O Círculo do Vício

Jennifer Jason Leigh is Dorothy Parker in "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle," a 1994 film also starring Campbell Scott, Peter Gallagher, Stanley Tucci, Matthew Broderick, Gwenyth Paltrow, Jennifer Beals, Lili Taylor, Martha Plimpton, Wallace Shawn - a large, excellent cast which would be needed to tell the story of the glittering literary geniuses who were part of the Algonquin Roundtable. Oh, to have been an adult in those days ('20s-'40s) when wit and education and intelligence were so prized! Parker, a unique talent who could write with pathos and humor, was surrounded by the likes of Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Charles Macarthur, Alexander Woolcott, Deems Taylor and Robert Sherwood. The sad thing is that if you're a young person and you happen to catch this film on the IFC channel, you won't have heard of any of these people. Nor will you be interested enough to look them up. People don't seem to have the intellectual curiosity they once did. I realize these are generalizations - just how general remains to be seen.

The atmosphere is set wonderfully in this film, which tells something of Dorothy Parker's sad life as she finds and loses love. Unfortunately, with possibly the exception of Campbell Scott as Benchley and at times Ms. Leigh, everyone is PLAYING Woolcott, MacArthur, etc. It's all a kind of let's pretend instead us showing us real people -- as famous as they all were, they were human beings. The script is uneven; the crazy, frenzied scenes at the Algonquin are the best ones, but we don't know these people well enough to be interested in smaller scenes.

I had the great pleasure of seeing Jason Leigh on Broadway in "Proof" and she was excellent - she is a very fine actress with a broad range. But in her attempt to successfully have all of Dorothy Parker's externals, she's tripped herself up. I unfortunately only understood maybe 40% of what she was saying. Not only do I doubt that was true of the real Dorothy, I also doubt going that far with the voice was necessary - very, very few people who would see this film ever heard Dorothy Parker speak. It's a little like doing Eliza Doolittle - if you actually spoke pure Cockney, the audience wouldn't understand a word. Parker's droll tones channeled through Leigh's mouth don't work. She does, however, create a very real and very sad person who lived in an interesting time, wrote about it and who loved and drank her way through it.

The movie is episodic and depends too much on the viewer's having prior knowledge of the life of Dorothy Parker and her literary friends. Its saving grace is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Mrs. Parker. Her only flaw is that, in trying to look and sound like Parker, her dialog is often hard to understand. Still, one of the greatest and most under-rated performances by an actress in an American film in the 1990s.

Since watching this film I have picked up a biography of Dorothy Parker as well as a book of her verse, that is how fascinating I find her to be. Not only her, but the performance of Jennifer Jason Leigh as well, though many have criticized her voice, I didn't find it out of place at all. The film involves us in her life in the 20's, when she was a theater critic for Vanity Fair. Throughout the film are celebrities of the time, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Howard Ross, Charles McArthur. The cast is first-rate, particularly Campbell Scott. It is a very quotable movie, full of venomous one-liners, most courtesy of Mrs. Parker. One can certainly admire her spirit to persevere and excel in a world dominated by men. It is helpful to know the members of the Round Table, but isn't necessary in order to enjoy the movie.

I found this movie totally enjoyable from start to finish. Maybe because Jennifer Jason Leigh is one of the most superb actresses of our time (and of course ignored!!!). Or maybe because I love period pieces with lavish attention to detail in the costumes and production designing. Or maybe because I am always entertained by true stories of humanity. I think in this movie's case, it is all three. This is another portrait of the dark side of fame. Leigh did a wonderful job being Mrs. Dorothy Parker, a 1920s poet and magazine writer who drank (during prohibition New York) and caroused with a large, mouthy group of professionals in the writing and stage business. It's easy for anyone to relate to the lonliness Mrs. Parker feels in this boisterous "circle" of shallow, back-stabbing people. In spite of her gift for smooth, haunting, beautiful poetry (much of it recited in this movie), Mrs. Parker is not happy or fulfilled. Rather she is misunderstood, isolated and self-depreciating. She ends up losing a job over salary disputes, losing her husband to alcohol, and falling deeply and hopelessly in love with the married Charles McArthur (Matthew Broderick), who impregnates and betrays her. Mrs. Parker's only comfort in life is the friendship she has with Bob Benchley (an excellent Campbell Scott). Leigh, speaking with a facinating accent, brings sadness and cynicism to Mrs Parker with perfection.

1920s poet and satirist Dorothy Parker, married to a morphine-addicted ex-soldier and recently fired as a writer for Vanity Fair, goes through a succession of men and magazine-published "doo-dads" before gaining a reputation as one of the greatest wits to come out of Depression-era New York City. "Mrs. Parker" is as rich an evocation of '20s Manhattan as we're likely to get today, and yet one wishes co-screenwriter and director Alan Rudolph would offer us more--or, at least, spring some surprises on us. There are morsels of splendorous chatter amongst the haves and have-nots of the literary world, but not enough to make a satisfying meal. Hollywood beckoned Dorothy Parker, but the experience left her depressed, as did life in general, which may be why she talked in a world-weary, dry-arch style which gave the impression of a woman with many disappointments in her closet. This is fascinating subject matter for the movies, but Rudolph barely dramatizes the material at all; he's so closed off from what's happening on the screen, many sequences plod by without any directorial nourishment. Certainly the large and interestingly cast group of actors on display are worth watching, though there are possibly too many real-life personalities rushing by us, everyone nonchalantly vying for time. Parker's "goodbye cruel war" attitude did not back her up in the end and, living until the year 1967, she survived most of her Algonquin Round Table cohorts. The film does not sentimentalize her or put her up on a pedestal, but neither does it help us to understand the tragedienne living beyond the wincing prose and words of woe. Jennifer Jason Leigh's portrayal divided the critics in 1994, yet she's definitely on to something special here. With a more incisive treatment, she may have delivered a true triumph. **1/2 from ****