Mal à l'âme

There was a time when the television networks made movies, small films that would never have been made by the big studios for theatrical release. This is one of those movies, and though it's a small story about human relationships it looms large in the wondrous performances of Colleen Dewhurst and Farrah Fawcett.

Dewhurst plays a former opera singer, a grand dame who lives in a picture-perfect rural Connecticut home with her husband (Steven Hill). She's about to welcome her son (Michael Nouri) and to meet his new girlfriend (Fawcett). She instantly dislikes the young woman.

The story then details the "family" relationships over the next 14 years years but centers on the changing relationship between the women. As the years tick by, they get to know each other better but their relationship remains prickly. It's only after Dewhurst suffers a stroke that they begin to move toward the center of their enduring bond and recognize it for what it is.

Dewhurst never lets this get cloying or overly sentimental, and Fawcett turns in a gritty performance as the determined younger woman. Nouri and Hill are fine. Bronson Pinchot has a cameo as a wedding photographer.

This movie, though I saw it when it first came out has never left me. It is often difficult to minister to those we do not care for but we find that our responsibility for them and our guilt take over and we "do what we have to do". The scene where Amy is removing the hairs from her mother-in-laws chin is so powerful it still evokes tears when I think about it. I think that this is the turning point for them both and I feel that they accepted one another then. I have had the responsibility of looking after my father-in-law for a short time and my remembrances of this movie have helped with my own struggle with that time. The rewards of that experience will never leave me.

Lovers Michael Nouri and Farrah Fawcett can't get any time together alone because of his wheedling, overbearing mother (played to the hilt by Emmy-winner Colleen Dewhurst). This monstrous mama, a perfectionist who comes between her son and his wife on more than one occasion, is at times a fascinating character--but a little of her goes quite a stretch. The lovebirds share a few tender moments, but it isn't long before Fawcett realizes Dewhurst is never going away and that husband Nouri is unable to stand up to her (he matches wits with his mother but can never win an argument). When Farrah finally blows off some steam, it's a relief to us--and yet the wife's sudden surge of spunk is immediately shot down, and soon we're back at the beginning. There's a great deal of realism in these family arguments and personality clashes, and the acting is uniformly terrific, but this kind of issue movie doesn't entertain as much as it leaves viewers in knots. ** from ****

The film does explain the cause of Dewhurst's overbearing nature and there is resolution to the story, though to be more specific than that would be to "spoil." I agree that the tension for most (but not all) of the picture is grueling, but the end product is one of the most realistic portrayals I've seen of what it is like to provide in-home care for a family member. I was glad that the characters weren't Hollywood-obvious "good" and "bad" and that the plot wasn't tied in a neat and tidy (tiresome and clichéd) manner. The choice of opera in the soundtrack and the inclusion of W.B. Yeats poem, "The Second Coming" is especially powerful.

There's a lot between-the-lines here too about vulnerability in the guise of brashness, masking insecurity with micro-management, and how the sins of one generation are spilled to the next. This is a film worth watching several times.

This quiet movie worked for me. I have never seen the potentially explosive, often confusing relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law addressed so sensitively--or at all, come to think of it. Every character was believable, even the children. Watch for the subtle history lesson the son communicated with just a few words and body language in the dinner table scene. This movie was carefully crafted, a gentle master work worth catching if you can (I saw it on Lifetime). It is one of those rare gems that inspires without sappiness or a sledgehammer. In the end, we are left wanting to pick up the phone and appreciate the people in our lives, no matter how difficult they are, even when it doesn't seem to make sense.