Movie Review: The Good House (2021)

Genre: Alcoholism Dramedy  

Directors: Maya Forbes, Wally Wolodarsky  

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Morena Baccarin  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: In picturesque Wendover, Massachusetts, Hildy Good (Sigourney Weaver) is a realtor with a drinking problem. Having lost her (also alcoholic) mother to suicide and her husband to another man, Hildy is now concealing her drinking from her two grown daughters and attempting to revive her struggling business. She attempts to sell the house of a couple with an autistic child while pursuing an opportunity to rekindle a relationship with old flame Frank (Kevin Kline). She also gets into the middle of an affair between newcomer Rebecca (Morena Baccarin) and the town's therapist Peter (Rob Delaney).

What Works Well: In this adaptation of the Ann Leary novel, Sigourney Weaver is predictably excellent as a woman lying to herself and drowning in the misconception that she is the smartest person in town. Kevin Kline adds heft as the successful local scrappy businessman hiding empathy beneath layers of grime. The gossipy everyone-knows-everything-about-everyone-else small town milieu energizes the backdrop, and the eclectic collection of secondary characters adds plenty of animation.

What Does Not Work As Well: Hildy's frequent breaking of the fourth wall is a questionable artistic decision, and ultimately this is a story steeped in familiarity.

Key Quote:

Hildy, recognizing she's walked into an intervention: Well, if we're really going to do this, I need a drink.

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Movie Review: My Salinger Year (2020)

Also Known As: My New York Year  

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Philippe Falardeau  

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver  

Running Time: 101 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1995, aspiring writer Joanna Rakoff (Margaret Qualley) abandons Berkeley college (and her boyfriend) and moves to New York City. She lands a job at an old-school literary agency as the assistant to the demanding Margaret (Sigourney Weaver), who represents legendary but reclusive author J.D. Salinger. Joanna is tasked with sending form response letters to Salinger's fans, but does not abandon dreams of becoming a writer. In her personal life she enters a relationship with socialist Don (Douglas Booth), and as she delves deeper into Salinger's mystique, life gets more complicated.

What Works Well: Based on writer Joanna Rakoff's actual experiences as recounted in her book, this is an intimate and heartfelt journey into a dusty corner of the literary world. Carrying echoes of Working Girl and The Devil Wears Prada but with softer analog edges, Joanna finds herself unwittingly occupying a front row seat to the Salinger enigma. Her well-meaning attempts to treat his fans with more respect backfire into a few episodes of humour and fantasy, while personal growth and the sharpening of life's ambitions flow naturally from exposure to office dynamics and leaning into professional challenges. Margaret Qualley is an engaging lead, and Sigourney Weaver adds texture as the technophobe boss stoutly defending the past.

What Does Not Work As Well: The few attempts at broader philosophical musings cannot hide the deeply personal and ultimately narrow application of the material.

Key Quote:

Margaret: Writers make the worst assistants. Get to work.



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Movie Review: Red Lights (2012)

Genre: Investigative Thriller  

Director: Rodrigo Cortés  

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: Academic physicists Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Dr. Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) run a side-business debunking psychics and paranormal advocates. Margaret's student Sally (Elizabeth Olsen) joins their investigations and starts a romance with Tom. When celebrity blind psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) surprisingly comes out of retirement, Tom is eager to expose him as a fraud, but Margaret is more careful.

What Works Well: The first act introduces interesting characters and adds depth to Dr. Matheson through a side story involving her son, while the debunking sessions and academic sparring with rival physicist Dr. Shackleton (Toby Jones) are sharp. The cast members battle valiantly to prop-up the disintegrating script.

What Does Not Work As Well: Writer and director Rodrigo Cortés clumsily steers into a bewildering narrative turn about halfway through, and the drama never recovers. The remainder of the film is a toothless exercise in silly special effects, the gritted-teeth obsession with a touring entertainer never close to supporting the weight of unfolding carnage. Another attempt at a late twist arrives with the never-good sudden introduction of narration and carries all the impact of a wet noodle.

Conclusion: Accelerates with promise, but then stops dead.



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Movie Review: Copycat (1995)

Genre: Serial Killer Thriller

Director: Jon Amiel

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick Jr., Will Patton

Running Time: 123 minutes

Synopsis: In San Francisco, criminal psychologist Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) is suffering from agoraphobia a year after narrowly surviving a brutal assault by serial killer Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.). With Callum now in prison, Inspector MJ Monahan (Holly Hunter) and her partner Inspector Reuben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney) seek Helen's help to capture a new serial killer preying on women. Hudson deduces the assailant is copying the methods of famous serial killers from the past, but there is also a more sinister motive behind the killings.

What Works Well: László Kovács' classy cinematography enhances slick production values, and director Jon Amiel keeps the action moving and never far away from the next thrill. The excellent duo of Sigourney Weaver (sophisticated but traumatized) and Holly Hunter (whipsmart but jaded) are complemented by a sinister and unhinged Harry Connick Jr. performance. Dr. Hudson's house is an architectural beauty and almost makes agoraphobia an attractive proposition. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Most of the plot details do not withstand retrospective scrutiny, the killer's identity is at first vague then irrelevant, and a side-plot involving MJ's ex-romantic interest Inspector Nicoletti (Will Patton) is only irritating. Given the narrative intentions, the psychotic Daryll Lee Callum deserved much more visible involvement.

Conclusion: Superficially attractive but substantively lacking a cutting edge.



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Movie Review: Call Jane (2022)

Genre: Abortion Drama

Director: Phyllis Nagy

Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara

Running Time: 121 minutes

Synopsis: In Chicago of 1968, Joy (Elizabeth Banks) is a middleclass housewife married to lawyer Will (Chris Messina). They have a teenaged daughter Charlotte, and Joy is pregnant again, but a health scare triggers a stark choice: continuing with the pregnancy will endanger her life. With abortions illegal, she connects with the "Call Jane" collective of women providing secret abortion services. After her procedure, Joy meets the group's organizer Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) and starts to volunteer her time, causing a strain in her relationships with Will and Charlotte.

What Works Well: Inspired by the real-life Jane Collective, director Phyllis Nagy crafts a topical reminder of the US abortion landscape before 1973's Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision. Mixing societal, feminist, and racial themes, this is a celebration of women's resiliency in the face of man-made laws, male-dominated hospital board decisions, men profiteering at the expense of women, and a patriarchal home environment. Elizabeth Banks as Joy brings the abortion trauma to mainstream living rooms with a minimum of melodrama, and Sigourney Weaver presents a robust counterpoint of activism.

What Does Not Work As Well: Although most of the tone is factual, moments of preachiness do surface. The running time is a good 15 minutes longer than necessary, and sub-plots involving Joy's daughter Charlotte and widowed next-door neighbour Lana (Kate Mara) flounder.

Conclusion: Important, impactful, and impressive.



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Movie Review: Dave (1993)

A mild comedy and low-key romance, Dave carries old-fashioned sweetness into the tale of a do-gooder who stumbles his way into presidential power.

United States President William Mitchell (Kevin Kline) is a heartless womanizer, and his marriage to Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) is a sham. His closest aides are Chief of Staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) and Communications Director Alan Reed (Kevin Dunn).

The good-hearted Dave Kovic (also Kline) works at a small-town temporary employment agency, and in his spare time impersonates the President at local events. Secret Service agent Duane Stevensen (Ving Rhames) spots Dave as a useful stand-in and recruits him for a walk-on appearance. 

When Mitchell is incapacitated by a stroke mid-coitus, Alexander identifies an opportunity to grab power by installing the impersonator as a puppet President. The naive Dave is duped into going along with the plan, and within a few weeks he improves the White House's public image through displays of humanity. But Dave then takes an interest in Ellen and starts to impose his views on policy decisions, undermining Alexander's agenda.

A liberal-leaning gentle satire of political machinations, Dave aims for comfortable smiles and simplifies the presidency to an almost dull routine of inconsequential appearances and bureaucratic meetings. Writer Gary Ross and director Ivan Reitman wander down the "if only a good man..." route, and emerge with a harmless - and toothless - tale of doing good by playing with a lonely kid and spending money on homeless shelters. 

Almost everything about Dave lands in the middle of the road. Alexander is the closest thing to a villain, but the worst he can come up with is a veto of a barely defined bill, and later abstract accusations of wrong-doing. The marital tension within the White House is defined by silence, and melts away on cue. The subsequent romance between Dave and Ellen barely warms the temperature to tepid levels.

Through it all Dave plays the out-of-place pragmatist getting to grips with his new surroundings and quick to cut through the nonsense of politics and towards doing the right thing. Kevin Kline spends most of the film in amiable mode as Dave, although the much shorter President Mitchell role offers better opportunities for venom. The cast also includes Laura Linney as an office assistant and the object of Mitchell's lust, Charles Grodin as an accountant and Dave's friend who helps balance the US budget in one night, and Ben Kingsley as the absent-until-the-third-act Vice President.

While the plot ambles along in an inconsequentially dreamy state, the sets look real. Reitman comfortably navigates replicas of White House exteriors and interiors (including the Oval Office) to create the illusion of location filming. 

A tolerable distraction, Dave reduces the presidency to a frivolous job, and treats it with fluffy innocence.



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Movie Review: Cedar Rapids (2011)

An independent small-scale comedy, Cedar Rapids creates a clever premise with potentially interesting characters, but then quickly runs out of ideas.

Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is a naive but well-meaning insurance agent who has never left his small Wisconsin hometown of Brown Valley. He enjoys sexual encounters with his former school teacher Macy (Sigourney Weaver), although he is much more serious about the relationship than she is. Tim's boss Bill (Stephen Root) is adamant the agency maintain the coveted "Two Diamond" rating awarded by the regional insurance association.

When star agent Roger unexpectedly expires, Bill dispatches Tim to the industry conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a mission to impress association president Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). On his first ever trip to anywhere, Tim meets a trio of seasoned insurance agents: the kind Ronald (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), boorish Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), and frisky Joan (Anne Heche). They expose him to conference-style fun, but Tim soon discovers some hard truths.

The world of nondescript conferences in nowheresville towns where salespeople congregate provides potentially rich soil for humour. Screenwriter Phil Johnston, director Miguel Arteta, and co-producer Alexander Payne conjure up a good foundation for laughs, with most of the film taking place at the mundane cookie-cutter hotel.

But once the place and people are introduced, Cedar Rapids quickly stalls. Tim's naive disposition is too easy a target, and he quickly succumbs to alcohol and pot, leading to all the usual and predictable misadventures. Uncomfortable nude encounters, skinny dipping, drunken sexual liaisons, and wild parties with prostitutes ensue, the film ticking off a checklist straight from the horny teenager comedies of the 1980s.

Ed Helms as Tim is essentially a blank canvass allowing events to be drawn on him. It is left to the veteran conference attendees to enliven the film, and thanks to a strong cast enough energy is injected to provide bursts of entertainment. John C. Reilly gives Ziegler a few good layers to peel away, while Anne Heche is the married-too-early mom who uses the conference as the one annual opportunity to live a different life. Isiah Whitlock Jr. is less well defined, while Alia Shawkat as the local whore with a heart of gold has nowhere to take her character.

Most of the laughs come from Reilly going all out with the churlish mannerisms of Ziegler as loud, rude and with a ready insult for any situation. He is a common but unwelcome conference presence, lingering like the sickly chlorine smell of the hotel's indoor swimming pool.

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Movie Review: The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982)

A drama and romance, The Year Of Living Dangerously enjoys the tense setting of a foreign country on a knife's edge, but sacrifices much of its political intrigue in favour of a trite romance.

It's 1965, and Australian Broadcasting Service journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) arrives in Jakarta on his first foreign assignment to cover rising tensions in Indonesia, where President Sukarno is whipping up anti-Western sentiments and fending off Communist threats. Hamilton socializes uneasily with other veteran foreign correspondents, and establishes a working relationship with local fixer and cameraman Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt).

With Billy's help Guy secures a coveted interview with the communist party leader, and then meets Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), the assistant to British military attache Colonel Henderson (Bill Kerr). A romance starts to blossom between Jill and Guy, while tensions rise in the country with rumours of an arms build-up and impending coup, and Billy grows increasingly disillusioned with the Sukarno regime.

Two stories vie for attention within The Year Of Living Dangerously, and ultimately director Peter Weir opts to maximize the romance elements between the naive journalist and sophisticated government agent. An argument can be made that with two alluring and photogenic stars in Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver at his disposal Weir made the right choice.

But this is also an opportunity wasted, because the film invests heavily in a sense of place wracked by political uncertainty, and the setting is wasted on what transforms into a pretty traditional and rather unmemorable story of mutual infatuation.

The first half of the film is better. Adapting the book by Christopher Koch, Weir carefully creates an Indonesia beset by poverty and governed by an autocratic President losing his grip on power. With nervous soldiers at every street corner and mobs taking over the streets, Hamilton finds himself a misfit with a group of caustic journalists covering a country in the throes of unraveling.

After acclimatizing to the oppressive heat he latches on to the beguiling Billy to guide him through the political swamps. And the character of Billy, with his secret files, shadow puppets and eloquent prose, emerges as the best thing about The Year Of Living Dangerously. With Linda Hunt superb in a male role filled with complexity and self-doubt, the film occasionally threatens to break into genuinely thoughtful commentary about the third world's complex relationship with great military powers.

But Weir then shortchanges the politics and investigative journalism, as these elements become a distant backdrop to Hamilton and Jill courting each other and pondering the sense of starting a relationship when she is scheduled to shortly leave the country. For awkward periods Gibson defaults to stock angry young lover mannerisms, and the sense of menace unfortunately seeps out of the dark and hot Indonesian nights.

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Movie Review: You Again (2010)

A bland retribution comedy, You Again has neither laughs nor romance, and proceeds to waste a good cast.

In her high school years Marni (Kristen Bell) was an outcast ugly duckling, regularly and mercilessly bullied by J-J (Odette Yustman), the coolest cheerleader at the school. Six years later, Marni has moved to Los Angeles and blossomed into a confident public relations executive. Marni returns home to the house of her parents Gail and Mark (Jamie Lee Curtis and Victor Garber) to attend the wedding of her brother Will (James Wolk), and is shocked to discover that Will's fiancée is none other than J-J, who now goes by Joanna.

Joanna pretends to not remember Marni at all, and presents herself as a kind-hearted family-oriented charitable do-gooder. The situation gets more complex when Joanna's aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver) arrives ahead of the wedding, as Gail and Ramona were best frenemies during their high school years. Ramona is now a high powered owner of a luxury hotel chain, while Gail, who was the most popular girl in school, has settled for domestic bliss. In the face of Joanna's charm assault Marni feels belittled and starts to regress into her high school victim persona, and decides to do all she can to unmask Joanna's true character and disrupt her brother's wedding day.

Directed by Andy Fickman, You Again has a couple of good ideas but does not do much with them. The long shadows cast by high school experiences should be a rich environment for both comedy and personal growth, and Marni wilting under the pressure of being back home and playing second fiddle to Joanna is an interesting enough set-up. But Fickman and screenwriter Moe Jelline default fairly quickly to witless juvenile antics and childish execution.

The script is nowhere near sharp enough to overcome the characters' wide-eyed cluelessness, and the film is caught in no man's land where outlandish actions are devoid of any sense of irony or satire. The dull lowlights include physical altercations, dishes being thrown, food dumped on heads and people pushed into swimming pools, the latter prosaic climax telegraphed in bold letters.

The cast has too much talent for the material. Kristen Bell is game and commits herself to the role, but cannot pull the film out of the doldrums. Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis enjoy a few dueling moments but then succumb to the tedious surroundings.

You Again flickers with some promise but is extinguished by listless delivery.

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Movie Review: Alien 3 (1992)

The second sequel in the franchise, Alien 3 stumbles with a weak plot, poor execution, and uninteresting interchangeable supporting characters.

Picking up immediately after the events of Aliens, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor when her spaceship crash lands onto Fury 161. The remote planet is home to a derelict foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by 25 male inmates predisposed to extreme violence, and who have now turned to a form of religion. Ripley suspects that her fellow escapees, the young girl Newt, the Marine Hicks and the android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), were killed in their sleep by a stowaway alien. Medical officer Dr. Jonathan Clemens (Charles Dance) appears to be the one sympathetic person on Fury 161, and he tries to understand Ripley's story.

Also on the planet but less empathetic are the prison warden Andrews (Brian Glover) and inmate spiritual leader Dillon (Charles S. Dutton). When an alien spawns out of a dog and inmates start encountering horrible deaths, Ripley has to create a plan to kill the beast despite having no weapons or resources. With a rescue crew days away and inmates lusting after the only woman they have seen in decades, she realizes that her problems are actually much worse than just one alien on the loose.

The first feature film directed by David Fincher is also the first disappointment in the Alien franchise. A troubled production with a myriad of script ideas mushed together never gels. Citing studio interference, Fincher subsequently disowned the film. The script starts in the worst possible way, betraying all of Ripley's thrilling Aliens exploits by killing off Newt. In the annals of creative sequel ideas, this is one of the worst, and Alien 3 never really recovers.

Ripley is instead dropped into the uninteresting premise of a planet occupied by convicts, and neither the inmates' criminal background nor their new found religious zealotry are properly exploited. Instead a couple of supporting characters are built up to provide some level of interest, and then summarily bumped off halfway through the film, leaving Ripley with a collection of ill-defined, interchangeable co-stars. They are all sweaty, dirty and have shaved heads, and nothing else to offer.

Fincher does succeed in creating a bleak and depressing aesthetic. The film takes place entirely in a facility that should have been condemned and abandoned decades prior, providing ample opportunities for dank and dark hiding places.

While the battle between the sole alien loose on the planet and Ripley resembles more the original film than the first sequel, the conflict is almost totally devoid of tension. Fincher resorts to alien point-of-view shots, and promptly over-uses his gimmick, landing in bad video game land. The more interesting drama of Ripley struggling with what is within catches some passion, but it's too little and too late.

Alien 3 is neither tense nor thrilling, just dead on arrival.

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Movie Review: Vantage Point (2008)

A clever action thriller, Vantage Point rises above the routine thanks to a patient structure that reveals the twisty plot from the viewpoints of several key characters.

A diplomatic anti-terrorism summit is being held in the small town of Salamanca, Spain. Early in the public ceremony witnessed by large crowds and covered by the international media, United States President Harry Ashton (William Hurt) is shot twice by an unseen assassin; then two explosions rock the city, causing mass casualties and panic, and killing opinionated reporter Angie Jones (Zoe Saladana).

The events are presented from the perspective of multiple witnesses, including television producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), secret service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), local police detective Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) and American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker). Gradually the threads of the conspiracy are revealed, and Barnes stumbles onto a much more complex plot involving layers of decoys, distractions and subterfuge.

Directed by Pete Travis, Vantage Point maintains a high level of energy thanks to slick production values, an intriguing mystery, and a puzzle-like structure. Although the rewinds and repetitions begin to become a bit tiresome about halfway through, there is enough juice in the story to maintain strong momentum.

The film's hook resides in the convoluted plot that is only gradually teased out of the multiple perspectives. Each retelling of the events at the public square pushes a bit deeper into the background and consequence, and it becomes apparent nothing is what it seems to be, no matter how many people witnessed the murderous atrocities. There are layers of deception and counter-deception at play, a chess game unfolding on the public stage but planned in the conspiratorial shadows.

The plot spends as little time as possible on politics and motives, and focuses instead on thrills and spills. An attack on a hotel is a smooth demonstration of one against many, while a long urban car chase recreates Bourne-style intensity but with less manic editing. Meanwhile the large explosion in the square is viewed from multiple angles but never loses its jarring impact. And the film finds a frantic yet tidy conclusion, all the vantage points coming together at the same time and place.

The ensemble cast shares the chapters, and gradually Dennis Quaid moves into centre stage. His character Thomas Barnes is provided with a brief background as a secret service agent still healing from the emotional scars of having taken a bullet to save the President's life during a previous assassination attempt. Given the fragmented scheme unfolding around him, Quaid does well to inject some character intensity into his scenes. Barnes' partner Agent Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) and initially peripheral characters Veronica (Ayelet Zurer), Sam (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Javier (Édgar Ramírez) gain in prominence as more is revealed about the plot.

Vantage Point defines its ambition and stays within it, delivering a controlled multi-angled barrage of thrills.

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Movie Review: Working Girl (1988)

A romantic comedy drama set in the high stakes world of business, Working Girl celebrates the power of the individual to succeed despite any lowly starting point. The film is an effective combination of character-driven boardroom drama, unlikely romance and clever, adult-oriented humour.

In New York, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is a working class Staten Island girl holding a job as an administrative secretary at a Manhattan investment brokerage. Just turning 30, Tess is smart, savvy and strives for admission into the firm's trainee program, but entry doors just slam in her face. A spark of hope is ignited when Tess is assigned to a new boss in the form of sharp young executive Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). Katharine promises to take Tess seriously and help her advance, but then proceeds to steal Tess' idea for a major media acquisition deal.

When Katharine is unexpectedly laid up in Switzerland with a broken leg due to a ski accident, Tess takes the opportunity to over-represent herself, taking over Katharine's office and wardrobe and playing deal maker between two major corporations, with help from mergers and acquisitions executive Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford). Jack and Tess push the deal seemingly towards success and start to develop romantic feelings for each other. But when Katharine reenters the picture, Tess is exposed and finds herself severely compromised professionally and personally.

Directed by Mike Nichols, Working Girl is a corporate fairy tale, a Cinderella-in-Manhattan where the corporation is the castle, dreams can come true, and the poor but good girl from the 'burbs has to try and overcome a horrid wardrobe, outsmart the evil schemer, and aim to win the heart of prince charming. Written by Kevin Wade, the film mixes humour, romance and business in a slick and irresistible package, and unfolds as a breezy romp through the extreme sport of office politics, where knives are plunged into backs as a matter of course and always with an icy smile.

Working Girl is also a quintessential piece of late 1980s filmmaking celebrating the decade of greed. Here executives are only as good as their last deal, barracudas like Katharine Parker slice through cocktail parties looking for their next victim, Jack Trainer and his ilk forgo sleep and crave the success of brokering an acquisition, boardroom deals are the pinnacle of excitement, and even the secretary aims for her piece of the me decade. Flattery, flirting and barely concealed sexuality are just more weapons in the business battlefield.

Tess has the scrappy streetsmarts but not the education to join the game, but her desire to climb this particular corporate ladder is never questioned. Her sacrifices includes cutting her working class hair, dumping the gaudy jewelry, and breaking off with oily boyfriend Mick (Alec Baldwin), who conveniently cheats on her just as she is starting to carve out a new life. It is an open question whether Tess' friendship with fellow secretary Cynthia (Joan Cusack) will survive her desire to rise above the secretarial pool.

The film chews heartily on several themes, including classism, careerism, women in the work force, the limits of ambition, and the rights and wrongs of the ends justifying the means. A unifying theme is the desperation to get ahead at all levels and at all costs. Just as much as Tess is eager to prove herself, Katharine and Jack are just as committed to their goals, and if nothing else, they serve as warnings of what Tess should expect once she wades into the dangerous waters of deal making.

Tess McGill is probably Melanie Griffith's greatest role. She brings Tess to life with cat-like agility, smarts, and intensity. Griffith keeps the character anchored in Tess' working class roots, which represent a commitment to dogged persistence and an inability to compromise when confronted with two-faced sleaze. Harrison Ford provides a steady presence, while Sigourney Weaver has an absolute blast turning Katharine Parker into the seminal surreptitious corporate conniver, trampling on the likes of Tess with absolute glee. Oliver Platt (Tess' first boss), Kevin Spacey (a coke snorting lusty executive) and Olympia Dukakis (the personnel director) contribute small roles.

Most appropriately, the impressively spiritual Carly Simon song Let the River Run won the Academy Award. After all, Working Girl is an ode to the career that glistens in the high rise windows of the Manhattan sky, where all shall worship at the altar of the next big commission.

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Movie Review: The Ice Storm (1997)

A family drama about dysfunctionalities hidden beneath the surface of middle class normalcy, The Ice Storm uncovers emotional wreckage but fails to properly engage with its characters.

It's the early 1970s in the quaint town of New Canaan, Connecticut. Thanksgiving is approaching, winter is setting in and an ice storm is in the forecast. The Watergate scandal is brewing, and a new wind of sexual and drug experimentation sweeps through the seemingly staid suburban subdivisions. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is married to Elena (Joan Allen), but their marriage spark has long since extinguished, driving Ben into having an affair with married neighbour Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Elena meanwhile is depressed and resorts to shoplifting. The latest adult trend is the "key party", where couples swap partners at the end of the evening through a random draw car key lottery.

The Hoods' teenaged children are Paul (Tobey Maguire), now attending college, and the younger Wendy (Christina Ricci), and they are having issues of their own. Paul has developed a crush on classmate Libbets (Katie Holmes), but his roommate Francis (David Krumholtz) always nabs whichever girl Paul is interested in. The brooding Wendy is into full sexual experimentation mode, and her targets include Janey's two boys Mikey (Elijah Wood) and Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd). When the ice storm arrives and outdoor conditions become treacherous, the indoor drama also reaches critical levels.

Ang Lee directed this adaptation of the Rick Moody book, and while it is always salaciously irresistible to peak behind the curtains of the neighbours' bedroom windows to spy on dirty secrets, and the wintry New England setting is attractive, this is as far as the film's appeal goes. Past the sex, drugs, infidelity and misery running rampant through two generations of suburbanites, The Ice Storm offers little in the way of engagement.

Part of the problems is that the characters are reactive (or, more accurately, inactive) and living under the shroud of non-communication. They say so little that they never become rounded people. Ben and Elena are presumably at the centre of the film, but close to two hours pass and next to nothing is revealed about them, except that their marriage is in trouble. Even less is known about the Carvers as people, other than that their relationship is also broken.

Ironically, Paul and Wendy emerge as more provocative than their parents, with Wendy in particular harbouring all kinds of strange intentions, victimizing Mikey and Sandy in pursuit of her own journey of discovery. Paul's clumsy attempts to carve out private time with Libbets backfires in humourous fashion.

Other than frequent viewings of President Nixon on television and some fashion garments on the wild side, the early 1970s era is underused. The dialogue is generic, and the James Schamus screenplay is unable to convey a genuine vibe for the turbulence of the times. Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and Joan Allen are strongly associated with the 1980s or later years, and not much is done with hairstyles and mannerisms to help them relocate to an earlier time.

The Ice Storm is a polished observation of a society in flux. But it remains a superficial view, as cold to the soul as the ice unleashed by nature.

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The Movies Of Sigourney Weaver

All movies starring Sigourney Weaver and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Annie Hall (1977)

Alien (1979)

The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Aliens (1986)

Working Girl (1988)

Alien 3 (1992)

Dave (1993)

Copycat (1995)

The Ice Storm (1997)

Vantage Point (2008)

Wall.E (2008, voice only)

Avatar (2009)

You Again (2010)

Cedar Rapids (2011)

Rampart (2011)

Red Lights (2012)

The Cabin In The Woods (2012)

The Cold Light Of Day (2012)

My Salinger Year (2020)

The Good House (2021)

Call Jane (2022)

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The Movie Star Index is here.