4 New-Yorkaises

After seeing this film, still not available on DVD, one wants to say, "How did this movie ever get made?" It is funny, intelligent, sensitive, and perceptive. No exploding cars. No teens making out. No monsters from outer space. Used People is just excellent and thoughtful entertainment of a sort that makes one want to cheer. The script is unusually good, and the acting is outstanding. The leads, Marcello Mastronini and Shirley McLaine, could not have been selected and directed with greater care. Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, and Marcia Gay Harden are terrific. The photography is outstanding, and the sets recreate the 1940s and late 1960s very believably. The contrast between Jewish and Italian families in New York is most amusing. Why were no academy awards lavished on this film? Perhaps because it is out of step with contemporary cultural norms and deals essentially with seniors, i.e. people who have lived through much and have a measure of wisdom. Don't miss it.

If you like the "Moonstruck" kind of film - a many-layered, multi-charactered tumble of the comic and the tragic (with plenty of shouting and raging) romping to a happy ending - you'll love this. It's packed, it's fast-moving, it's funny, it's wonderfully acted - above all, it's human. The elderly, gentle Mastroianni still charms and delights, though it's a pity they challenged his English with so many difficult lines. As a counterbalance, Shirley Maclean is a Fury again (cf. "Steel Magnolias"), to be smoothed and softened only by the friction with daughter Bibby (Kathy Bates) and the dedication of her new suitor. True, the story has its creaks and groans - what better to road to a woman's heart than to save her grandson from certain death? - but exuberance carries the day, we are swept along and are happy to rejoice with the rest of the cast in the Grand Finale. Of course, if you didn't like "Moonstruck" . . .

My review was written in December 1992 after watching the movie in a Manhattan screening room.

A modern, absurdist sensibility informs the soap opera "Used People", making this Fox release an unusual and problematic entry in the crowded holiday sweepstakes. Terrific cast should ensure a hefty audience sample.

Peopled with an eye toward the growing market segment that patronzed its stars' hits "Steel Magnolias", "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Fried Green Tomatoes", the Largo film actually harks back to '50s weepies. With Shirley MacLaine as its spine, the film updates the type of pictures that Shirley Booth (e.g., in "About Miss Leslie") or Jane Wyman routinely used to make.

Actor Todd Graff has scripted an actors' showcase, with heightened performances by the ensemble eschewing the naturalism favored by mainstream fare. Whether viewers will get with the program is another matter; film's trailer emphasizes its comedic elements (and sight gags) while hiding its more ambitious melodramatic segments.

Set in 1969 in the Sunnyside section of Queens, New York, the film limns the colorful family life of a Jewish matriarchy centered around MacLaine, whose husband (Bob Dishy) has just died. Key characters include her protective mom (Jessica Tandy), dysfunctional children (Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden), both of whom have been divorced, and Tandy's best friend (Sylvia Sidney).

Enter Marcello Mastroianni, MacLaine's secret admirer who uses the family's sitting shiva after Dishy's funeral as his occasion to make his platonic affection for her manifest. As shown in flashbacks, he met Dishy in his brother Charles Cioffi's bar 23 years ago and encouraged him to continue his marriage to Shirley rather than leave her.

The family's rejection of Mastroianni and cross-cultural antics between them and Mastroianni's Italian-American clan make for some effective comedy in the middle reels but Graff's work is built around highly dramatic confrontation scenes. In particular, a heart-rending fight between MacLaine and daughter Bates becomes the film's emotional core, marred only by Graff's frequently obvious dialogue.

As demonstrated in her previous picture, "Antonia & Jane", British director Beeban Kidron is fond of injecting caricature and satire, here personified by Harden's character who keeps imitating movie icons like Marilyn Monroe and Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate". Latter motif digresses at length as she and Mastrroianni's brother-in-law (Joe Pantoliano) engage in a Dustin Hoffman/Bancroft sex scene that segues to light bondage.

Least successful element of black humor involves Harden's young son (Mathew Branton), who believes grandpa Dishy's spirit is protecting him. Throughout the film he places himself in suicidal situations only to be saved by luck. Like Graff's other subplots, this yields a heartwarming resolution but is tough sledding along the way.

MacLaine's precise acting is laudatory and balanced by a very sympathetic turn by twinkle-eyed Mastroianni, in his best English-language role so far. The support ensemble is excellent, with Sylvia Sidney, perfectly matched opposite Tandy, stealing most of her scenes adroitly. Harden's work, as it was in "Miller's Crossing", is promising but brittle compared with the ease shown by her vet co-stars.

Both Tandy and Bates have essentially supporting assignments but fans will appreciate their lack of showboating here. David Watkin, who covered similar territory in lensing "Moonstruck", photographs the action unobtrusively while capturing some memorable images, such as Harden visiting a cemetery or MacLaine dancing in her apartment. Rachel Portman's score handily supports the film's serious mood and helps avoid risibility.

Some great roles for woman were written in the end of the last century such as Thelma And Louise, Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes, Moonstruck, and this one, slightly overlooked in that stellar company. Used People tells a wonderful tale of a widow and grandmother played by Shirley MacLaine to whom a second love comes right at the funeral of her husband.

As this Jewish family is sitting Shiva for MacLaine's husband, Marcello Mastroianni comes in, unknown and imparts a secret to MacLaine concerning her late husband.

Mastroianni intrigues her, but MacLaine's most Jewish of families is against the very idea of her keeping company with him.

There are a host of wonderful roles besides the leads and it's the mark of a great film that these characters are invested with individuality by the writers. Some great players bring said individuality to those parts.

MacLaine's two daughters, Marcia Gay Harden and Kathy Bates are as different as can be. Harden is constantly acting out with different Hollywood legends portrayed. She's a real drama queen, years later still in mourning for a child she lost. She has a great scene with her other young son Michael Branton who also been acting out some dangerous things.

Kathy Bates was the less favored daughter with a weight problem who lets MacLaine have it. Bates is sick of the indulgence given Hardenand who could blame her.

Two aged actresses from earlier days, Sylvia Sidney and Jessica Tandy have some wonderful scenes as a pair of old Jewish yentas. They quarrel but there's a bond there.

An old tune that Frank Sinatra recorded with Tommy Dorsey, The Sky Fell Down provides a great musical theme for November/November romance.

Used People is a great ensemble film and should get a lot more attention than it has gotten.

I can't think of a film that had a better cast, story and acting.

I absolutely loved this film and its performances. It is about a Jewish family in 1969 Queens but as we know, human stories can be about any religion or ethnicity.