Passion Fish

This film surprised me a lot. I liked it very much. It was well-written, acted, and worth watching Mary McDonnell who received her second Oscar nomination for this performance. Alfre Woodard should be nominated for best supporting actress. I was surprised to find two equally challenging roles for women in an almost extinct era. The relationship between the two women grows slowly. It is nice to see friendship between these two very different characters. May Alice becomes a likable person after awhile. Angela Bassett has a small role as her friend from New York City. David Straitharn plays an old flame who has since married and remain local in the Louisiana swamps of their hometown. It's a great story overall with characters that you grow to like over the time we spend with them.

John Sayles is one of the finest film makers around, and "Passion Fish" ranks as his most human, funny, and provoking film. Fueled by tremendous performances by the always reliable Mary McDonnell and the extraordinary Alfre Woodard, "Passion Fish" takes a slow, easy pace through the Louisiana bayous and through difficult adjustments with life. David Strathairn, Vondie Curtis Hall, are McDonnell and Woodard's love interests, respectively, and add wonderful colors of both subtle and flamboyant hues. We find ourselves laughing at McDonnell's crude humor as paralyzed soap opera actress May Alice, especially in an amusing segment in which she drives away a number of interestingly characteristic nurses. Then, May Alice meets Woodard's Chantelle, a Chicago woman looking to rectify her own life. Their friendship is stunning, the ride is a pure joy. "Passion Fish" is a quiet film, and meant for those who enjoy those voyages through life with patience, humor, and camaraderie through the most difficult of circumstances, ultimately finding the true gifts of life.

Writer/Director John Sayles' 1992 outing tells the tale of a soap opera star (Mary McDonell), who's been in a car accident, and is now wheelchair bound, and her unlikely friendship with her live-in nurse (Alfre Woodard). Excellent supporting roles from the great David Strathairn (A Sayles fave, star of Limbo), Vondie Curtis-Hall (who went on to direct Gridlock'd), and Angela Bassett. I gotta say this. Sayles always writes believable characters, and his dialogue is amongst the best in filmdom. I knew my wife would like this, which was my main motivation for renting it. I'd seen it before, but had forgotten just how good it is. McDonell garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her role in this largely overlooked gem. 4 (of 5) stars on this one.

It's regularly noted that director John Sayles is a master at creating detailed characters; this film (like especially his earlier MATEWAN) proves his genius at capturing the oft-overlooked variety of American life: dialects, and the smallest (but most meaningful) moments of work, anger, tragedy, or sweetness. This skill was surely refined during his earlier years as a novelist, and - in maturity - makes his work (and this film in particular) far more human and gimmick-free than Amer-indie contemporaries like David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch.

I first saw this when it was released, and was very impressed (it was the first Sayles film I'd seen), and after a much-belated second viewing, I'd say it's one of the great American films of the 90s. Sayles' feel for detail shows continually - the small, but continual bits of personal history revealed about all of the characters throughout; the intricacy of even incidental encounters (an afternoon of zydeco music, or the COOLEY HIGH reference that slips quickly between Angela Bassett and Alfre Woodard) is stunning.

Evoking Robert Flaherty's LOUISIANA STORY, the boat-trip-to-Misere scene is particularly memorable, with well-deployed Cajun lore blending with very memorable cinematography (courtesy Roger Deakins, cinematographer for FARGO, KUNDUN, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION & SID AND NANCY, among other recent classics) to create one of the most unforgettable moments of Sayles' career.

As most of the primary characters are either outsiders, or are returning after long absences, the common problem of show-biz fake accents is avoided nicely - Sayles (and Deakins) manage to capture an image of rural Louisiana that is enveloping and authentic, while never forgetting the reality that accents will vary widely even in local areas. Thus the fact that many characters refuse to lay on the drawl - even as many others in the film nail the sound of rural Louisiana perfectly - only makes PASSION FISH stronger.

Overall this is a tale of growth and friendship that moves with the speed and emotions of life - none of it feels fake or forced, and though slow-to-start (another strength, though only seen as one by the film's end), PASSION FISH quietly develops into something unique and great. At every moment where this could've degenerated into movie-of-the-week sap, Sayles instead elegantly and confidently steers the film into DeSica (or Woody Guthrie and Steinbeck) territory: there's not a sour note to be seen here.

I have only caught up with two of Sayles' directorial works "Limbo" and "Passion Fish". Though the subjects of the two films are quite dissimilar, Sayles penchant for building interesting character profiles is unmistakable in both. Both films have an interesting screenplay, developing anecdotes that seem to be strung together like beads on a necklace. In "Passion Fish", a somewhat successful actress watches TV soaps and makes comments. Zoom out of the situation and you realize that situation itself is close to a TV soap opera. Now directors like Robert Altman and Paul Mazursky have done similar themes with considerable success. European cinema (Claude Sautet for one) has numerous examples of what Sayles did in the US a decade before in Europe. Yet Sayles like Mazursky ("An Unmarried Woman","Harry and Tonto", etc.) is able to instill humor and pathos into his celluloid essays with considerable felicity.

What makes "Passion Fish" tick? At a very obvious level there is a remarkable performance by Mary MacDonnell. You need to be a stage actress to have done justice to the demanding role of a paraplegic--perhaps Billie Whitelaw or Anne Bancroft or Joanne Woodward would have fared as well as Mary. Much of Mary's acting is limited to voice modulation and restricted body movements.

Two other performers stand out: Alfre Woodard and David Strathairn. I have watched Strathairn perform in other movies but he is just superb when working for Sayles.

"Passion Fish" like "Limbo" has a strong musical selection. Sayles, like Michael Mann and Peter Weir, has a good ear for music and sound editing. Yet "Limbo" outclasses "Passion Fish" by a mile in this department, thanks mainly to the song sung by lead actress herself.

Finally the film "Passion Fish" survives on a strong screenplay and above average direction. The screenplay is loaded with social comments expressed in a documentary style: comments on a "business manager" who never appears, race relationships, religion ("she took to it after the second child.."), etc. The film expects us to follow the obvious childhood sweethearts-meet-again route but interestingly does not.

This is the stamp of Sayles--a filmmaker who makes a sudden twist towards the end that makes all what preceded look better than it did. He did this in "Limbo" with aplomb, but "Passion fish" seems to anticipate the more accomplished storytelling of "Limbo"--the dark swamp metaphor of "Passion Fish" seems to be heralding the cloudy sky of "Limbo". One thing is certain--Sayles is an important screenplay writer comparable to David Mamet and Terrence Malick. As a director one could argue that his work is not new in style ("Limbo" harks back to "The Oxbow Incident") yet he cannot be dismissed--his work stands out amongst contemporary American movies, especially independent cinema.