Between Two Women

This quiet movie worked for me. I have never seen the potentially explosive, often confusing relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law addressed so sensitively--or at all, come to think of it. Every character was believable, even the children. Watch for the subtle history lesson the son communicated with just a few words and body language in the dinner table scene. This movie was carefully crafted, a gentle master work worth catching if you can (I saw it on Lifetime). It is one of those rare gems that inspires without sappiness or a sledgehammer. In the end, we are left wanting to pick up the phone and appreciate the people in our lives, no matter how difficult they are, even when it doesn't seem to make sense.

There was a time when the television networks made movies, small films that would never have been made by the big studios for theatrical release. This is one of those movies, and though it's a small story about human relationships it looms large in the wondrous performances of Colleen Dewhurst and Farrah Fawcett.

Dewhurst plays a former opera singer, a grand dame who lives in a picture-perfect rural Connecticut home with her husband (Steven Hill). She's about to welcome her son (Michael Nouri) and to meet his new girlfriend (Fawcett). She instantly dislikes the young woman.

The story then details the "family" relationships over the next 14 years years but centers on the changing relationship between the women. As the years tick by, they get to know each other better but their relationship remains prickly. It's only after Dewhurst suffers a stroke that they begin to move toward the center of their enduring bond and recognize it for what it is.

Dewhurst never lets this get cloying or overly sentimental, and Fawcett turns in a gritty performance as the determined younger woman. Nouri and Hill are fine. Bronson Pinchot has a cameo as a wedding photographer.

This is probably the best I have ever seen Farrah Fawcett act in any tv series or movie. I am not a great follower of Ms Fawcett but she has come a long way since Charlie's Angels. I do have to give her credit she really carried this movie with her acting abilities and not her looks.

It was hard to like the great Colleen Dewhurst's character in this movie, but her worth to Farrah Fawcett's character was endearing. This was a good movie. It was sweet. There is a scene where she plucks the whisker out of her stroke-victim mother-in-law's chin...a woman that tormented her, but she wanted to be the better person. No, that's not right, she didn't want to be better, she wanted to be a good person. She was.

Farrah Fawcett was a good actress remembered for an icon poster and Charlie's Angels. Ultimately, she was a good actress.

Lovers Michael Nouri and Farrah Fawcett can't get any time together alone because of his wheedling, overbearing mother (played to the hilt by Emmy-winner Colleen Dewhurst). This monstrous mama, a perfectionist who comes between her son and his wife on more than one occasion, is at times a fascinating character--but a little of her goes quite a stretch. The lovebirds share a few tender moments, but it isn't long before Fawcett realizes Dewhurst is never going away and that husband Nouri is unable to stand up to her (he matches wits with his mother but can never win an argument). When Farrah finally blows off some steam, it's a relief to us--and yet the wife's sudden surge of spunk is immediately shot down, and soon we're back at the beginning. There's a great deal of realism in these family arguments and personality clashes, and the acting is uniformly terrific, but this kind of issue movie doesn't entertain as much as it leaves viewers in knots. ** from ****