Clothes-Off

First of all, there is obviously some fraud going on with the IMDb user ratings. There is no way anyone but the writer-director's parents would give this a 10. No. way. It is the most unprofessional-looking "movie" you could probably find. The sorry excuse for a story the beginning of the problems. This looks like somebody filmed an outdoor community theater production AFTER the community theater got robbed and they had to make do with what little costumes and props they could get their hands on. The three leads can. not. act. to save their lives. This is the kind of thing you end up doing when you become persona non grata in the industry. I cannot stress enough that this seems like it was made by people who were given a challenge to make the worst movie they could in under sixty minutes. If you've read this and are still considering wayching, it can only be because you can't believe a "movie" could be this bad, and you want to prove me wrong. Good luck with that. Watching it might make a really effective punishment for someone, I'll give it that. Whatever the person did wrong, he/she would never do it again.

This is half concert film, half intimate portrait. What I took a way from it most was the stark contrast between the stunning visuals and slick production of her performances and the bare bones existence of Spanish Town in Jamaica where she was born. (Yet here's a certain tranquility to the people we meet there.) Fortunately the subject of the film is someone to whom a lot of people could listen and watch all day. For those who aren't into her, 115 minutes may seem too long, but even they would have to marvel at someone in her late sixties moving with such agility and athleticism. (She sweats buckets.) I do think she could have let her guard down a little more. I don't think we got as much of the woman behind the image as we could have, but she shares a lot of her history, and that is enough. Sophie Fiennes dad an excellent job balancing the spectacle and the person, with as much as Grace was willing to reveal.

Only someone who has never heard of Anna Magnani could watch Vanessa Redgrave's performance and not think of her. To be fair the part in Tennessee Williams' original play was written for Magnani; I just wish somehow she could have made it her own. When she spits out Lady Torrance's best lines, she might as well just look skyward and give the late Italian star a wink. As for the story itself, it is still provocative even viewed by todays eyes--perhaps even more, as thankfully fewer people are accustomed to seeing such deeply rooted racism. However, in this era in which we've come to expect plot twists and character development, there is surprisingly little change in any character from beginning to end. Each person in this story is exactly who he/she appears to be, which will be very frustrating viewing for those who like to see a moral or have someone at least learn something from what has transpired. And since a rather repulsive gossipy woman reveals a rather important detail at the very beginning, I kept hoping for other secrets of some sort to be unveiled. The affected young (by comparison), ghostly Charlotte (Anne Twomey) surely has a story or two to tell, but it never comes. This is not so much a flaw in the script, but rather a warning that it's not the kind of story I expected it to be. It is a clear style choice by Williams, I'm just not sure that less is more in this case. If anything, it made me long for a depiction of the ancient mythical Orpheus on which this play is based.