on a high note. Lesley's grown son, Tony Soper, has gotten into Yale and his little sister (who hasn't aged, even though there's a new actor playing the son) has knitted him a big sweater. Even more, Armand and Brian have gotten a big loan to expand their business. When the son makes a toast, he lays on the schmaltz. "To my mother, who is a goddess. To my growing-up sister, who is not a little devil, who is an angel, and to my father, who gives me a lot of trouble sometimes, but who is truly a king among men."
At Yale, the new freshman meets WASP drunk Boyd Gaines (giving an over-ripe performance that would not anticipate his 147 Tony Awards). The matriarch of the family is Betty Buckley (bingo, now we have the slumming vet, who actually had a Tony by this point). The problem is that Boyd's family hates Jews, well, except daughter Kate Burton, who falls in love with him. Romeo and Juliet have arrived, as they always do in a romance miniseries. "It won't be easy for me, being in love with a Jew," Kate chirps. "Don't worry, I love a good challenge," Tony laughs. Boyd is not in a joking mood when he warns Tony to stay away from his sister. Not only is Armand displeased, he throws the persecution of Jews in Germany into the conversation! "I won't change," Tony promises. "Cut off my right arm," is the reply to that, before Armand decrees that they will get over their supposed love and find people of similar religions to marry. "Don't bring the unthinkable to pass," Armand says as he hugs his son, sounding more like John Gotti than a Jewish real estate mogul.
With Armand and Lesley upset over Tony's decision, their daughter grows up to be Joan Allen, who can't get her parents' attention, and growls at them because of it. She is told her brother "will not be sitting here again." He married secretly the day before and both families have cut them off.
If Tony and Kate are Romeo and Juliet, Lesley, who hasn't been around much, is Lady Macbeth, mopping a perfectly clean floor at 3am. She gets one of those yowling explosions that every actress in a miniseries has (Lesley's experience in a musical version of "Gone With the Wind" about a decade earlier must have helped greatly), beating her husband and then crumpling into his arms. It only lasts a few moments so we can return to Tony and Kate getting smashed on a bottle of wine because he's gotten a job selling kids shoes. Zzzzzzzzzzz. This is the downside of generational sagas. Not all of the generations are interesting. Take this moment: Tony comes home and Kate is knitting. We know what that means immediately, but it takes what seems like an hour for Kate to tell Tony. Paint by numbers, this whole section of the miniseries is without any surprises. "Little babies don't cost that much," Kate says. That's a humdinger of a line, a scene-ender, no less!
Joan defies her father and visits her brother, though Armand says he wants to hear no mention of it. When Joan returns, Lesley is thrilled to hear she'll be a grandmother, news they decide to lay on Armand. "This is not my grandchild, because my grandchild is a Jew. [Tony's] child is nothing. He's a nothing," is all he cares to say on the matter.
Let's see how the other family reacts? Kate goes to see her folks. Betty is in the garden, gardening gloves on and holding a cigarette while the gardener does the actual work. "I don't think your father is going to be very happy to hear this news," Betty says, stifling a smile because she's actually thrilled. Papa is Robert Vaughn, wheelchair bound and crabby as all hell. "You're a fool," he chastises her, but it's obvious he wants to crack and get his daughter back.
That went better than expected, so Lesley is the next to crumble, going to see Tony at the shoe store. From there, she goes to Armand and Brian's office. Brian takes the news of a male grandchild to be of great importance, but Armand sticks to his policy. "When did you become unforgiving?" Brian snarls and Armand tells Lesley she can have the family over for dinner. "Don't expect me to say a word the whole night. I can't get involved," Armand adds, though not very believably. In fact, Tony and Kate get invites from both families.
Check your rulebooks. You know when people achieve sublime happiness in a miniseries, not only the rug, but the whole floor is about to pulled from under them. Joan answers the phone call from Boyd saying Tony and Kate have been killed in a car accident, but the baby is alive. Armand is there and then they have to tell Lesley. All she needs to do is see their faces to know.
It's time for a trial. You knew one had to pop up eventually. Which grandparents should have custody of the baby? Well, Brian actually has an interesting take, grumbling that "the Catholics and the Jews should write the laws. No one else understands about family." That's not particularly helpful, but it's said with conviction. We are actually spared court theatrics, just told that the judge granted custody to Kate's parents. Armand feels guilty. "I killed him," he says, referring to both Ron, the jumper, and Tony, hit by a truck. "I cannot help. I am empty," Lesley says, unable to give him the sympathy or forgiveness he needs.
In case you care, and I'm absolutely positive I don't, Ian is still around. He and Lesley meet for lunch at the very same restaurant they went to all those years ago (which has the same decor and all). After lunch, they go up to a cozy lodge in the mountains, swim, dance and talk about Joan before, well, we have to guess as the darkness overtakes everything.
By 1946, the grandkid is wheeling around Robert Vaughn, giving him a lesson in civics, telling the kid it's wrong for Jews to be moving into the neighborhood. "Colored with coloreds, Americans with Americans," Robert says. "David Freidman thinks he's an American," the kid replies. "Well, he's misinformed." Egad, that's awfully strong dialogue for marshmallow stickiness like "Evergreen!" It seems that Robert and Betty haven't told the kid the truth about half his family. Armand and Lesley are moving out to the suburbs to a big house of their own.
Into their lives comes Jan Triska, a Plastic Surgeon who outran the Nazis and managed to get to America. Everyone wants to set him up with Joan. As he tickles the ivories, they have a very deep conversation, perhaps the deepest so far, but it's way too late and far too stilted to pull in yet another mysterious new character. His proposal is rather clumsy, but she accepts anyway. Lesley and Armand are happy in bed knowing their daughter's future is secure.
Uh huh, until it's not.
And that brings the second portion to a close, and a rather happy one.
And just for that, the final portion of the miniseries starts as sadly as possible. We're told that Robert Vaughn has already died (after less than six minutes of screen time total) and Betty Buckley is sporting bad make-up, so when she tells her little grandson, "I'm going to die soon," he shouldn't really be surprised. Understandably, the kid wonders where he's to go, and though Boyd says he wants him, Betty feels it would be best if this little blond kid went with "your father's people." The kid definitely isn't pleased to hear the new people are Jewish and trots out Robert's ethnic slurs before cozying up to the Jewish kid in school. That doesn't go well.
The day of the hand-off arrives and, true to form, Lesley has more food than twenty people could eat, living up to at least one stereotype. The whole episode is very awkward, with only Lesley able to manage a chipper demeanor. Armand is scared and the kid is just petulant, though he softens a bit when seeing a picture of his father. Even more bizarre is the conversation between Lesley and Boyd, who removes enough luggage from the car to clothe 12 kids. Lesley says she personally knows what it's like to be "uprooted" at a young age and they talk about how Tom and Boyd met. "A young man falls off his bike and so many lives are changed," opines Lesley.
The kid runs away and is brought back by the police, and Lesley begs Armand to stay out of this particular conversation. She's rewarded with his loyalty.
With that settled, Lesley turns her attention to Joan, who speaks in riddles about her marriage. "Sometimes I think I love him too much," is one such line. What does it mean? Beats me.
For his birthday, the kid wants to join the local club, but they don't allow Jews. Armand has matured in his thinking somewhat and tells him he can be Jewish, Christian, whatever he wants, and if he wants to join the club, to do it. This means the kid has some thinking to do.
At a fancy banquet for a building Armand and Brian have created, Ian shows up to be introduced around and Armand reminds everyone that it was Ian who gave him the first seed money they ever received. A round of picture taking leaves Ian alone at the table with Joan and her husband. "Are you a father…you seem like someone who should have children," Joan notes, with Ian fumbling and lying that he's not. Then Ian and Lesley get some time together to catch up on 18 years. Ian invites her to dance and Lesley smiles, saying, "I suppose there is no harm in two people dancing." Not in real life, no, but this is a miniseries, where worlds are changed by a look or a mistaken gesture.
There's an inside joke on the dance floor that I had to stop and share with you. Ian wants to meet Lesley the next day, but she says no, she's going to a matinee of "The King and I." The dance ends and Lesley's son-in-law asks her to dance, leaving Ian and Joan to wait uncomfortably until deciding to dance together. Once they start, the take over the floor, the music swells and everyone else stops. The inside joke, of course, is that it very much resembles the climactic moment in "Shall We Dance?" in "The King and I." Do with that information what you please.
Ian shows up at the theater when it lets out, spotted by Armand, who sees the two of them together (neither the theater nor the marquee are correct, FYI). The car ride home is uncomfortable for both, though it's not until they get home that Armand tears into Lesley. Armand upends a table, but Lesley plays it well, sticking to the truth, though of course holding back the historical details surrounding it. Just when it seems she's calmed him, he slaps her hard across the face.
Let's jump ahead to 1959 (and pray lesley has no desire to see "The Sound of Music"). The kid is now grown up Mark Keyloun. He has been approached by Uncle Boyd to work in the oil business in the Middle East, which he claims makes Armand's building business seem "dull." Aunt Joan gives him some good advice and to do what he wants, not what Grandpa or Uncle Boyd wants. That leads him to worry about going to anti-Semetic Iran with Boyd.
Unexpectedly, we veer from the main characters long enough to dispense with Brian Dennehey, who develops an ulcer and decides to move to New Mexico. Just so you know.
Before starting work, Mark decides he wants to see Israel, which of course thrills his grandparents. A kindly bus driver, who use to drive a cab in Brooklyn, tells Mark that one must "walk into Jerusalem" the first time one goes, so as the faux Jewish music goes into overdrive, Mark rushes to see the Holy City.
With her cousin in the hospital, Lesley is already tired and worn out, but Joan finds out Jan is having an affair and needs her mother's sympathy. After all, Lesley is still the glue of the family. Lesley's advice is to "do nothing," and Joan can't understand why, but accepts it.
Enter Cecile Callan, a perky Dutch girl who works on a Kibbutz after having come to Israel simply for "SCUBA diving and boogying," but stayed to volunteer, even though she's not Jewish. Ah, how "history repeats itself" of them! The ominous music starts when we move over to Syria, where naturally the bad guys reside, spying on Cecile's Kibbutz and attempting to blow up a tractor. The Kibbutz residents are ready, having plans ready for such occurrences. This would be the exact moment Mark picks to arrive looking for Cecile. Mark takes to Kibbutz work like an old pro, skipping around and generally spreading mirth. He ten gets a shower scene during a Hebrew lesson. That's the first attempt at ANY sexuality in this entire miniseries. A scene later it gets even more hubba-hubba when Mark and Cecile go skinny dipping.
Mark also befriends a, well, friendless kid, a tough little boy who keeps watch in an abandoned water tower with a broom for a gun. They are both orphans, always a convenient bonding device. The three make a nice insta-family.
Armand gets a letter saying Mark is getting married, so he and Lesley rush off to Israel to try to get him to return. They do not want him staying in scary Israel. Neither looks excited when Armand says, "Israel…homeland" on the plane (where Lesley has a super-comfy middle seat, and of course does not dream of complaining).
This time, the Syrians hit the tractor and kill a man. That sends the Israelis into war mode (and the movie into a ton of repeat footage). Mark's lithe pal takes up his spot in the old water tower while kooky supporting characters get mowed down. Mark saves him just before the tower is blown up, but the next bomb hits them.
Armand and Lesley are waiting at the hotel for Mark's arrival, having no idea what has happened. It's left to Cecile to deliver the bad news. The kid survived, protected by Mark's body. Joan is worried about Armand, who has remained totally silent, but Lesley sends them all home. The pain kills Armand, whose funeral is next.
The only good news is Cecile calling, saying she wants to see Lesley, and of course we know something is up before Lesley does. Cecile, alas, is not pregnant, but only because she's already given birth to Mark's daughter.
And there you have it, everything is neatly wrapped up and ti…oh, wait, no it's not. There's another character we forgot (no, not Joan, who has gotten short shrift since birth). Yup, Ian. He comes for lunch, but arrives hours early to see the love of his life. He announces he's moving to Italy, and naturally, that has been a connection of theirs for what, 800 years? Now the whole damn orchestra booms its last and the miniseries ends.
I must admit, "Evergreen" isn't quite as spectacular as I remembered, but I was younger then. I don't think it was ever a great piece, but it's not terrible either. With Lesley Ann Warren at the helm, that would be utterly impossible. She's the heart of the movie and she does it beautifully. It's only a shame she can't be in every scene. Able assist comes from Armand Assante, who knows his way around these pieces as well as she does, but his character is created as the heavy, so he doesn't have as much chance to delight as Lesley, who glows being the loving wonderful centerpiece.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995)
In the years leading up to her death in 2011, Elizabeth Taylor said over and over she hated the idea of a movie being made of her life. As ideal as a movie of the world's greatest movie star (notice I didn't say actress, even Liz wouldn't have claimed that) would be, given the marriages, the money, the scandals, the drugs, the weight, the friendships, the years in the limelight and, of course, Larry Fortensky, Elizabeth Taylor refused to allow it.
The only problem is that she seems to have forgotten there already had been a movie made of her life. That would be "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story." No, to be honest, the miniseries is fairly forgettable, and Elizabeth Taylor probably did't give it ten minutes of thought even in 1995, but it exists and now I've waited a respectable amount of time since her death to dive into it.
Actually, if you want the truth, this was at the top of my pile when Elizabeth Taylor died and I thought it in bad taste to exploit the coincidence. I didn't feel that the great Elizabeth Taylor deserved to be remembered through the rather questionable merits and demerits of "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story" at that moment in history. Her own bad movies were being noted endlessly (and there are so many of them!) and even she giggled about them.
In 1995, Elizabeth Taylor was going through a very good time in her life: substance free, healthy, devoted to her AIDS charities and minting money from her fragrances. Thus, the miniseries is highly sympathetic, to the point of gooey. It's declawed and toothless, which is why the real Elizabeth Taylor probably feared what would happen if a bunch of talented people with the real story got together and filmed her life, proverbial warts and all. Even at Liz's basest moments here, she's still a goddess.
As a little girl, Elizabeth is caught between two squabbling parents, her pushy mother and her silent father. Mother Sara (Christine Healy) wants to whip the young British lass off to Hollywood to make a star out of her. When asked if she wants to be one, an uncommonly mature Elizabeth has this to say about not being a movie star: "I want to be an actress. Actresses make people believe anything." Sara clamps down on that one. "Yes, well, actress go hungry. I saw enough of them when I tried for a career in the theater…but movie starts have everything!"
And that sets up the entire movie right there. Elizabeth wanted more than to be the most beautiful woman in the world, the consummate "movie star," someone with talent. Well, she had her moments on film, some great ones, but as great actress, only in fits and spurts.
Wearing a signature gigantic hat, Hedda Hopper (Katherine Helmond) doesn't seem much potential in Elizabeth while she's singing a ditty (something she wouldn't do again until the film version of "A Little Night Music" in the 1970s and that one had the ears of Sondheim fans bleeding), but when Elizabeth talks to Hedda's dog, Hedda sees something worthwhile in the child. Hedda sweeps Elizabeth Taylor off to the audition for "Lassie Come Home," where she uses a broom to step in for a the dog (in three scenes, we've had three dogs already) and BAM, Elizabeth gets the role.
Hedda and Sara disagree with Elizabeth's desire to do "National Velvet," because she's too young, so we get a montage of Elizabeth aging while balancing books on her head to pass the time until she is old enough (they held the filming just for her?). She takes a huge fall during one scene and insists they continue, with a speech to her mother about loving being a movie star that sounds like idiotic poetry.
At age 17, Sherilyn Fenn steps into play Elizabeth Taylor as she does the first of one of her most famous famous photo shoots. Uncomfortable with her body (that wouldn't last long), she is told by the photographer, "you have bosoms, so stick them out!" Ready to burst her bubble is Montgomery Clift (William McNamara), who tells her, "this is Hollywood, even the ugly people are beautiful." The two have an instant rapport, based on studio-provide drugs, Elizabeth's mothering instincts and Monty's insecurities, but this friendship would last until the day he died. They film "A Place in the Sun," where Elizabeth was at her most ravishing and only then realizes he's gay (the presence of another man doesn't hurt), and she's wonderfully supportive, "telling him "Mama will always be here for you." To be fair to Elizabeth Taylor, her lifelong support of homosexual friends and the community at large was real.
Out at a nightclub with pal Debbie Reynolds (Judith Jones), exhorting her to act like the teenage she still is and have fun, Elizabeth sees Nicky Hilton (Eric Gustavson). Upon hearing herself called "Liz Taylor," she says "I hate that name," to which he replies, "Liz? Or Taylor? I can change one of them." Wow, if Nicky Hilton is given a clunker like that, I can't wait to see how John Warner will romance her!
After securing Monty's blessing, Elizabeth marries Nicky in 1950. Things are sour from the start, as Nicky has no sense of romance, a hot temper and is downright rude. He punches her on their honeymoon and she files for divorce. One down.
In 1951, filming "Ivanhoe" in London, Elizabeth is not having a good time of it, until she's introduced to suave Michael Wilding (Nigel Havers). He's witty, intelligent and speaks like he's reading from a dictionary of quotes, all of which appeals to her. She returns to MGM, demanding he be put under contract and she gets pregnant, ultimately having two kids with Michael. Things unravel when Michael can't stand the scripts he's being sent. "Dignity doesn't pay the bills," she reminds him of a Hollywood truth, "I do, as in four dreadful films back-to-back." She wants him to participate.
Then comes "Giant," which gets a hoot of a set-up. Liz arrives to greet Rock Hudson (Daniel McVicar), who gives us all straight-man wooden, and James Dean, who can't be bothered to speak to anyone. Old friend and director George Stevens (Eugene Roche) tells her, "until you get rid of that phony MGM veneer, you'll never be an actress," so she storms into her trailer. She emerges dressed down and without any veneer, charming the cast and crew with a water pistol and immediately everyone's favorite. Drunk and enjoying themselves, Elizabeth and Rock bond, but it's then that Michael shows up, poodle under each arm. He assumes there's something going on between the two (and their was, a great friendship), hurls the poodles at her and his end rapidly approaches.
Actually, Monty sympathizes with Michael's plight, at least until the fateful accident. Leaving Elizabeth's home drunk, Clift lost control of his car. By all accounts, including this one, LIz rushed to the scene of the accident, pulled his teeth from his throat and saved his life. He would continue on for a number of years in Hollywood, his face scarred and his spirit broken. "I've missed you, you sweet old disaster," Elizabeth coos to Monty in the hospital. Without even bothering to ask him how he is, she rhapsodizes over meeting MIchael Todd. Goodbye Michael Wilding.
Mike Todd (Ray Wide) is everything Elizabeth is not. He's not at all cultured or sophisticated, direct and crass. He invites her to a meeting at the studio, where he's late, and then launches into a ramble about his assets, ending with his promise to marry her. She's turned off by his bulldog ways, but when she returns to film "Raintree Country" with a broken Monty, Mike Todd shows up with flowers. "Roses, how perfectly ordinary," Liz snaps, then producing a ring, playing to her lifelong adoration of jewels. "You've been married to a kid and an old man. Time you took a mate…sure, I roar, you roar back!" he tells her and she's in love again, even converting to Judaism to marry him, with old pal Debbie and her husband Eddie Fisher (Corey Parker) in attendance. Mike does big weddings, with an insane fireworks display over Acapulco.
Theirs is a comically volatile relationship. Having dinner with the Fishers, they launch into a gigantic physical scrape, but when Debbie tries to stop them, she's called "square" as the Todds as "is there dessert?" They even manage time for a baby.
The two are supposed to fly to New York City where Mike is getting an award, but Elizabeth has a fever and cannot fly with him. When Mike doesn't call at a designated time, Elizabeth worries, and of course her premonitions are correct. The next morning, Debbie brings the bad news. Debbie is a rock of support. Eddie, a rock of a different sort. Carrie Fisher describes that hullabaloo best, certainly better than this stodgy movie, where she falls for him out of loneliness, saying "I feel like half a pair of scissors without him." Not the most romantic metaphor, but Eddie was pretty dim, so he doesn't comment. "I think Mike would want you to get on with your life," Eddie replies. Resistant to going back to work, she (and her manipulative director) decides going back to work will be the tonic she needs.
Eddie invites Liz to his Vegas opening, where Debbie is sure not to be. Eddie confesses to Liz that he's fallen in love with her and in 1958, they are together, thus starting the most enduring scandal of Elizabeth Taylor's life. Gossip-hounding Hedda interviews Debbie and then Elizabeth, bringing different hats to each interview. Hedda warns Elizabeth against the negative publicity. "Mike's dead! I'm alive. What do you expect me to do, sleep alone?" Elizabeth snaps, in one of her less well-planned outbursts.
Dr. Feelgood Max Jacobson has prescribed medication for Eddie, which Liz finds horrifying. "My medications are prescribed by a real doctor," she snaps. When the folks making "Cleopatra" call, she jokingly demands $1 million against the gross of the first dollar and they accept! However, she has to do "Butterfield 8" before "Cleopatra" and she refuses. MGM stands its ground and could kill her career if she'd doesn't do it. "You can make me do it, but you can't make me act it," she rails, and history (though not the Academy) would prove that right! Oh, and she insists that Eddie play the male lead, which he does, incredibly badly (and if you believe this version, even coaching from Monty Clift doesn't help, though something tells me Monty wouldn't have bothered with a no-talent like Eddie).
This movie is not exactly subtle and one can see the end of a Liz Taylor marriage when the currently husband is asked to hold the dogs. By 1961, Eddie is holding the dogs. Liz is doing pills and weak-willing Eddie complains about his dying career. "Every man I've ever know has either died or abandoned me," Liz says at what is clearly the least inappropriate time for such a speech, followed as it is by Liz's bronchial trouble that landed her in the hospital with the first of her truly major near-death experiences. "Everyone loves you," Eddie now gets to say, the tide having finally turned in her favor. The marriage troubles aren't helped by Liz rasping to her mother that she saw Mike Todd when she "died" and he's waiting for her.
Believe history or believe gossip, Elizabeth Taylor wins her first Oscar for "Butterfield 8," giving the performance of a lifetime in her acceptance speech. It's at the Oscars she learns that Richard Burton will be playing Antony in Cleopatra. "Who?" she asks.
Richard Burton (Angus MacFadyen) is everything studio-trained Elizabeth is not, as shown by the dramatic finale to the first part of the miniseries, where Richard is quoting Shakespeare and drinking, Elizabeth being made up in the infamous Cleopatra make-up, which would set the tone for an entire decade.
There are sparks from the onset, double entendres, nasty barbs, and lines like this from Burton on creating their characters: "people can't fall in love without actually falling in love a little." "You'll notice I never marry my leading men," she retorts. In actuality, it's Burton who is out of his element here. Liz is the true movie star, with nearly two decades of filming experience under her belt, while Burton is exceedingly nervous and drunk.
Elizabeth's solution to marriage problems and an unsettling life is to adopt a baby, one with a malformed hip. "I told you, she'd need me," Liz tells Eddie, having done it for all the wrong reasons. The on-set barbs with Burton get wittier (or stupider, if you ask me), a surefire way to prove they are falling in love. Then character kissing goes on too long. The director and producer carp that at least he gets her to the set on time and she likes him because she adores bad boys. With Sybil Burton and Eddie Fisher looking on helplessly and unhappily, the Burton-Taylor romance builds in full public view. Elizabeth seems charmed by Richard's insane desire to speak every line with wild overacting, even off the set. When they escape to a private Italian villa, Elizabeth launches into her age-old boo-hoo on never being able to find love because she's been too busy (Liz always considered her love for Todd very real, before, during and after Burton, so it's merely bad dialogue.
What is real is the outrageous banter flung between them, the romance lived publicly and loudly, and the delays that caused on "Cleopatra." The only person not encouraging the Burton-Taylor romance (which has been good publicity), is poor dumb Eddie, who tries his best to escape. "Sybil and Elizabeth are both my girls," drunken Richard exclaims, showing up comically drunk at a party. "Come here and kiss me," he tells her, which she does, as a dinner party of extras and, most importantly, Eddie, look on. Elizabeth believes in their romance, but Richard refuses to leave his family, causing more drinking and drugging by Liz, accompanied by another trip to the hospital. But, on the bright side, Liz is denounced by the Vatican. Not everyone can claim that. "Can you sue the Pope?" she wonders aloud.
With "Cleopatra" finally filmed, Elizabeth asks where they go now, leading to the worst line of the entire movie. Burton replies, "someplace terrifying, like reality." Liz is not in the mood for wit, as the end of every movie brings up her abandonment issues (which, according to the movie don't technically exist as her father is still around, he ditched three out of four husbands and only one died on her).
Richard turns up at Elizabeth's Swiss chalet with the script to "The VIPs," the most satisfying of their movies because it's the goofiest and cheesiest. Unfortunately, since the movie wants the Burton-Taylor romance to be the center of the movie, we have to suffer through more unbearable dialogue that makes up more unbearable scenes, such as when Liz offers to be Richard's mistress, publicly. If he would stop speaking in quotes, it might be less annoying. Endlessly, he's drunk, they fight, they make up, he gives her jewelry, he drinks, he drinks, he drinks…
And then comes this exchange, after Richard was supposed to inform his wife he proposed to Elizabeth:
"You can have a wife and a mistress, but you cannot have a wife and a fiancee."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm the fiancee."
Now that's snappy! Unfortunately, that's the only snap in over two hours of canned dialogue.
After his Broadway triumph in "Hamlet," it's off to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," where Liz starts to live the harridan role a bit too much (including porking up), though Richard drinks just like George would. The arguments turn funny, at least to observe. Even Fenn and MacFayden don't deserve to utter such crap. "I hate our games," Elizabeth says after one particularly awful row. But they don't stop. There are still a ton of movies to make. It's turing "Taming of the Shrew" that Montgomery Clift dies and Elizabeth is inconsolable, though Richard has little sympathy for "the broken heart." How did he die? "A life overdose," Liz says.
Elizabeth wins an Oscar, but she's upset because Richard doesn't. After 13 days of sobriety, Richard gets so drunk we have to skip ahead to 1972 since nothing happened in the meantime except more of the same. He does buy her the Krupp Diamond, quipping to a dowager, "that's the way we like it, diamonds on the front page, bad reviews on the back."
The marriage unravels, and we know that because Richard has started hauling around the dogs. Since she's the heroine, we skip over her drinking, and suddenly Richard is just a sad aging creature dragging them down. She breaks up with him by sending the press a note. But, they do get married again. And then quickly divorced. Exit Burton (for now).
In 1976, Liz is in Washington, DC, attending a gala with Senator John Warner (Charles Frank), the further thing from a Hollywood leading man Liz has known since, well, ever. She's there to celebrate the Bicentennial with the Virginia politician, whose farm and love of animals delights her. "This is my childhood. I feel like I'm back in England," she says, though that would be somewhat of a lie. Worse is a bizarre piece of incorrect dialogue when she tells Warner, "I've had five husbands and five divorces." Well, not quite. She's had six husbands by that point (including Burton twice) and the marriage to Todd ended in death. I admit, getting this far in the film hasn't been easy, but even if you just started, you would know that line to be completely false.
She marries Warner basically because he's the opposite of anything she's ever known, and just in time to campaign for him as he runs for Senate. She's a great asset, but Fenn has to do it in a fat suit because these were Elizabeth Taylor's chunky years. Warner is against women in the military and the ERA, which brings him into public disagreement with Liz, a lifelong Democrat. So, she continues to eat.
After he wins, she gets ridiculously plump, not to mention bored. And the Warner marriages bites the dust, though he's spared the indignity of having to carry any dogs.
It's back to Burton for an ill-conceived Broadway revival of "Private Lives" (her triumphant Broadway debut in "The Little Foxes" is ignored), where Burton is noticeably ailing. She's thinner, but now addicted to pills. The movie also fails to note that the show was a bomb, barely eking out its Broadway run and giving up its tour prematurely.
When Liz ends up in the hospital, her family stages an intervention and Liz helps put the Betty Ford Clinic on the map, mopping floors in her high heels. She makes it through recovery (this time), but Burton dies, alcohol crystals scraped from his spine, but has to go to his grave alone at the family's request.
"I'm a survivor, it's in the genes," she tells a very sick Rock Hudson when finding him withering away from AIDS, sympathetic and loving, as she would be for the rest of her life to everyone affected by the epidemic. A stately (and thin) Liz becomes the face of AIDS awareness, possibly giving up acting for the cause, though early on, it wasn't easy for Elizabeth to enlist famous friends for the cause.
Unfortunately, she ends up back in rehab. This time, she meets Larry Fortensky (Michael McGrady), who helps remind her of who she is and what she has accomplished. In less than 10 seconds, she also decides to start a perfume empire (and name it).
The make-up artists go all out as Liz turns 60, when she was so thin, her head threatened to topple her body. Sitting with her mother by the pool, she says, "I've known great love." "And you've given great love," Sara says, without a trace of irony. There, surrounded by her family, the movie ends.
Frankly, Elizabeth Taylor deserves a better retelling of her life. This one is so white-washed, and it needn't have been. Especially after her stints in rehab, Elizabeth Taylor was the first one to laugh at herself, right up until the end. She would joke about her past, joke about her status as an actress and her many loves, the only topic off limits to even her saucy sense of humor being her work for AIDS. She lived grandly and loved it. According to this movie, she lived a bit recklessly and didn't have a whole lot of fun. Since Elizabeth Taylor said she did not want a movie made of her life (having forgotten this one), I suppose inevitably that means someone will ignore the request, so let's hope they dive into it with the same élan Elizabeth displayed her entire life.
rr
The only problem is that she seems to have forgotten there already had been a movie made of her life. That would be "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story." No, to be honest, the miniseries is fairly forgettable, and Elizabeth Taylor probably did't give it ten minutes of thought even in 1995, but it exists and now I've waited a respectable amount of time since her death to dive into it.
Actually, if you want the truth, this was at the top of my pile when Elizabeth Taylor died and I thought it in bad taste to exploit the coincidence. I didn't feel that the great Elizabeth Taylor deserved to be remembered through the rather questionable merits and demerits of "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story" at that moment in history. Her own bad movies were being noted endlessly (and there are so many of them!) and even she giggled about them.
In 1995, Elizabeth Taylor was going through a very good time in her life: substance free, healthy, devoted to her AIDS charities and minting money from her fragrances. Thus, the miniseries is highly sympathetic, to the point of gooey. It's declawed and toothless, which is why the real Elizabeth Taylor probably feared what would happen if a bunch of talented people with the real story got together and filmed her life, proverbial warts and all. Even at Liz's basest moments here, she's still a goddess.
As a little girl, Elizabeth is caught between two squabbling parents, her pushy mother and her silent father. Mother Sara (Christine Healy) wants to whip the young British lass off to Hollywood to make a star out of her. When asked if she wants to be one, an uncommonly mature Elizabeth has this to say about not being a movie star: "I want to be an actress. Actresses make people believe anything." Sara clamps down on that one. "Yes, well, actress go hungry. I saw enough of them when I tried for a career in the theater…but movie starts have everything!"
And that sets up the entire movie right there. Elizabeth wanted more than to be the most beautiful woman in the world, the consummate "movie star," someone with talent. Well, she had her moments on film, some great ones, but as great actress, only in fits and spurts.
Wearing a signature gigantic hat, Hedda Hopper (Katherine Helmond) doesn't seem much potential in Elizabeth while she's singing a ditty (something she wouldn't do again until the film version of "A Little Night Music" in the 1970s and that one had the ears of Sondheim fans bleeding), but when Elizabeth talks to Hedda's dog, Hedda sees something worthwhile in the child. Hedda sweeps Elizabeth Taylor off to the audition for "Lassie Come Home," where she uses a broom to step in for a the dog (in three scenes, we've had three dogs already) and BAM, Elizabeth gets the role.
Hedda and Sara disagree with Elizabeth's desire to do "National Velvet," because she's too young, so we get a montage of Elizabeth aging while balancing books on her head to pass the time until she is old enough (they held the filming just for her?). She takes a huge fall during one scene and insists they continue, with a speech to her mother about loving being a movie star that sounds like idiotic poetry.
At age 17, Sherilyn Fenn steps into play Elizabeth Taylor as she does the first of one of her most famous famous photo shoots. Uncomfortable with her body (that wouldn't last long), she is told by the photographer, "you have bosoms, so stick them out!" Ready to burst her bubble is Montgomery Clift (William McNamara), who tells her, "this is Hollywood, even the ugly people are beautiful." The two have an instant rapport, based on studio-provide drugs, Elizabeth's mothering instincts and Monty's insecurities, but this friendship would last until the day he died. They film "A Place in the Sun," where Elizabeth was at her most ravishing and only then realizes he's gay (the presence of another man doesn't hurt), and she's wonderfully supportive, "telling him "Mama will always be here for you." To be fair to Elizabeth Taylor, her lifelong support of homosexual friends and the community at large was real.
Out at a nightclub with pal Debbie Reynolds (Judith Jones), exhorting her to act like the teenage she still is and have fun, Elizabeth sees Nicky Hilton (Eric Gustavson). Upon hearing herself called "Liz Taylor," she says "I hate that name," to which he replies, "Liz? Or Taylor? I can change one of them." Wow, if Nicky Hilton is given a clunker like that, I can't wait to see how John Warner will romance her!
After securing Monty's blessing, Elizabeth marries Nicky in 1950. Things are sour from the start, as Nicky has no sense of romance, a hot temper and is downright rude. He punches her on their honeymoon and she files for divorce. One down.
In 1951, filming "Ivanhoe" in London, Elizabeth is not having a good time of it, until she's introduced to suave Michael Wilding (Nigel Havers). He's witty, intelligent and speaks like he's reading from a dictionary of quotes, all of which appeals to her. She returns to MGM, demanding he be put under contract and she gets pregnant, ultimately having two kids with Michael. Things unravel when Michael can't stand the scripts he's being sent. "Dignity doesn't pay the bills," she reminds him of a Hollywood truth, "I do, as in four dreadful films back-to-back." She wants him to participate.
Then comes "Giant," which gets a hoot of a set-up. Liz arrives to greet Rock Hudson (Daniel McVicar), who gives us all straight-man wooden, and James Dean, who can't be bothered to speak to anyone. Old friend and director George Stevens (Eugene Roche) tells her, "until you get rid of that phony MGM veneer, you'll never be an actress," so she storms into her trailer. She emerges dressed down and without any veneer, charming the cast and crew with a water pistol and immediately everyone's favorite. Drunk and enjoying themselves, Elizabeth and Rock bond, but it's then that Michael shows up, poodle under each arm. He assumes there's something going on between the two (and their was, a great friendship), hurls the poodles at her and his end rapidly approaches.
Actually, Monty sympathizes with Michael's plight, at least until the fateful accident. Leaving Elizabeth's home drunk, Clift lost control of his car. By all accounts, including this one, LIz rushed to the scene of the accident, pulled his teeth from his throat and saved his life. He would continue on for a number of years in Hollywood, his face scarred and his spirit broken. "I've missed you, you sweet old disaster," Elizabeth coos to Monty in the hospital. Without even bothering to ask him how he is, she rhapsodizes over meeting MIchael Todd. Goodbye Michael Wilding.
Mike Todd (Ray Wide) is everything Elizabeth is not. He's not at all cultured or sophisticated, direct and crass. He invites her to a meeting at the studio, where he's late, and then launches into a ramble about his assets, ending with his promise to marry her. She's turned off by his bulldog ways, but when she returns to film "Raintree Country" with a broken Monty, Mike Todd shows up with flowers. "Roses, how perfectly ordinary," Liz snaps, then producing a ring, playing to her lifelong adoration of jewels. "You've been married to a kid and an old man. Time you took a mate…sure, I roar, you roar back!" he tells her and she's in love again, even converting to Judaism to marry him, with old pal Debbie and her husband Eddie Fisher (Corey Parker) in attendance. Mike does big weddings, with an insane fireworks display over Acapulco.
Theirs is a comically volatile relationship. Having dinner with the Fishers, they launch into a gigantic physical scrape, but when Debbie tries to stop them, she's called "square" as the Todds as "is there dessert?" They even manage time for a baby.
The two are supposed to fly to New York City where Mike is getting an award, but Elizabeth has a fever and cannot fly with him. When Mike doesn't call at a designated time, Elizabeth worries, and of course her premonitions are correct. The next morning, Debbie brings the bad news. Debbie is a rock of support. Eddie, a rock of a different sort. Carrie Fisher describes that hullabaloo best, certainly better than this stodgy movie, where she falls for him out of loneliness, saying "I feel like half a pair of scissors without him." Not the most romantic metaphor, but Eddie was pretty dim, so he doesn't comment. "I think Mike would want you to get on with your life," Eddie replies. Resistant to going back to work, she (and her manipulative director) decides going back to work will be the tonic she needs.
Eddie invites Liz to his Vegas opening, where Debbie is sure not to be. Eddie confesses to Liz that he's fallen in love with her and in 1958, they are together, thus starting the most enduring scandal of Elizabeth Taylor's life. Gossip-hounding Hedda interviews Debbie and then Elizabeth, bringing different hats to each interview. Hedda warns Elizabeth against the negative publicity. "Mike's dead! I'm alive. What do you expect me to do, sleep alone?" Elizabeth snaps, in one of her less well-planned outbursts.
Dr. Feelgood Max Jacobson has prescribed medication for Eddie, which Liz finds horrifying. "My medications are prescribed by a real doctor," she snaps. When the folks making "Cleopatra" call, she jokingly demands $1 million against the gross of the first dollar and they accept! However, she has to do "Butterfield 8" before "Cleopatra" and she refuses. MGM stands its ground and could kill her career if she'd doesn't do it. "You can make me do it, but you can't make me act it," she rails, and history (though not the Academy) would prove that right! Oh, and she insists that Eddie play the male lead, which he does, incredibly badly (and if you believe this version, even coaching from Monty Clift doesn't help, though something tells me Monty wouldn't have bothered with a no-talent like Eddie).
This movie is not exactly subtle and one can see the end of a Liz Taylor marriage when the currently husband is asked to hold the dogs. By 1961, Eddie is holding the dogs. Liz is doing pills and weak-willing Eddie complains about his dying career. "Every man I've ever know has either died or abandoned me," Liz says at what is clearly the least inappropriate time for such a speech, followed as it is by Liz's bronchial trouble that landed her in the hospital with the first of her truly major near-death experiences. "Everyone loves you," Eddie now gets to say, the tide having finally turned in her favor. The marriage troubles aren't helped by Liz rasping to her mother that she saw Mike Todd when she "died" and he's waiting for her.
Believe history or believe gossip, Elizabeth Taylor wins her first Oscar for "Butterfield 8," giving the performance of a lifetime in her acceptance speech. It's at the Oscars she learns that Richard Burton will be playing Antony in Cleopatra. "Who?" she asks.
Richard Burton (Angus MacFadyen) is everything studio-trained Elizabeth is not, as shown by the dramatic finale to the first part of the miniseries, where Richard is quoting Shakespeare and drinking, Elizabeth being made up in the infamous Cleopatra make-up, which would set the tone for an entire decade.
There are sparks from the onset, double entendres, nasty barbs, and lines like this from Burton on creating their characters: "people can't fall in love without actually falling in love a little." "You'll notice I never marry my leading men," she retorts. In actuality, it's Burton who is out of his element here. Liz is the true movie star, with nearly two decades of filming experience under her belt, while Burton is exceedingly nervous and drunk.
Elizabeth's solution to marriage problems and an unsettling life is to adopt a baby, one with a malformed hip. "I told you, she'd need me," Liz tells Eddie, having done it for all the wrong reasons. The on-set barbs with Burton get wittier (or stupider, if you ask me), a surefire way to prove they are falling in love. Then character kissing goes on too long. The director and producer carp that at least he gets her to the set on time and she likes him because she adores bad boys. With Sybil Burton and Eddie Fisher looking on helplessly and unhappily, the Burton-Taylor romance builds in full public view. Elizabeth seems charmed by Richard's insane desire to speak every line with wild overacting, even off the set. When they escape to a private Italian villa, Elizabeth launches into her age-old boo-hoo on never being able to find love because she's been too busy (Liz always considered her love for Todd very real, before, during and after Burton, so it's merely bad dialogue.
What is real is the outrageous banter flung between them, the romance lived publicly and loudly, and the delays that caused on "Cleopatra." The only person not encouraging the Burton-Taylor romance (which has been good publicity), is poor dumb Eddie, who tries his best to escape. "Sybil and Elizabeth are both my girls," drunken Richard exclaims, showing up comically drunk at a party. "Come here and kiss me," he tells her, which she does, as a dinner party of extras and, most importantly, Eddie, look on. Elizabeth believes in their romance, but Richard refuses to leave his family, causing more drinking and drugging by Liz, accompanied by another trip to the hospital. But, on the bright side, Liz is denounced by the Vatican. Not everyone can claim that. "Can you sue the Pope?" she wonders aloud.
With "Cleopatra" finally filmed, Elizabeth asks where they go now, leading to the worst line of the entire movie. Burton replies, "someplace terrifying, like reality." Liz is not in the mood for wit, as the end of every movie brings up her abandonment issues (which, according to the movie don't technically exist as her father is still around, he ditched three out of four husbands and only one died on her).
Richard turns up at Elizabeth's Swiss chalet with the script to "The VIPs," the most satisfying of their movies because it's the goofiest and cheesiest. Unfortunately, since the movie wants the Burton-Taylor romance to be the center of the movie, we have to suffer through more unbearable dialogue that makes up more unbearable scenes, such as when Liz offers to be Richard's mistress, publicly. If he would stop speaking in quotes, it might be less annoying. Endlessly, he's drunk, they fight, they make up, he gives her jewelry, he drinks, he drinks, he drinks…
And then comes this exchange, after Richard was supposed to inform his wife he proposed to Elizabeth:
"You can have a wife and a mistress, but you cannot have a wife and a fiancee."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm the fiancee."
Now that's snappy! Unfortunately, that's the only snap in over two hours of canned dialogue.
After his Broadway triumph in "Hamlet," it's off to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," where Liz starts to live the harridan role a bit too much (including porking up), though Richard drinks just like George would. The arguments turn funny, at least to observe. Even Fenn and MacFayden don't deserve to utter such crap. "I hate our games," Elizabeth says after one particularly awful row. But they don't stop. There are still a ton of movies to make. It's turing "Taming of the Shrew" that Montgomery Clift dies and Elizabeth is inconsolable, though Richard has little sympathy for "the broken heart." How did he die? "A life overdose," Liz says.
Elizabeth wins an Oscar, but she's upset because Richard doesn't. After 13 days of sobriety, Richard gets so drunk we have to skip ahead to 1972 since nothing happened in the meantime except more of the same. He does buy her the Krupp Diamond, quipping to a dowager, "that's the way we like it, diamonds on the front page, bad reviews on the back."
The marriage unravels, and we know that because Richard has started hauling around the dogs. Since she's the heroine, we skip over her drinking, and suddenly Richard is just a sad aging creature dragging them down. She breaks up with him by sending the press a note. But, they do get married again. And then quickly divorced. Exit Burton (for now).
In 1976, Liz is in Washington, DC, attending a gala with Senator John Warner (Charles Frank), the further thing from a Hollywood leading man Liz has known since, well, ever. She's there to celebrate the Bicentennial with the Virginia politician, whose farm and love of animals delights her. "This is my childhood. I feel like I'm back in England," she says, though that would be somewhat of a lie. Worse is a bizarre piece of incorrect dialogue when she tells Warner, "I've had five husbands and five divorces." Well, not quite. She's had six husbands by that point (including Burton twice) and the marriage to Todd ended in death. I admit, getting this far in the film hasn't been easy, but even if you just started, you would know that line to be completely false.
She marries Warner basically because he's the opposite of anything she's ever known, and just in time to campaign for him as he runs for Senate. She's a great asset, but Fenn has to do it in a fat suit because these were Elizabeth Taylor's chunky years. Warner is against women in the military and the ERA, which brings him into public disagreement with Liz, a lifelong Democrat. So, she continues to eat.
After he wins, she gets ridiculously plump, not to mention bored. And the Warner marriages bites the dust, though he's spared the indignity of having to carry any dogs.
It's back to Burton for an ill-conceived Broadway revival of "Private Lives" (her triumphant Broadway debut in "The Little Foxes" is ignored), where Burton is noticeably ailing. She's thinner, but now addicted to pills. The movie also fails to note that the show was a bomb, barely eking out its Broadway run and giving up its tour prematurely.
When Liz ends up in the hospital, her family stages an intervention and Liz helps put the Betty Ford Clinic on the map, mopping floors in her high heels. She makes it through recovery (this time), but Burton dies, alcohol crystals scraped from his spine, but has to go to his grave alone at the family's request.
"I'm a survivor, it's in the genes," she tells a very sick Rock Hudson when finding him withering away from AIDS, sympathetic and loving, as she would be for the rest of her life to everyone affected by the epidemic. A stately (and thin) Liz becomes the face of AIDS awareness, possibly giving up acting for the cause, though early on, it wasn't easy for Elizabeth to enlist famous friends for the cause.
Unfortunately, she ends up back in rehab. This time, she meets Larry Fortensky (Michael McGrady), who helps remind her of who she is and what she has accomplished. In less than 10 seconds, she also decides to start a perfume empire (and name it).
The make-up artists go all out as Liz turns 60, when she was so thin, her head threatened to topple her body. Sitting with her mother by the pool, she says, "I've known great love." "And you've given great love," Sara says, without a trace of irony. There, surrounded by her family, the movie ends.
Frankly, Elizabeth Taylor deserves a better retelling of her life. This one is so white-washed, and it needn't have been. Especially after her stints in rehab, Elizabeth Taylor was the first one to laugh at herself, right up until the end. She would joke about her past, joke about her status as an actress and her many loves, the only topic off limits to even her saucy sense of humor being her work for AIDS. She lived grandly and loved it. According to this movie, she lived a bit recklessly and didn't have a whole lot of fun. Since Elizabeth Taylor said she did not want a movie made of her life (having forgotten this one), I suppose inevitably that means someone will ignore the request, so let's hope they dive into it with the same élan Elizabeth displayed her entire life.
rr
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Baby M (1988)
Those who remember the 80s almost have to remember Baby M. Granted, there were a lot of babies to get through. There was Baby Jessica, who fell down a well and was there for what seemed like days while we held our collective breaths. There was poor tragic Baby Faye who was given no chance to live upon birth and was implanted with the heart of a baboon, which unfortunately still did not save her.
There were others, but Baby M is understandably the most famous because of what she represented. The Baby M case actually led to court rulings on parental surrogacy. A fascinating story with a great many twists and turns, it is juicy fodder for a miniseries and this one is literally "ripped from the headlines." The case was only being settled in 1988, when Baby M was just two years old.
As a miniseries, "Baby M" does not exactly fit neatly into any of our big three categories of romance, miniseries or history, at least not at the time it first aired. In hindsight, of course it's historical, but at the time it was capitalization on a gigantic news story, one that went on and on, though at the time no one knew just how historic the court decisions regarding the case would be.
There are only two ways to do something like this circa 1988, as trash (Betty Broderick) or as documentary. Luckily, "Baby M" plays it fair and turns out to be a very sensitive retelling of a heart wrenching and difficult story. Granted, not all of the true life people handled the situation sensitively, which gives the miniseries its sweeping emotional moments (none as cheap as Betty Broderick, mind you), but it's true to the story and very fair. And naturally, what beats a courtroom showdown on TV?
In 1979, a brief scene at a doctor's office shows that something is wrong physically with Elizabeth Stern (Robin Strasser), given support by her loyal husband Bill (John Shea).
Three years later, Marybeth Whitehead (JoBeth Williams) is watching TV and hears about surrogacy for the first time.
In 1983, Bill's mother dies, leaving him the last person in his family. "I never wanted to be the end of my family. I wanted to be the beginning," he says to his wife. "I wish I could give you one," she replies. Both of them want children. "We'll find a way to have a family," she promises. At the same time, Marybeth informs her friends that she offered to be a surrogate for some friends, but they decided against it.
By 1984, Marybeth has seen an ad in the paper looking for a surrogate, but her husband Rick (Bruce Weitz) is against Marybeth doing it. "You're always going off and doing something for somebody else," he rather caustically tells her. The offer comes with $10K, which is attractive, though Rick is worried he won't get laid for nine months! Some sweet talk overcomes that hurdle and then Marybeth goes through physical and psychological tests to make sure she's "surrogate material." The psychologist can't make the final decision, but she tells Marybeth, "let's just say summer is coming, but I wouldn't be buying bikinis if I were you."
Okay, that sounds like a really awful groaner, but it's important to remember just how casual this whole situation was at the time. The issue of surrogacy was not a typical occurrence and even the medical profession wasn't fully prepared. The psychologist notes in her tape recorder that she has some reservations about Marybeth, who has a tendency to "hide feelings" who could have attachment issues, but recommends her anyway.
Bill and Betsy Stern go to an infertility clinic, agree to all the terms and the fees while Marybeth is having trouble getting pregnant for another couple, as it's been over a decade since her last pregnancy. The Sterns review every file the clinic has over the course of three months and pick three candidates. None turn out to be right, but coincidentally, Marybeth's application has just arrived as the couple she was helping had a low sperm count.
In January 1985, the Sterns and the Whiteheads finally meet for dinner in New Jersey. The initial meeting is up and down. Marybeth is thrilled to hear that Betsy is a Pediatrician, but disappointed to know that after only a few weeks of maternity leave, she would be going back to work. "If you think we're going to come knocking at your doorstep after that baby is born, you can stop worrying," Marybeth blithely says after asking the Sterns what they would tell the child about his or her history, where they note at age 18, they would allow the child to know the full story. "All I'd want is a year photograph and a letter, something like that," Marybeth adds before asking the Sterns, "do you want me?" They do.
Bill and Marybeth go to the clinic together to donate their sperm and eggs for the first time in February, but it doesn't take the first time. Marybeth is so comfortable with the process that she involves her daughter (and her daughter's Cabbage Patch Kid) and invites the Sterns to be a part of the Whiteheads lives, which everyone does eagerly. Betsy is a bit uncomfortable with Marybeth's friskiness and some of the Whitehead family dynamics, but all of that disappears by August when Marybeth finally becomes pregnant.
There are some awkward moments that could have been telling. For instance, when Marybeth tells the Sterns, "it's a shame you don't live closer, maybe I could babysit once in a while," the color drains from Bill's face. Betsy, being a doctor, had certain conditions written into the contract, like an amnio, but Marybeth is not thrilled to be doing it. Marybeth and her doctor are both annoyed with Betsy's constant calling to check in. "Did you ever hear of doctor-patient confidentiality?" Marybeth snaps. "We're not in court," Betsy replies, "we're just two people who want the same thing." It gets even worse as Marybeth nears delivery, and her demands are worrisome, such as not allowing Betsy in the delivery room and not handing over the baby in the hospital. Plus, Rick has delayed signing an affidavit of paternity, which says Bill is the father and this leads to an argument where a drunken Rick and Marybeth are at each other's throats.
Baby M is born on March 27, 1986. The hospital does not know about the surrogacy and treat Marybeth and Rick like they were any normal new parents. "I love her so much," Marybeth cries, "I don't think I can go through with it," and Rick agrees. Betsy and Bill are besides themselves with excitement.
March 30 is supposed to be the handover date, but it's clear the Whiteheads, including their children, are already deeply attached to the baby. "You knew this was going to be hard, Marybeth," Rick says as he, Marybeth and even their daughter are crying. Betsy says they have decided to name her Melissa Elizabeth, with the middle name representing both Betsy and Marybeth. "I don't feel like living anymore," Marybeth whines, and the Sterns have to walk a fine line with a very depressed Marybeth, who wants visitation, vacations and such.
All Marybeth can think of is getting the baby back. "She's my flesh and blood, she's part of us, she's my baby!" Marybeth wails until Rick finally says, "then go get her." Meanwhile, the Sterns are rapturously happy with their baby…until Marybeth pays a visit. Once she picks up the baby, it looks like she's never going to put her down. Betsy and everyone chalk it up to hormonal changes, or even "mourning" as her sister calls it. A desperate Marybeth begs to have the baby for one week "and I'll be out of your lives forever." Bill suggests Marybeth stay with them for a week, but Marybeth demands to have the baby for a week. Unfortunately, Bill feels bad for Marybeth and agrees, the worst thing possible. "Please reconsider," he asks as she's leaving the house with the baby.
Marybeth decides to take the baby to visit her family in Florida and even Rick can see that's not a great idea. "I'm her mother, do you think I'm gonna let anything happen to her?" she notes. "What about the Sterns?" he asks. "I don't know…I only know I'm never giving the baby away again. It's my baby."
Bill calls the infertility clinic looking for Marybeth's psychological profile and reads that the doctor warned of this situation. The clinic had misplaced this report when they saw her file, but refuse to take any responsibility, even going so far as to offer another surrogacy and "I'd waive the $7500 fee," the head of the place tells Bill. Ouch!
Marybeth delays and delays and since the Sterns don't know she's in Florida, they can't exactly go get the baby. When she returns and the Sterns visit, they still defy logic and let Marybeth keep her, always worried about Marybeth's suicidal threats. With the baby in her arms, Marybeth announces she will not give the baby back. Legally, she's in breech of contract, but Betsy warns of what a court fight will cost, financially and emotionally. When Marybeth threatens to call the police, the Sterns finally have to go. "You knew you were taking a risk and you lost," Marybeth tells them after faking a fainting spell.
The Whiteheads get a new birth certificate to call the baby Sara and Marybeth isn't afraid to spew venom about the Sterns. The Sterns hire lawyer Gary Skoloff, who by the first week in May has the case in front of a judge. The judge orders the baby be given to the Sterns and they show up at the Whiteheads with the police. Rick produces their birth certificate, saying they know no baby Melissa Stern, only Sara Whitehead. As the police dither, Rick sneaks the baby away.
Even Marybeth's parents think she's wrong. While they hide out in Florida, the judge (Dakin Matthews) orders the Whitehead assets frozen. "They want to destroy us, all because I changed my mind, because I don't want to play God. What right do they have?" Marybeth rails. The Sterns track down the Whiteheads, so the Whiteheads leave their kids in Florida and "drive…just anywhere." The miniseries jumps the tracks a little with a very 80s montage of the exhausted Whiteheads driving endlessly and the Sterns wait out the weeks, all while the popular tune "Sara" plays.
Nine weeks of this has Rick on edge. After Marybeth insists they baptize the baby, he demands to know what her plan is. She doesn't know. Finally, she calls Bill, who records the call. Bill tries to be rational, but Marybeth is irrational, blaming Bill for her loss of her house, her kids, her car, even her dogs, "just because I changed my mind." Bill reminds her that the judge is the one who made all of that happen so as not to antagonize her further. "What do we do, cut her in half?" Marybeth asks, trying to get him to agree to somehow share the baby with her. "Why do you have to be so selfish?" she asks during the hysterical phone call (which, incidentally for those of us with eagle eyes, has a big problem--notice that Marybeth walks around the house with the phone, the cord of which isn't attached to anything). "Just forget that you have a daughter, because I would rather see me and her dead before you get her," Marybeth threatens to the ever-sympathetic Bill, who has bent over backwards for her sanity. Of course there's the inevitable, "I gave her life, I can take her life away" part of the speech. The conversation goes on endlessly as Marybeth switches emotions ferociously but ends with the killing business (which of course she never intended to carry out).
It's increasingly difficult to have any sympathy for Marybeth Whitehead, but the miniseries does not completely rule her out. In fact, by spending most of the time on her (and JoBeth Williams' terrific performance), the Sterns are made to seem a bit distant, not as emotionally connected. Certainly Marybeth was in the wrong for not only violating the agreement, but spiriting the baby around from hiding place to hiding place, but without actually saying so, the miniseries does show the degree to which a mother will go for her flesh and blood, no matter what documents may say. There's something powerful about that, even if it's legally, morally and ethically wrong.
Marybeth calls Bill back another day, this time downright angry because no lawyer will touch her side of the case since there are "no laws on surrogacy." "I will be making history, do you understand?" she asks with a far less demented tone.
But, that soon changes with the moment where the facts are too strong against Marybeth to keep dangling much sympathy for her. She tells Bill her daughter is ready to testify that Bill sexually abused her in the car. Bill hangs up, now fully intent on fighting Marybeth rather than appeasing her.
The strain lands Marybeth in the hospital with a blood infection that nearly kills her. It was proceeded by a fit where Marybeth thought her kids had been taken. Rick's bizarre reaction to it is that anyone who saw her crazed that much for her kids would never taken one away and Marybeth once again asserts that no one is laying a hand on any of her babies.
Famous last words. The sheriff sneaks into Marybeth's mother's house where they are staying with a court order to take the baby. With Mom, the kids and Rick all screaming, the sheriff takes the baby and brings her to the Sterns. "I will never ever ever let you go again," Bill says to the baby. Marybeth counters with a press conference from her hospital bed.
A pretrial hearing denies the Whiteheads custody of the baby. "We'll win this one in the court of public opinion," Marybeth's lawyer says as Marybeth and her daughter turn into consummate actresses, able to turn on the waterworks just when the press are snapping pictures. While the Sterns refuse to talk to the press, Marybeth is only too happy to indulge them, spinning yarns like "they were only looking to see what stock I came from, like they were buying a side of beef" and saying that the the Sterns are unemotional and don't actually care.
The court assigns a lawyer just to the baby, Lorraine Abraham (Anne Jackson) and the judge agrees that Baby M will stay with the Sterns during the legal proceedings. Marybeth gets visitation rights for a few hours a week, but the judge advises that he's only doing what's best for the baby "not for the adults." Naturally, Marybeth spins that quite differently to the press, where not only does Marybeth say that Bill is no more than "sperm donor" (she's always agreed that he was the father), but that Betsy purposely delayed having children, so it's her fault! The thinking there is that if Betsy really is not infertile, somehow it invalidates the surrogacy, because "Marybeth agreed to help an infertile couple." That's awfully shaky logic, but it made sense to a lot of people at the time.
The trial finally starts in January of 1987. The Whitehead lawyer is also on shaky ground in his opening argument, saying "the issue here is motherhood and whether money can buy everything." No, money can't, but a signed contract can. He goes from there to say his clients are not educated (noting Rick's time in Vietnam while "the Sterns were in college) and thus "the niceties of a contract were lost on them." After the two sides go at it, Lorraine makes the most impassioned and logical speech on behalf of the baby (of course, picking a great actress like Anne Jackson helps things along). Her opinion is that a contract is binding. "The terms of this contract are clear," she says, adding "while performance is painful, it is not impossible."
Bill is first to testify and we finally find out what the condition is that made Betsy incapable of carrying a child: multiple sclerosis. Though this did not make her technically infertile, the risk that came with childbirth was very high and Bill says this is how it was explained to Marybeth. Then it's Betsy's turn, who remains calm and great with facts, reminding everyone how willing the Whiteheads were to give up the baby upon agreement and manages to trounce the Whitehead lawyer with her professionalism.
When Rick testifies, the Stern lawyer makes sure he admits that the money in the contract was a great inducement. They rehash the surrender of the baby and the issue of two names, where Rick has to admit he knew the court order was for the baby, despite the birth certificate they had drawn up.
It's not that the Sterns and their lawyer can't use the press as well. When asked if their money is the issue, Gary steps in to say that the Whiteheads have rolled out three times as many expert (paid) witnesses, right as they are arriving for court in a limousine, quite a stretch for the Whiteheads.
Of the four, last up is Marybeth to testify. She claims she doesn't remember the specifics of the first meeting with the Sterns. Her testimony rings false, resting solely on the detail of infertility. Even she has to admit that nothing in the agreement lets her keep the baby. On top of that, Gary brings up a $1 million federal suit against the infertility suit she filed, which doesn't help her. Her credibility is pretty much shot.
Lorraine hires doctors to do evaluations and the show the Whiteheads put on is sheer desperation, dressing the kids up, buying large stuffed animals and such. The Sterns don't seem to be acting as they are grilled by the pros. Plus, Bill has the best answer of all when asked what he would want in terms of visitation if the Whiteheads got her. He says nothing, so as not to confuse her.
The first part of the court case, the contract phase, ends, and then comes the custody phase, which gives everyone the chance to testify again, this time with tears. The Sterns both testify that they would not allow Marybeth any visitation rights if they won because of the way she has handled the press, her own children and the case by lying. The tape of Marybeth's threatening conversation to kill herself and the baby is played. When she testifies, Marybeth claims she didn't mean what she said. No one, even her own lawyer, can make the tape sound beneficial to her case. Marybeth claims if she were awarded custody, she would give the Sterns visitation rights, which sounds as hollow a promise as it is. Marybeth even defends her husband's love of drinking as having no effect on anyone in the family. She has to admit to lying under oath in the deposition phase about a domestic incident at the house where the Whiteheads had "pushed" each other. It was far more than that, in actuality a huge physical fight which reflects very badly on them. The lies pile up and Marybeth is decimated not just by Gary's performance, but her own stupidity. It just gets worse and worse for Marybeth. Frankly, the court phase of the miniseries needs only the exact testimony to devastate the Whitehead claim. It could be delivered by puppets and make her sound ridiculous.
Lorraine gets to question Marybeth as well and her questions are not even intended to dismantle Marybeth, but Marybeth's lies and evasions continue to hurt her. The experts testify as they are supposed to, saying exactly what everyone expects them to say, though not too many are on Marybeth's side completely. Lorraine's surprising advice is to give the Sterns custody, but to give Marybeth visitation rights.
Ultimately, the court finds for the Sterns, validating the contract and then blasts Marybeth for her bad behaviors. She is not in court when the verdict is announced, instead entertaining the press on her lawn.
In the aftermath (meaning after the movie was finished), Marybeth appealed and though the New Jersey Supreme Court had some harsh words for the trial judge, it upheld the verdict, though granting Marybeth visitation rights. Marybeth and Rick divorced and Marybeth had a child by another man.
In the nearly 25 years since the Baby M case, it seems almost impossible that such a case could have existed. A contract is a contract and it's unlikely that too much stock would be given to emotion, as was the case here. However, none of that was clear at the time. Surrogacy itself was entering the public conscience and it took an explosion like little Baby M to start the ball rolling on legislation.
However, none of that is the point of the movie either. The movie is merely a retelling of the story, a very factual one at that, with initial sympathies divided. By the trial phase, there is no doubt that Marybeth had been dishonest and shady, so the movie has no choice but to show that, but yet it ends with Marybeth questioning whether she will have visitation rights, so perhaps there was more to her than the disreputable character the court saw.
There were others, but Baby M is understandably the most famous because of what she represented. The Baby M case actually led to court rulings on parental surrogacy. A fascinating story with a great many twists and turns, it is juicy fodder for a miniseries and this one is literally "ripped from the headlines." The case was only being settled in 1988, when Baby M was just two years old.
As a miniseries, "Baby M" does not exactly fit neatly into any of our big three categories of romance, miniseries or history, at least not at the time it first aired. In hindsight, of course it's historical, but at the time it was capitalization on a gigantic news story, one that went on and on, though at the time no one knew just how historic the court decisions regarding the case would be.
There are only two ways to do something like this circa 1988, as trash (Betty Broderick) or as documentary. Luckily, "Baby M" plays it fair and turns out to be a very sensitive retelling of a heart wrenching and difficult story. Granted, not all of the true life people handled the situation sensitively, which gives the miniseries its sweeping emotional moments (none as cheap as Betty Broderick, mind you), but it's true to the story and very fair. And naturally, what beats a courtroom showdown on TV?
In 1979, a brief scene at a doctor's office shows that something is wrong physically with Elizabeth Stern (Robin Strasser), given support by her loyal husband Bill (John Shea).
Three years later, Marybeth Whitehead (JoBeth Williams) is watching TV and hears about surrogacy for the first time.
In 1983, Bill's mother dies, leaving him the last person in his family. "I never wanted to be the end of my family. I wanted to be the beginning," he says to his wife. "I wish I could give you one," she replies. Both of them want children. "We'll find a way to have a family," she promises. At the same time, Marybeth informs her friends that she offered to be a surrogate for some friends, but they decided against it.
By 1984, Marybeth has seen an ad in the paper looking for a surrogate, but her husband Rick (Bruce Weitz) is against Marybeth doing it. "You're always going off and doing something for somebody else," he rather caustically tells her. The offer comes with $10K, which is attractive, though Rick is worried he won't get laid for nine months! Some sweet talk overcomes that hurdle and then Marybeth goes through physical and psychological tests to make sure she's "surrogate material." The psychologist can't make the final decision, but she tells Marybeth, "let's just say summer is coming, but I wouldn't be buying bikinis if I were you."
Okay, that sounds like a really awful groaner, but it's important to remember just how casual this whole situation was at the time. The issue of surrogacy was not a typical occurrence and even the medical profession wasn't fully prepared. The psychologist notes in her tape recorder that she has some reservations about Marybeth, who has a tendency to "hide feelings" who could have attachment issues, but recommends her anyway.
Bill and Betsy Stern go to an infertility clinic, agree to all the terms and the fees while Marybeth is having trouble getting pregnant for another couple, as it's been over a decade since her last pregnancy. The Sterns review every file the clinic has over the course of three months and pick three candidates. None turn out to be right, but coincidentally, Marybeth's application has just arrived as the couple she was helping had a low sperm count.
In January 1985, the Sterns and the Whiteheads finally meet for dinner in New Jersey. The initial meeting is up and down. Marybeth is thrilled to hear that Betsy is a Pediatrician, but disappointed to know that after only a few weeks of maternity leave, she would be going back to work. "If you think we're going to come knocking at your doorstep after that baby is born, you can stop worrying," Marybeth blithely says after asking the Sterns what they would tell the child about his or her history, where they note at age 18, they would allow the child to know the full story. "All I'd want is a year photograph and a letter, something like that," Marybeth adds before asking the Sterns, "do you want me?" They do.
Bill and Marybeth go to the clinic together to donate their sperm and eggs for the first time in February, but it doesn't take the first time. Marybeth is so comfortable with the process that she involves her daughter (and her daughter's Cabbage Patch Kid) and invites the Sterns to be a part of the Whiteheads lives, which everyone does eagerly. Betsy is a bit uncomfortable with Marybeth's friskiness and some of the Whitehead family dynamics, but all of that disappears by August when Marybeth finally becomes pregnant.
There are some awkward moments that could have been telling. For instance, when Marybeth tells the Sterns, "it's a shame you don't live closer, maybe I could babysit once in a while," the color drains from Bill's face. Betsy, being a doctor, had certain conditions written into the contract, like an amnio, but Marybeth is not thrilled to be doing it. Marybeth and her doctor are both annoyed with Betsy's constant calling to check in. "Did you ever hear of doctor-patient confidentiality?" Marybeth snaps. "We're not in court," Betsy replies, "we're just two people who want the same thing." It gets even worse as Marybeth nears delivery, and her demands are worrisome, such as not allowing Betsy in the delivery room and not handing over the baby in the hospital. Plus, Rick has delayed signing an affidavit of paternity, which says Bill is the father and this leads to an argument where a drunken Rick and Marybeth are at each other's throats.
Baby M is born on March 27, 1986. The hospital does not know about the surrogacy and treat Marybeth and Rick like they were any normal new parents. "I love her so much," Marybeth cries, "I don't think I can go through with it," and Rick agrees. Betsy and Bill are besides themselves with excitement.
March 30 is supposed to be the handover date, but it's clear the Whiteheads, including their children, are already deeply attached to the baby. "You knew this was going to be hard, Marybeth," Rick says as he, Marybeth and even their daughter are crying. Betsy says they have decided to name her Melissa Elizabeth, with the middle name representing both Betsy and Marybeth. "I don't feel like living anymore," Marybeth whines, and the Sterns have to walk a fine line with a very depressed Marybeth, who wants visitation, vacations and such.
All Marybeth can think of is getting the baby back. "She's my flesh and blood, she's part of us, she's my baby!" Marybeth wails until Rick finally says, "then go get her." Meanwhile, the Sterns are rapturously happy with their baby…until Marybeth pays a visit. Once she picks up the baby, it looks like she's never going to put her down. Betsy and everyone chalk it up to hormonal changes, or even "mourning" as her sister calls it. A desperate Marybeth begs to have the baby for one week "and I'll be out of your lives forever." Bill suggests Marybeth stay with them for a week, but Marybeth demands to have the baby for a week. Unfortunately, Bill feels bad for Marybeth and agrees, the worst thing possible. "Please reconsider," he asks as she's leaving the house with the baby.
Marybeth decides to take the baby to visit her family in Florida and even Rick can see that's not a great idea. "I'm her mother, do you think I'm gonna let anything happen to her?" she notes. "What about the Sterns?" he asks. "I don't know…I only know I'm never giving the baby away again. It's my baby."
Bill calls the infertility clinic looking for Marybeth's psychological profile and reads that the doctor warned of this situation. The clinic had misplaced this report when they saw her file, but refuse to take any responsibility, even going so far as to offer another surrogacy and "I'd waive the $7500 fee," the head of the place tells Bill. Ouch!
Marybeth delays and delays and since the Sterns don't know she's in Florida, they can't exactly go get the baby. When she returns and the Sterns visit, they still defy logic and let Marybeth keep her, always worried about Marybeth's suicidal threats. With the baby in her arms, Marybeth announces she will not give the baby back. Legally, she's in breech of contract, but Betsy warns of what a court fight will cost, financially and emotionally. When Marybeth threatens to call the police, the Sterns finally have to go. "You knew you were taking a risk and you lost," Marybeth tells them after faking a fainting spell.
The Whiteheads get a new birth certificate to call the baby Sara and Marybeth isn't afraid to spew venom about the Sterns. The Sterns hire lawyer Gary Skoloff, who by the first week in May has the case in front of a judge. The judge orders the baby be given to the Sterns and they show up at the Whiteheads with the police. Rick produces their birth certificate, saying they know no baby Melissa Stern, only Sara Whitehead. As the police dither, Rick sneaks the baby away.
Even Marybeth's parents think she's wrong. While they hide out in Florida, the judge (Dakin Matthews) orders the Whitehead assets frozen. "They want to destroy us, all because I changed my mind, because I don't want to play God. What right do they have?" Marybeth rails. The Sterns track down the Whiteheads, so the Whiteheads leave their kids in Florida and "drive…just anywhere." The miniseries jumps the tracks a little with a very 80s montage of the exhausted Whiteheads driving endlessly and the Sterns wait out the weeks, all while the popular tune "Sara" plays.
Nine weeks of this has Rick on edge. After Marybeth insists they baptize the baby, he demands to know what her plan is. She doesn't know. Finally, she calls Bill, who records the call. Bill tries to be rational, but Marybeth is irrational, blaming Bill for her loss of her house, her kids, her car, even her dogs, "just because I changed my mind." Bill reminds her that the judge is the one who made all of that happen so as not to antagonize her further. "What do we do, cut her in half?" Marybeth asks, trying to get him to agree to somehow share the baby with her. "Why do you have to be so selfish?" she asks during the hysterical phone call (which, incidentally for those of us with eagle eyes, has a big problem--notice that Marybeth walks around the house with the phone, the cord of which isn't attached to anything). "Just forget that you have a daughter, because I would rather see me and her dead before you get her," Marybeth threatens to the ever-sympathetic Bill, who has bent over backwards for her sanity. Of course there's the inevitable, "I gave her life, I can take her life away" part of the speech. The conversation goes on endlessly as Marybeth switches emotions ferociously but ends with the killing business (which of course she never intended to carry out).
It's increasingly difficult to have any sympathy for Marybeth Whitehead, but the miniseries does not completely rule her out. In fact, by spending most of the time on her (and JoBeth Williams' terrific performance), the Sterns are made to seem a bit distant, not as emotionally connected. Certainly Marybeth was in the wrong for not only violating the agreement, but spiriting the baby around from hiding place to hiding place, but without actually saying so, the miniseries does show the degree to which a mother will go for her flesh and blood, no matter what documents may say. There's something powerful about that, even if it's legally, morally and ethically wrong.
Marybeth calls Bill back another day, this time downright angry because no lawyer will touch her side of the case since there are "no laws on surrogacy." "I will be making history, do you understand?" she asks with a far less demented tone.
But, that soon changes with the moment where the facts are too strong against Marybeth to keep dangling much sympathy for her. She tells Bill her daughter is ready to testify that Bill sexually abused her in the car. Bill hangs up, now fully intent on fighting Marybeth rather than appeasing her.
The strain lands Marybeth in the hospital with a blood infection that nearly kills her. It was proceeded by a fit where Marybeth thought her kids had been taken. Rick's bizarre reaction to it is that anyone who saw her crazed that much for her kids would never taken one away and Marybeth once again asserts that no one is laying a hand on any of her babies.
Famous last words. The sheriff sneaks into Marybeth's mother's house where they are staying with a court order to take the baby. With Mom, the kids and Rick all screaming, the sheriff takes the baby and brings her to the Sterns. "I will never ever ever let you go again," Bill says to the baby. Marybeth counters with a press conference from her hospital bed.
A pretrial hearing denies the Whiteheads custody of the baby. "We'll win this one in the court of public opinion," Marybeth's lawyer says as Marybeth and her daughter turn into consummate actresses, able to turn on the waterworks just when the press are snapping pictures. While the Sterns refuse to talk to the press, Marybeth is only too happy to indulge them, spinning yarns like "they were only looking to see what stock I came from, like they were buying a side of beef" and saying that the the Sterns are unemotional and don't actually care.
The court assigns a lawyer just to the baby, Lorraine Abraham (Anne Jackson) and the judge agrees that Baby M will stay with the Sterns during the legal proceedings. Marybeth gets visitation rights for a few hours a week, but the judge advises that he's only doing what's best for the baby "not for the adults." Naturally, Marybeth spins that quite differently to the press, where not only does Marybeth say that Bill is no more than "sperm donor" (she's always agreed that he was the father), but that Betsy purposely delayed having children, so it's her fault! The thinking there is that if Betsy really is not infertile, somehow it invalidates the surrogacy, because "Marybeth agreed to help an infertile couple." That's awfully shaky logic, but it made sense to a lot of people at the time.
The trial finally starts in January of 1987. The Whitehead lawyer is also on shaky ground in his opening argument, saying "the issue here is motherhood and whether money can buy everything." No, money can't, but a signed contract can. He goes from there to say his clients are not educated (noting Rick's time in Vietnam while "the Sterns were in college) and thus "the niceties of a contract were lost on them." After the two sides go at it, Lorraine makes the most impassioned and logical speech on behalf of the baby (of course, picking a great actress like Anne Jackson helps things along). Her opinion is that a contract is binding. "The terms of this contract are clear," she says, adding "while performance is painful, it is not impossible."
Bill is first to testify and we finally find out what the condition is that made Betsy incapable of carrying a child: multiple sclerosis. Though this did not make her technically infertile, the risk that came with childbirth was very high and Bill says this is how it was explained to Marybeth. Then it's Betsy's turn, who remains calm and great with facts, reminding everyone how willing the Whiteheads were to give up the baby upon agreement and manages to trounce the Whitehead lawyer with her professionalism.
When Rick testifies, the Stern lawyer makes sure he admits that the money in the contract was a great inducement. They rehash the surrender of the baby and the issue of two names, where Rick has to admit he knew the court order was for the baby, despite the birth certificate they had drawn up.
It's not that the Sterns and their lawyer can't use the press as well. When asked if their money is the issue, Gary steps in to say that the Whiteheads have rolled out three times as many expert (paid) witnesses, right as they are arriving for court in a limousine, quite a stretch for the Whiteheads.
Of the four, last up is Marybeth to testify. She claims she doesn't remember the specifics of the first meeting with the Sterns. Her testimony rings false, resting solely on the detail of infertility. Even she has to admit that nothing in the agreement lets her keep the baby. On top of that, Gary brings up a $1 million federal suit against the infertility suit she filed, which doesn't help her. Her credibility is pretty much shot.
Lorraine hires doctors to do evaluations and the show the Whiteheads put on is sheer desperation, dressing the kids up, buying large stuffed animals and such. The Sterns don't seem to be acting as they are grilled by the pros. Plus, Bill has the best answer of all when asked what he would want in terms of visitation if the Whiteheads got her. He says nothing, so as not to confuse her.
The first part of the court case, the contract phase, ends, and then comes the custody phase, which gives everyone the chance to testify again, this time with tears. The Sterns both testify that they would not allow Marybeth any visitation rights if they won because of the way she has handled the press, her own children and the case by lying. The tape of Marybeth's threatening conversation to kill herself and the baby is played. When she testifies, Marybeth claims she didn't mean what she said. No one, even her own lawyer, can make the tape sound beneficial to her case. Marybeth claims if she were awarded custody, she would give the Sterns visitation rights, which sounds as hollow a promise as it is. Marybeth even defends her husband's love of drinking as having no effect on anyone in the family. She has to admit to lying under oath in the deposition phase about a domestic incident at the house where the Whiteheads had "pushed" each other. It was far more than that, in actuality a huge physical fight which reflects very badly on them. The lies pile up and Marybeth is decimated not just by Gary's performance, but her own stupidity. It just gets worse and worse for Marybeth. Frankly, the court phase of the miniseries needs only the exact testimony to devastate the Whitehead claim. It could be delivered by puppets and make her sound ridiculous.
Lorraine gets to question Marybeth as well and her questions are not even intended to dismantle Marybeth, but Marybeth's lies and evasions continue to hurt her. The experts testify as they are supposed to, saying exactly what everyone expects them to say, though not too many are on Marybeth's side completely. Lorraine's surprising advice is to give the Sterns custody, but to give Marybeth visitation rights.
Ultimately, the court finds for the Sterns, validating the contract and then blasts Marybeth for her bad behaviors. She is not in court when the verdict is announced, instead entertaining the press on her lawn.
In the aftermath (meaning after the movie was finished), Marybeth appealed and though the New Jersey Supreme Court had some harsh words for the trial judge, it upheld the verdict, though granting Marybeth visitation rights. Marybeth and Rick divorced and Marybeth had a child by another man.
In the nearly 25 years since the Baby M case, it seems almost impossible that such a case could have existed. A contract is a contract and it's unlikely that too much stock would be given to emotion, as was the case here. However, none of that was clear at the time. Surrogacy itself was entering the public conscience and it took an explosion like little Baby M to start the ball rolling on legislation.
However, none of that is the point of the movie either. The movie is merely a retelling of the story, a very factual one at that, with initial sympathies divided. By the trial phase, there is no doubt that Marybeth had been dishonest and shady, so the movie has no choice but to show that, but yet it ends with Marybeth questioning whether she will have visitation rights, so perhaps there was more to her than the disreputable character the court saw.
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