ग्लोरिया

From its buildings, to its busy streets. From the people in the city, to the culture that created it, John Cassavetes perfectly captures the true essence of NYC. The true grit of the city, the core of the apple. The setting of the film is real. Unlike the remake almost twenty years later, NYC does not look like a commercial Disney Land without Mickey. Watching the film, you can smell the dirty hallways in the lower middle class hotels. You can hear the crowded Hispanic neighborhoods. And you can see what NYC is really like in Gloria.

I caught this on TV once and was blown away by its energy and spontaneity. Gena Rowlands is as good in it as everyone says, with some real surprises. The point about the kid coming out with "grown up" mock-heroic phrases at some points is that he's picked all that stuff up from the movies and listening to his parents' gangster friends. It's supposed to be funny - he keeps shouting "I'm the Man" when he patently isn't.

The movie takes action/gangster movie genre conventions by the scruff of the neck and shakes them till interesting stuff falls out. The editing and cinematography are great. New York looks gritty but beautiful.

True the film is kind of rough round the edges, I guess down to Cassavetes' improvisatory style, however it's a lot more accessible than most of his work and you should see it if you get the chance.

Good movies are timeless. Or they feel so. Sometimes this is because their subject is universal and it does not really matter what epoch the action is set in. In some other cases the quality of the story and of the acting make the period irrelevant. A good example is 'Gloria', a film made in 1980 by director (and actor) John Cassavetes about whom I knew very little before seeing this film. And yet, 'Gloria' is a gangster movies that keeps the interest of viewers all over the two hours of screen time and looks new and fresh, despite having been filmed almost 40 years ago.

The subject of the film will look familiar, as later movies like Luc Besson's 'Léon' have dealt with the theme of gangsters involved folks meeting and befriending kids, and melting to humanity in the course of the story. 'Gloria' however included from start a big twist. The lead adult hero is a woman, the ex-girlfriend of one of the mob chiefs, who witnesses the murder of the family of a six years old kid (her neighbor) who has nobody left to care about him and no place to go. Taking him under her protection means placing her in conflict with the mob (as the kid holds an accounting book with compromising mafia secrets) and with the law (she is believed to have kidnapped the kid). What follows is a few days of running from everybody and fighting for survival in the New York of 1980.

The New York in the film is a city that looks so familiar: the streets (much dirtier and more dangerous), the buildings (combining modern and decrepit), the skyline (with the painful silhouettes of the twin towers), the people who look so much the same as the diverse human landscape of the big city we know. The only major thing that seems to have changed is the value of the dollar. It may be as difficult as 40 years ago to change a 100 dollars bill, but two dollars fifty cents would not be sufficient nowadays for any room in a city hotel, probably not even for a tip in any city hotel. The other ingredient that makes the film interesting is the excellent acting performance of Gena Rowlands who partners with the young John Adames, a kid actor who did not grow into an adult actor. She is vulnerable as a woman who does not like kids (her cat is collateral damage in the first minutes of the film) and has a troubled past, yet strong as she knows the language and manners of the crime world and how to survive it. The ending is a little disappointing, unexpectedly conventional for such a film that is so non-conventional from many points of view, but this does not spoil too much the good impression left by this fresh classic.

Tastes may vary on this one, but there's much about this film that's endearing to viewers. It strikes you that the story isn't exactly the only of its kind (I see it as a precursor to -Leon- and probably takes cues from the delightful -Paper Moon-, but others of its "kind" are hard to think of), but it's about as well-done as you might expect. Some may not care for the Cassavetes stylistic touches, but here they are not especially intrusive. Gloria's a tough and likeable "bitch" with a moral compass, rightfully the center of the story. It outdoes -Leon- by not investing too much script capital in "developing" the child character. (It was primarily that aspect of -Leon- that annoyed me most.) This is straightforward, without the frills and gimmicks, emotional or otherwise. I do plan on watching the recent version with Sharon Stone, but don't expect to be as satisfied as with this.

I'd give it a minimum of 7/10 on my own, tough scale. I am surprised this is so little-known compared to -Leon-.

Jack Dawn has let slip to his mob employers that he has kept a book of all transactions. Jeri Dawn has just seen some men lingering in the lobby downstairs. Together they realise that the hit has come and they start to try to leave. They give their youngest son, Phil, to neighbour Gloria to offer some hope for him – although before leaving, Jack gives him his account ledger as protection. The mob slaughter the Dawn family but Phil and Gloria get away; however, with the information in their possession, Gloria soon finds that the mob still want the book back and the kid dead – will Gloria's former relationship with members of the mob help or hinder her? With so many good things generally said about this film, I thought I'd better give it a go despite already having seen the remake. The good things about it are generally true – it is quite engaging, Rowlands is pretty good and it is a bit tense. However I couldn't help but feel that the strengths were more than cancelled out by the weaknesses, not making it a bad film but making it only an OK one. The plot is gripping enough and has been redone several times since this film but somehow it doesn't always ring true – and this criticism can be carried across to the lead character. Would she really greet each mobster with spits of "punk" etc and always be pulling a gun, perhaps in fear she would but here she looks like she is in control. In terms of her character, she is harsh to the kid but yet never shows the growing affection that we assume must be the reason she cannot bring herself to do the wrong thing and hand over the kid. She shows it right at the end but it is too late to be convincing by then.

This is not to take away from her performance, because it is strong, but it is not convincing as a person. Cassavetes has crafted a tough female but has done so to the point where she seems a few steps off being the Terminator. Adames may well be trying his best but he is annoying and his character was totally absent – again not helped by the fact his material doesn't sound anything like a real person; contrast him with Portman in Leon and you'll see what a negative impact he had on the film. The mobsters are all Italian goons of the classic stereotype and they add nothing to the film in the way of actual menace. Cassavetes has done the job as director though and the film is quite tense while also capturing the city of New York of the time very well in regards atmosphere and grit.

Overall this is an OK film with an OK plot that is OK if you can get passed how unconvincing it all is. However it is no classic and the weaknesses and problems are difficult to ignore. Worth watching and perhaps better if you have low expectations but it is certainly anything like as good as its awards, names and reputation suggests that it will be.