From Universal Pictures
Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Starring
Winona Ryder
Anne Bancroft
Ellen Burstyn
Jean Simmons
Kate Nelligan
Maya Angelou
Alfre Woodard
Lois Smith
Samantha Mathis
Dermot Mulroney
Rip Torn
Johnathon Schaech
Loren Dean
Joanna Going
Tim Guinee
Derrick O'Connor
Richard Jenkins
Claire Danes
Jared Leto
Kate Capshaw
I loved its tag line... there's beauty in the patterns of life.
For me there is such poignancy in a heartwarming glimpse into female friendship and the stitching together of life's experiences. And it is lovingly presented as seven longtime friends gather to make a quilt and gab. We see these characters come to life by one set of actresses as the older friends at the quilting table and another set as the younger ones who appear in flashback scenes. The changes don't come in a linear fashion but a patchwork way. Generally, I don't like stories told this way but I actually loved it here more than I can say.
It didn't seem like a movie when I first saw it. Rather, I felt like I was sitting in some overstuffed chair in a far corner of the room luxuriating in inhaling the reminiscences of these fascinating women. I had my favorites among them, sure, but as a collection of characters, they all fascinated me.
This is a film by women, about women and mainly for women but also men who want to alert their feminine sides. The director is a woman, five of the six producers are women, the editor is a woman, the author of the book is a woman, a woman wrote the screenplay, there's a slew of actresses and more.
Yes, it is clearly about women. It's about their choices, feelings, emotions, desires, loves, hates, deaths, sex, jealousies, betrayals, sadnesses, joys, cheating, friendships and of course, men. Hey, I said to myself the first time I saw it, I love this stuff. Keep talkin' ladies. I heard nothing about rebuilding a car engine, boot camp from yesteryear, a boring job or going outside and playing catch.
There are men in this flick and some of those who play the young ones were likely chosen for their obvious charms. But where we often see movies about, say, a group of guys and their women, this is a movie about women and their men. The difference is noted and much appreciated.
To understand the story is to know and understand the seven women sitting around the quilting frame making a wedding quilt for the granddaughter of one of them. Wynona Ryder plays Finn, the 26-year old visiting the big, beautiful, central California farm home of her grandmother, Hy (Ellen Burstyn) and great aunt Glady Joe (Anne Bancroft) for the summer.
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| From left... Bancroft, Burstyn, Ryder, Woodard, Nelligan |
She is having a long visit for a several reasons. One is to get working on her third attempt at a Master's thesis on the rituals of women's handiwork in tribal cultures. Almost as compelling is getting away from her boyfriend, Sam (Dermot Mulroney), who has just proposed to her. She needs some space to mull over that one.
Lastly, she wants to see all the women who practically raised her and who remain concerned about her life and her choices. Hy (short for Hyacinth) and Glady (a nickname for gladiola) Joe bitch and carp at one another like mad. While they're at odds on a number of things, the main gripe is caused by a years-earlier affair that Hy had with Glady Joe's husband (Rip Torn). I gotta tell ya... many of the lines written for these two characters are wickedly funny and delivered with streaks of genius by the two Oscar-winning actresses portraying them. There's a wonderful scene on the large front porch where the two older ladies are smoking a joint provided to them by Finn and allowing all the demons to come out.
The quilting bee is not shown in one visit but several over the summer. Finn is involved in one-on-one conversations with all of the other ladies, which, of course, is when we learn mainly about their lives and loves.
Sophia (Lois Smith) is the unhappiest, still bitter after so many unrealized dreams, and outspoken about it. She was a championship diver in her youth (with Samantha Mathis in top form) but has always wanted to move away. She was stopped, however, when she married Preston (Loren Dean) and immediately got pregnant. They seemed ideally suited to one another (via a lovely scene at a swimming hole) but he got tired of her endless complaining and he simply went off one day and never came back.
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| Simmons and Ryder |
Em (Jean Simmons) seems nearly as unhappy as Sophia because she is married to Dean (Derrick O'Connor) who has been a habitual philanderer. That may have lessened some in old age but he was a randy fellow when they were both young (and wonderfully played by Tim Guinee and Joanna Going). Em believes Dean is now making it with a recent widow Constance (Kate Nelligan), who just happens to be one of the quilters. She's wrong about this affair... not that Dean hasn't tried.
Toward the end of the film when we're tidying up the various stories, Em looks across the table at Constance (whom she hasn't been speaking to) and says you know, you're not as attractive as I thought you were. And Constance, a bit stunned, says thank you.
I must say the movie was fortunate indeed to have poet, writer, teacher and occasional actress Maya Angelou as part of the cast. How dignified she is as Anna, the master quilter and in her youth (played by Maria Caledonio) a servant in Glady Joe and Hi's childhood home. (Young Hi is played by Alicia Goranson and young Glady Joe is Claire Danes.)
Anna's daughter, Marianna, is played by Alfre Woodard. She has spent several years in Paris where she enjoyed countless relationships and remained steadfastly single. She appears to not really fit in with the others due to her frisky lifestyle and her mother's reluctance to accept it and her being years younger than the others, but by the end we know she deserves a place at the table.
Marianna was one of the last roles to be cast and Woodard said she couldn't say yes fast enough when she learned she'd be playing the daughter of Angelou, one of her heroes.
As talented as the actresses are playing these interesting quilting friends, we won't forget the star of the piece is Ryder. Despite her love for Sam/Mulroney, she has an affair with Johnathan Schaech and who could blame her? Oh sorry, I got carried away. But in 1995, this dude was the bomb!
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| Schaech |
One scene, which I thought was wonderfully well done, concerned a windstorm that came up. It wanted to be a tornado but it caused enough havoc as it was as open windows allowed the wind to catch Finn's tall, loose stack of typed pages that began swirling about the countryside.
One thing that I don't think worked for the film was the appearance of Finn's mother. She had been referred to as an errant mother and wife and the film should have left it at that. But it brought on Kate Capshaw as the mother and while she did a good turn, the storyline went nowhere at all. Precious time could have been used for the others.
I also may have a slight complaint that the momentum got a little sluggish there toward the end. The operative word is slight.
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| Angelou, Ryder, Burstyn |
Director Moorhouse read the novel and apparently thought that it would be wonderful if she could helm this film. She was surprised, therefore, when it was offered to her. She in an Australian who has only worked a few times as a director (she writes as well) but did direct two other projects that focused on women in the form of A Thousand Acres (1997) and The Dressmaker (2015).
I have understood there was some doubt as to whether Whitney Otto's novel was too intricate to make a decent screen interpretation but from what I can tell, screenwriter Jane Anderson pulled it off for the most part. There were eight stories to tell, seven of which required came about at vastly different ages and I think it's admirable that this is accomplished as well as it is.
One thing that also impressed me about the screenplay (and perhaps some of this came at the suggestion of Moorhouse) is that the film doesn't bash marriage which it certainly could have. All the marriages were troubled at one point or another and it would have been easy to lambast the institution and therefore have characters who are soured on marriage.
But it didn't happen. Finn, who has never been married and is doubtful about doing so, eventually sees marriage as the road she wants to travel. And Marianne, in a revealing speech to Finn, says that despite her numerous affairs, she'd have given them all up for that one man that got away. Anderson provided another look into marriage in her more recent screenplay of Glenn Close's The Wife.
Isn't this cast dazzling? They certainly thought so. Simmons said that going to work each day was a heavenly experience. They all wanted to pinch themselves. It also seemed clear by all I've read that the one they all simply revered was Angelou. I can find no fault with anyone's acting, including all those up-and-coming actors. And you know how I like seeing big casts in scenes with one another. What could beat sitting around a table?
Leslie Dilley's production design is outstanding and she sure had a lot on her table. Ace cinematographer Janusz Kaminski brought it all to life with his gorgeous outdoor scenery shots, the many warm interior ones, and highlighting so many lovely faces.
Moorhouse, Anderson and Dilley went looking for the perfect house... and it needed to be perfect. They found the big, white farmhouse in Santa Paula, California, although the interiors of all the homes were created on the Universal lot.
Bravo, too, to Thomas Newman for the appropriate musical score and to all the great songs he incorporated.
I liked these comments from the production notes: The story explores how women love men. The challenges involved in making a quilt are not so different from those faced by lovers. With love we hope to find the perfect union. While some fabrics dazzle when placed beside a contrasting pattern, others fight each other for harmony. When the ideal pieces are stitched together, they may fray with time but they still keep their innate beauty.
Here's a look at the trailer:
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