Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Mike Nichols, SBS On Demand.
It’s never too late for relationships – in this case between a mother and daughter – to be glued back together again. Postcards from the Edge proves people can accept each other’s inadequacies and sort out their correlation, should they want to do so.
A Hollywood actress looking for a comeback deals with her famous, self-centred mother, a drug habit and comically troubled romances. It features dynamic performances by two dedicated actresses.
To avoid unemployment, a substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even though she’s forced to move back in with her mother. Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer) is a nervous actress, who lacks confidence and is forced to enter a drug rehabilitation clinic after an overdose. It’s not difficult to see she’s a flawed young woman, self-absorbed, whose quick wit is a defence technique. After she is released from the clinic, she learns the insurers of her next film have ordered her to live with a responsible person during the shooting.
So, she moves in with her alcoholic mother Doris (Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment), a popular musical comedy star of the ’50s and ’60s. MacLaine hypnotises as Doris. She realises the need for her to move away from the spotlight and let her daughter shine through, but she has to confront her physical decline and come to terms with being a devastated Hollywood survivor. She also needs to face her alcoholism, even though drinking wine is socially acceptable. Since drugs are not, Doris chooses to deny her own problem and continues to berate her daughter.
Streep plays her character with a kind of defiant sweetness! She is vibrant and multi-faceted. Her biggest battle is to accept her God-given talent. Even stepping away from under the shadow of her domineering movie star mother is quite difficult.
Daniel Quaid shines as an attractive young opportunist. Gene Hackman is not used to advantage.
Directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), it’s based on the 1987 semi-autobiographical novel, and screenplay, by actress Carrie Fisher (Star Wars films). There’s much good writing and many good performances in Postcards from the Edge for it to be a failure, despite its slow, ambling script. Suzanne could be right: “I don’t want life to imitate reality. I want life to be art.”
