Le Lendemain... du crime

This movie was much better than I had reason to expect after reading the comments on IMDb. Its biggest flaw must be the way The Morning After is marketed. It is not really a taut whodunit thriller but rather a study of a particular place in a particular era with particular characters – a dark comedy and a love drama at the same time. The second biggest flaw is the grating, almost ever present musical score. But for the rest this movie is nearly perfect.

I should call The Morning After an expose of Southern California in the mid 1980s. The sets and the photography (a lot frontal or near frontal wide angle shots of curbside sceneries) are very accomplished – Schrader's American Gigolo came to mind. The sun is always shining, the air seems to be absolutely pure, even places that should be dirty (back yards, industrial sites etc.) are painted in gaudy colors and squeaky clean. But the minds of the principal protagonists are desperately foggy and muddled. California appears to be a big, decaying fake idyll. People go there to die, I once read in a novel by Nathanael West (The Day of the Locust – also made into a great, underrated California movie, by the way). And that more or less sums up the feel of it.

The cast is kept wonderfully small. Jane Fonda is brilliant and she would have deserved the Oscar for this part. For several long scenes she acts alone in front of the camera and she really conveys the desperation and the natural charm of the character (and she's really attractive, too, despite the boozing). Jeff Bridges is a reliable support here. Also very good is Raul Julia as Fonda's somehow estranged husband. He plays a high end hairdresser with a snazzy salon and at times displays an unexpected but highly welcome gentlemanly charm.

Until now I always thought of Sidney Lumet as an American East Coast director. It is the only one of his movies I know that is set in California. He seems to have his own way of appreciating that place. There is a director's comment on the DVD I purchased and I am looking forward to listening to that.

I Think I´ll never see again the city of Los Angeles so beautiful like in this movie. The sky is so blue that the color seems made in a laboratory. The shining California sun gives a very lighted look to all the scenes filmed on street locations. Jane Fonda, playing an alcoholic but also a sensual lady, is brilliant too and so sexy as she was in 1971, when she won the Oscar for "Klute". You´ll enjoy watching "The Morning After", if you love LA, the sunny days and ladies like Jane Fonda.

This film most closely resembles the Film Noir of the 40's & 50's in feel and form. The only difference is the open light of LA on the Thanksgiving weekend. The scene at the airport communicates how much this City (LA) is a city where everyone comes from somewhere else. The great evacuation scene at LAX leaves lonely people like Fonda and Bridges behind, and is meant to explain the relative vacant feel of the town throughout the rest of the film.

The bright autumn light and vacant cityscape during the film is a surrealistic version of LA, which even a native like me seldom gets to see. The rest of the film is much like a "B" film noir picture, where we wonder (but not seriously) whether Jane's character may have actually done the deed in a drunken haze, and whether the Cop's will be able to get the right killer.

I love this film, not only for the scenes of LA, but for the good suspense generated by the unseen evil lurking in the all too limited shadows.

THE MORNING AFTER is one of those films that begins with an intriguing opening--JANE FONDA wakes up in bed next to a murdered man and, because she was in an alcoholic daze, can't remember even entering the man's apartment. So far, so good. Nice hook to draw the viewer in.

But as the story unwinds, it becomes clear that the writers ran out of material for a substantial story about midway through. The weaknesses are offset somewhat by the good performance of JEFF BRIDGES as a helpful policeman who agrees to help Fonda solve the who-dun-it aspect of her plight.

It's all beautifully staged and photographed in a sunlit Los Angeles and worth watching for the performances alone. Fonda is at her best as the worried alcoholic who refuses to believe she could have committed the crime and Bridges provides some good chemistry as a co-star.

But the ending (with its revelation) is a bit disappointing after all the build-up to a conclusion. RAOUL JULIA and KATHY BATES have minor roles but the weak ending is hard to dismiss.

Fonda won an Oscar nomination and deserved it for creating a dimensional character in a story thin on believable characters.

Jane Fonda gives an incredibly nuanced performance as a spiraling down drunkard, she researched the tragic 40's star Gail Russell who drank herself to death at 36 to fully understand her characters plight of a once promising actress reduced to blackouts and infamy. Jeff Bridges is almost as strong as a stranger trying to help her out of a situation she can't even remember. The rest of the cast gives good support starting with Raul Julia on down to a pre-stardom Kathy Bates in a tiny role, the problem is that the script that all this superior work is working with is ill conceived and not terribly well directed by the usually excellent Lumet.