Les noces de cendres

The story begins in an exclusive clinic in Switzerland. Barbara (Elizabeth Taylor) is there to get 'the works', as she's older and hopes this will invigorate her stale marriage. The film then shows some pretty realistic surgery scenes as well as scenes of the post-surgery Barbara...complete with horrific bruises which come from the surgeries. She looks pretty awful in these scenes and I was impressed that the glamorous Taylor agreed to be made up to look this bad.

Following her discharge, Barbara gets coiffed and buys a new wardrobe and awaits her husband in a nearby hotel...but it will be some time until Mark (Henry Fonda) arrives. And, given her new look and lease on life, Barbara finds herself drifting towards an affair with some younger stud. Clearly the surgery has had an effect on her psyche...but how will it affect Mark and the marriage? After all, he has no idea she was getting plastic surgery and expects an older looking woman to greet him.

The notion of a woman getting plastic surgery and its effect (or lack of effect) on her life and marriage is an interesting one. However, the film managed to make it all very dull with too many scenes of Barbara walking about, eating dinner alone, etcetera...and many could have been eliminated or shortened. To put it bluntly, this portion of the movie is dull and glacially slow and it really shouldn't have been. Sadly, it seems to take forever for anything to happen...and I cannot understand this. Did it get better once the husband eventually arrived? Not especially.

The bottom line is that the set up for the story should have resulted in something interesting but it didn't. I think the script and direction were major problems with "Ash Wednesday"....and I can understand why Taylor's husband at the time, Richard Burton, thought this was a poor film.

I lost track of this film after they pulled Elizabeth Taylor's face off, so I can't possibly divulge any plot points. (Okay, so it wasn't Elizabeth getting her face torn off, but it was somebody and it was SICK.)

The whole point to this film, as I understood it, was that Elizabeth Taylor's character Barbara is a superficial women who thinks everyone else is superficial also. Her marriage is on the rocks, so she automatically assumes she's getting ugly. Appearance isn't everything, Barbara dear. She is understandably shocked when her husband lets her in on that fact. He doesn't care if she looks like a troll named Brunhilde (which is how she starts off the film)--he just doesn't love her anymore. I thought he was a real twit, as he acts as if he couldn't care less about her and never did.

I get aggravated when Elizabeth Taylor's face is the centerpiece of a movie. The woman can act, but I have yet to meet anyone who realizes that. Movies like this mirror her real life to me. She has to look beautiful, and if she doesn't, she isn't a whole person. She doesn't function properly. (Small wonder she's had so many personal problems. Being a beautiful goddess all the time has to be difficult.) To me, Barbara Sawyer is a bit like Elizabeth Taylor. Her face seems to be her fortune, and she gets quite distressed if something happens to it. It seems unfortunate that Barbara (and possibly Ms. Taylor) place so much store by looking good. "My husband's leaving me. I'm not surprised, my hair looked awful today." That sounds unreal, but that is how Barbara acts. Even more unfortunate is how my whole review here is based on how she looks. Now I'm doing it. It just makes for a very pathetic individual, and maybe Barbara is supposed to be.

Elizabeth Taylor plays Barbara Sawyer, wife to Henry Fonda (who shows up late in the film) for 30 years who has not aged well (to say the least). She goes to Europe and receives plastic surgery in an attempt to save her marriage. Will her restored youth appeal to her husband or will she have to start life over and be strong enough to do so? This is the premise of Ash Wednesday, a syrupy soap opera in the ugly duckling to beautiful swan tradition. Maybe you're a fan of Liz Taylor and sought this movie out, or maybe you just managed to catch it on late night cable and there was nothing else on. Either way you probably realized that this movie wasn't exactly high caliber. But in humble defense I will praise an excellent musical score, beautiful on location scenery, and elegant Edith Head designed fashions. The premise of the movie is a good one and it could have made for a very interesting film had the screenwriter or director had any amount of talent. But the dialogue and direction are both flat. Certain scenes seem pointless and unfulfilled. However, the main point of the movie is to show loving close ups and profiles of 41 year old Taylor looking beautiful again. And, yes, with a lot more make-up and just the right camera angle, we the audience, are transplanted back to those fabulous 50's movies when Taylor didn't have to act or even speak to transfix your gaze upon her and hold it rapt. Rating for Ash Wednesday for any viewer. **(out of 4) For Liz Taylor fans. ***

Ash Wednesday (1973) Costarring Henry Fonda, Taylor plays your typical depressed, run-of-the-mill, middle-aged housewife who in an attempt to win back her divorce-seeking husband, goes to a Swiss spa to undergo plastic surgery and regain her youthful beauty. Well, not only is the operation a success, she comes out of it looking like, well Elizabeth Taylor. Dominick Dunne produced this movie before he went on to novel writing fame and fortune. It's considered a really bad movie. I consider it high seventies camp at its best. Most definitely a thumbs up. Watch it in college with your friends over vodka tonics.

So I see Richard Burton hated this film. Well wouldn't go so far as to say I hated it. Still Ash Wednesday wil never rank as one of Elizabeth Taylor's best films.

It plays a lot like The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone. Maybe if someone like Tennessee Williams had written this it would have been better known and acclaimed.

Liz is in Switzerland for a little plastic surgery. A nip here, a tuck there and maybe some of that spark in her marriage to Henry Fonda will have some of that old time zip in it. She amuses herself in the meantime with both Keith Baxter and Helmut Berger.

The results just aren't what she hoped for,

Try as I may I just could not get interested in these rich people and their problems. Henry Fonda looked as bored as I was. At least he got a European vacation for his time.

For fans of the sars only.