Sometimes the drama behind the scenes overshadows the film itself — John Huston’s 1961 eulogy to the Western, The Misfits is such a film. A relatively obscure film (considering the cast), the movie has a strange reputation; it’s not fondly remembered and is now renowned more for its tragic backstory and the doomed cast. Both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe died soon after the film was completed, never to make another film again. Montgomery Clift would also die soon after. The film also had a tempestuous gestation, rife with tales of Huston’s gambling the film’s budget and Monroe’s tempermental and increasingly delusional behavior that would derail the filming.

The film takes place in Reno, Nevada and deals with the story of Gay Langland (Gable), a handsome cowboy who seems to have been born in the wrong decade. He and his best friend, Guido (Eli Wallach), meet up with a beautiful divorcee, Roslyn Tabor (Monroe). They befriend Roslyn and take her to Guido’s ranch home, where the two men both vie for her affection. Gay’s friend, Perce Howland (Clift), a fellow cowboy also enters the scene and immediately finds himself drawn to Roslyn, as well. The men embark on an assignment to corral wild horses, destined for the dog food factory, much to Roslyn’s despair and disgust.

Monroe’s husband at the time, playwrite, Arthur Miller penned this film for his wife. He was hoping to write a Valentine for her to prove her thespic prowess. He needn’t have tried so hard, because Monroe’s performances in the string of films after her conversion to the Method are textbook examples of brilliant comic acting. He seemed to have confused “boring” with “accomplished” and drafting a dry, overwritten tale of alienation, where very little happens.

It’s obvious that Miller identified with Gay, and as a result, that character is the best-written of the cast. Gable performs him with a startling reality that differs from his other films. Gable was an admirable actor, and capable of good work, though he seemed a true product of the Hollywood system. It is gratifying then, to see him break out of the confines of his matinee idol routine and really do something as naked and raw as this. There is a brilliant scene, where Gay stumbles about it drunken despair over his nonexistant relationship with his children. Gable deconstructs and fractures his film hunk image and allows himself to look pathetic and disgusting — it’s a shame that he waited so long in his career to tap into this well of ability.

Clift, whose beautiful visage was permanently disfigured in a car accident years earlier, gives a heartfelt and natural performance, as well. Like James Dean and Marlon Brando, Clift had a reputation of giving blood on screen. An extremely intense, if delicate, performer, all his characters have a tragic gossamer feel to them — as if they were made of glass. Perce is no different — even though he rides in rodeos and lassos wild horses, he still comes off as fragile. Clift imbues his character with a spooky doom.

Wallach and Monroe both studied with Lee Strasburg (his wife, Paula was Monroe’s onset coach), and were disciples of the Method. Wallach does his usual steady, consistent solid work. He is physically unassuming, and doesn’t have the classic good looks of Clift or Gable, yet he does not fade into the background. Unlike many Method actors (Monroe, Sandy Dennis, Brando), his performance is free from neurotic shades, allowing for his character to be natural.

Monroe’s performance is the most difficult to judge because her character is so badly written. Miller wanted to take her away from the comic blonde ditz, yet he cast her in a distressingly one-dimensional character — there is little difference between Roslyn and the other dumb blondes Monroe was cast in, early in her career. The only difference is that at least her former roles were entertaining and funny; Roslyn is just a pale echo or shadow of Monroe’s cinematic persona. Yet, she overcomes the massive limitations of her role and gives a sad and heartfelt performance. The irony of Monroe’s triumph in this film is that during her marriage to Miller, he was known as the intellectual, when upon viewing this film, it seems that she was the true artist of the couple.

Miller set out to make a vehicle for his wife, and as a result, Roslyn’s character is constantly praised and exalted and she is stripped of any humanity, instead becoming an icon — a similar fate Monroe had to deal with. Her character also has an improbable elasticity, and she is everything to everyone, fulfilling all of her companions’ ideas of women.

The Misfits is a curious film — not terribly interesting. It’s still worth watching to see Gable and Monroe stretching their acting muscles.

What is real and what is delusion? Perception and reality are often seen as relative — we make our own reality and truth. If that is true, then what if one’s truth is markedly off from everyone else’s? This question is asked in Craig Gillespie’s Lars and the Real Girl a film that takes some getting used, but is worth the effort. What initially appears to be a sophomoronic conceit evolves into a deeply poignant and satisfying experience.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a shy young man who lives in the garage, while his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and pregnant sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer) live in the house. Gus is reluctantly tolerant of his brothers socially inept behavior, due to the guilt he feels over leaving home early when their mother died. Karin, on the other hand, loves Lars fiercely, and continually tries to reach out to him, to no avail.

One day at work, Lars’ creep of a co-worker shows him an Internet Website selling sex dolls. Initially, he is dismissive and scoffs at his friend’s strange fascination with the dolls. After Karin beseaches him again to open up emotionally to her, Lars announces to his family that he has a girlfriend. Thrilled Gus and Karin are soon devastated to be presented to Bianca, a sex doll ordered from the Website. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), a family practioner who just happens to be a pyschologist, as well (this is a tiny town, so you have to double) pretends to treat Bianca, all the while treating Lars, as well.

The first few scenes with Bianca and Lars are definately slapstick. The humor derived from his family’s and friends’ reactions to Lars’ insistence that the doll is real is played for laughs. There is a subtle shift in tone, marked by Gus’ pained expression as Lars fussily bundles Bianca into his car — from there, the Mannequin-like jokiness makes way for a introspective and darker tone.

Gosling, a wonderful actor, does great work as Lars. It’s a joy to watch Gosling who could’ve been relegated to “hot stud” roles, but instead has forged a much more interesting and quirkier career as a character actor. He plays Lars with the utmost sincerity and respect. Schneider also is good, and believably plays the confusion, frustration and despair of a man who thinks his brother is going insane. Mortimer is lovely and matches Gosling. Clarkson as the town’s Yoda has the most thinly-written role, but steals her scenes with her subtle quiet emoting.

Lars and the Real Girl takes a look at a small town and its devotion to one of its members. The townsfolks rally around Lars, and though their shows of support are at times, hard to swallow, it’s their devotion to Lars that makes the film so touching. There is a predictable plot twist toward the end, and the reaction of Lars’ friends is truly moving. Bianca may not have been real, but the love of his friends and the emotion of this movie, definately are.

Director Julie Taymor (Frida) has a startling vision, and often accents her films with bizarre and unsettling special effects to punctuate a point. She also has a way with puppets and though she’s no Jim Henson, she still employs marionnettes to good effect, as seen in her stage direction of the musical adaptation of Disney’s The Lion King. Given her theatrical flair, a movie musical wouldn’t seem so out of the ordinary, and Across the Universe, for the most part works, because the genre allows for some of Taymor’s embellishments — it’s only when she goes too far, that the film sinks underneath her ambition.

Set in the 1960’s, the story opens in Liverpool. Jude (Jim Sturgess, Mouth to Mouth) leaves his dreary live as a dock worker for America to confront his biological father who left his mother when he was a child, and now works at Princeton University. There he meets a rebellious student, Max (Joe Anderson, Copying Beethoven) and the two strike up a friendship. Max’s sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood, The Upside of Anger) is his beautiful sister whose boyfriend is leaves for Vietnam. Max leaves Princeton and with Jude the two move to New York City and immediately settle into an apartment with a bluesy rock singer, Sadie (Dana Fuchs), who guards her place and her brood of tenents like a protective mother hen. Lucy also moves to New York after learning of her boyfriend’s death and falls for Jude. The two have a tempestuous relationship, while various social and political events occure as a backdrop to the love story — most notably the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Lucy becomes involved in the protests, at the expense of her relationship with Jude.

The music is all from the Beatles’ catalogue, so it’s guaranteed to be high quality music — the performers also all do very well, some better than others. Taymor also enlisted a gallery of Who’s Who to round out the cast in well-placed cameos. The most striking has to be rock singer, Joe Cocker who growls his way through an anthematic “Come Together” playing the roles of a homeless man, a burnt out hippie and a pimp. Also making a surprise appearence is U2 frontman Bono, as Dr. Robert, a Timothy Leary-like guru, who does a great rendition of “I Am a Walrus.” The Irish rocker also does a bang-up job with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” over the film’s end credits.  Taymor’s Frida star, Salma Hayek also drops by (actually through the magic of film, five Salma Hayeks show up) as well in a naughty nurse’s outfit.

 The cast itself does an admirable job with the singing. As the lead, Sturgess, who is relatively unknown in the United States, has to carry a lot of the film, and does so with an easy charm. He resembles Paul McCartney slightly (both have a fresh-faced boyishness), and his singing does recall Ewan McGregor’s warbling in Moulin Rouge!. Evan Rachel Wood, who initially appears as a dreadfully boring Sandra Dee clone, also does a decent job with her singing — she’ll never be mistaken for Barbra Streisand, but she doesn’t embarrass herself; her performance is rave-worthy, though. When she first is seen, her character is woefully date — a sort of cliche of a 1960’s suburban daughter; once her boyfriend is killed and she develops a social conscious (in a remarkably quick time), her character develops at a break-neck pace (the fault of the over-zealous writers), though Wood handles the plot’s hurtling speed well. Actress-singer T.V. Carpio (She Hate Me), does a fine job in her small, underwritten role as a young woman discovering her sexuality, and even though her part’s not all that well-written, she does have a highlight in her lilting version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Musician Martin Luther McCoy is decent, though his role is such an obvious homage to Jimi Hendrix that he comes off more as a plot device than a true character, but the man can sing beautifully, and does the best with the role. Dana Fuchs, who could’ve suffered the same fate as McCoy, by being an allegory of Janis Joplin, gives a beautiful performance as the conflicted, though humane Sadie, and has pipes that would put Melissa Etheridge to shame.

The movie chugs along in an agreeable fashion, and surprisingly doesn’t grind to a halt when it’s a time for a musical number. There is a sequence that almost kills the film — soon after meeting Dr. Robert, Jude, Lucy and their friends are left stranded in a field until they approach a circus tent that explodes in psychedelic musical sequence set to “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” with a cameo by comedian Eddie Izzard (television’s The Riches), who looks like Tim Curry from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The sequence is awfully staged and confusing, with melting images of the characters floating in discolored water (like oil paints allowed to bleed). The pacing grinds to an excruciating crawl.

Across the Universe won’t be entered in the canon of great musical numbers. Unlike classic MGM films, there isn’t a real standout number and the performers, with the exception of Fuchs and McCoy, aren’t natural singers (most of the voices are efficient, if nondescript). The social consciousness of the writers also veer into mawkishness, as well. The brilliance of the compositions, however transcend any dips into mediocrity.

Family holidays are difficult for everyone, and the stress is compounded if someone is bringing in a new girlfriend or fiance. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha, The Family Stone, is a humorous family drama that presents a tight-knit family, and arduousness it takes to squeeze yourself in. Sarah Jessica Parker headlines a cast of recognizable names, in her first role after Sex and the City, and tries to erase any trace of Carrie Bradshaw with her portrayal of Meredith Morton.

Meredith Morton is an uptight, anally-retentive fussbudget, who has annoying quirks and an unfortunate tendency to come off as priggish and judgmental. She is enganged to Everett Stone (Dermont Mulroney, My Best Friend’s Wedding), a handsome man who is the golden child of the Stone family. He takes Meredith home to meet his family, who behave with a ferocity the Corleones would balk at. The family is eccentric and fussy, and though they insist they’re liberal and tolerant, each member views Meredith with undisguised contempt. The matriarch, Sybil (Diane Keaton, Something’s Gotta Give), is the head of the household, and rules her roost like a slightly demented hen. Her husband, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson, Coach), is generably likable, and defers often to his domineering wife. Everett’s the oldest of five kids that include Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser, The Believer), Amy (Rachel McAdams, Mean Girls), Thad (Tyrone Giordano, A Lot Like Love) and Ben (Luke Wilson, Legally Blonde).

Ben, the endearing slacker is the only one of the clan that manages to see through Meredith’s defensive facade. The two seem to have a connection, though despite her best intentions, she cannot seem to break through the other folks (though often the lack of camaderie is her fault). Meredith’s type-A personality is exemplified by her physical appearence: gone are the crazily eclectic outfits that we’re used to seeing on Parker; instead she’s dressed in solemn black suits, and her hair is scraped back into a severe bun. She sticks out among the warm sweaters and lumpy cardigans that the Stones wrap themselves into.

Meredith needs an ally on her side, so she enlists the aide of her sister, Julie (Claire Danes), who is embraced by the Stone family without reservation. Julie is everything Meredith isn’t, and her easy-going nature, and ability to converse with ease scores her points with the family.

Bezucha crafts a script that goes through some well-worn cliches of “home for the holidays” films — the kookiness that he showers the family upon does seem a little pat. He also throws in a lot for the family to work with: brother Thad is not only gay but deaf as well. His deafness is a non-issue in the film, and to the screenwriter’s credit, he normalizes it into the script quite naturally. Sybil has a major plot twist of her own, that the audience learns of late in the film — it’s handled surprisingly well.

There is one scene in particular that Bezucha pens that is excellent. Meredith inadverdently offends the family by making some vaguly homophobic remark, that becomes increasingly offensive as she tries to explain herself. The Stones react, for once, without the artifice of being a “happy family” and despite their massive dysfunctions, show themselves as a supportive and loyal brood (especially Sybil). The scene initially is very uncomfortable to watch, not only because of the obvious hurt that Thad feels, but also because of the slippery way Meredith tries to navigate her way through her prejudices without success. There is a satisfying payoff at the culmination.

The cast members, for the most part, do good work, though there are a few clunkers in the pack, starting with Mulroney. Never a very impressive actor,  he nonetheless fades into the background, whenever he’s next to, well, anyone. Reaser as the eldest Stone daughter also doesn’t really make much of an impression. As Thad’s partner, Brian J. White (Daddy’s Little Girls) does what he can in a role that’s awfully thin.

Nelson, who is seen far too sporadically in film gives a solid and warm performance, and remains an impressive presence. McAdams again proves that she is Hollywoods strongest starlet ingenue, playing the bitchily hostile Amy full-tilt. Wilson also is good, and, though he may not have Mulroney’s GQ looks, he’s far more attractive because he’s laden with personality.

The two stars of the film: Parker and Keaton both outshine the cast, though. Parker, excorcizing Carrie Bradshaw forever, using her now-patented neurotic female nebbish character, but to a much-less adorable degree than ever before. She employs this disturbing, but hilarious, habit of clearing her throat, which drives McAdams’ Amy crazy. Keaton is the best of all, imbuing the script with an intelligence and warmth, despite being cast as the aggressively protective mother. There is no other comedienne working today that can combine the tragic pathos with the hilarious slapstick the film has her character mine through. While Keaton and company make for a hideously unappealing family to visit in real life, on celluloid, they’re just fine.

Interracial romance is always difficult to depict in film. There is a danger of being preachy and sanctimonious, talking down to the audience, instead of enlightening it.  Love Field is a film that tries mightly to teach viewers about how racism is bad and that love knows no color. The triteness with which this film deals with race relations makes Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner look like Do the Right Thing. It’s unfortunate that Love Field isn’t a good film, because not only is its subject matter interesting and important, it does feature a lovely performance by its star, Michelle Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer, in an Oscar-nominated role,  stars as Lurene Hallett, a Dallas hairdresser obsessed with the Kennedys. She appeares in the film in Marilyn Monroe-Jackie Kennedy drag, with a huge bouffant and pillbox hats. Pfeiffer is all 1960’s beautician with frosted lipstick and tarantala false eyelashes. When President Kennedy is assassinated, she jumps on a Greyhound, despite her husband’s protests, so that she can pay her respects. Lurene is a gold-hearted ditz, naive to an extreme, she prattles endlessly to a little Black girl named Jonell (Stephanie McFadden) who is traveling with her father, Paul Cater (Dennis Haysbert 24).

The bus crashes, and so does the film. Screenwriter Don Roos, decides that Love Field won’t just be a Civil Rights drama, but a crime caper, and Lurene gets Paul into all kinds of trouble with her good-intentioned, but ultimately stupid assumptions and errors. The two have to steal a car and are on the lam from the police and drive through the South making their way to Washington.

Director Jonathan Kaplan does a fitfully successful job, despite the hatchett job of Roos’ script. The initial scene where the characters learn of Kennedy’s death is very effective. The slow realization of the trouble settle like dust on the charactes’ faces.

Unfortunately, Roos fails as a scribe. His grasp of racism is shaky — in his favor he is unflinching in portraying racism in the South. Unfortunately, he also shows the Civil Rights era through the view of a White woman. Black people, despite being the most important players during the Civil Rights Movement, are shown as reactors to Lurene or plot devices to move the story along. There are no true Black characters — all, including Jonell and Paul are merely analogies of oppression.

The shame is that Pfeiffer is wasted in a bum role with a spotless performance. She finds an internal dignity in Lurene that does not exist in Rooss’ script. Her underutilized comic timing is also on hand for a bit. Haysbert is straightjacketed in the “Nobel Black man” role and despite his best efforts, he cannot seem to flourish in the offensively limited and underwritten role. McFadden steals scenes in a decidedly mature performance as the little girl. Love Field is the kind of movie that is supposed to teach us something: it doesn’t teach us anything new or profound about race or hatred, but it does teach us that Michelle Pfeiffer can still manage magic with mediocrity.

Terry McMillan’s blockbuster novel Waiting to Exhale struck a nerve with its female audience, who related to the four characters and their trials with men.  The book is compulsively filmable, which is why the film is so successful. The need for a film like this cannot be understimated - how many other major studio releases feature an all-Black female cast? Featuring pop singer Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard) and Oscar nominee Angela Bassett (What’s Love Got to Do with It) the film was a big boxoffice hit at the time — not a classic film, by any stretch, it does highlight a woefully underrepresented demographic and criminally ignored characters.
The story is similar to First Wives Club, in that the women find a bond together in their misery about men. Unlike Wives, the women in Exhale are treated pretty badly. Angela Bassett stars as Bernadine “Bernie” Harris, the dutiful wife of buppie John Harris, Sr (Michael Beach). Despite giving him a home, a family and supporting him through his career, she still loses her cad of a husband to co-worker (adding insult to injury, the other woman’s White). Not only is he leaving her, but Michael is also trying to stiff her financially, insisting they sell her home.

Whitney Houston is Savannah Jackson, a successful television producer who moves to Phoenix and reunites with her best friend, Bernie. Like Bernie, she also has major issues with men, specifically Kenneth Dawkins, an old flame, who ends up being married.

Lela Rochon is the brainy sexpot, Robin Stokes, woman who dumps her married lover only to find herself drawn to him, despite her repeated attempts at moving on with a rotund coworker.

Lorette Devine plays Gloria Matthews, a single mother and beautyshop owner, who must contend with an ex who’s gay, while raising an independent, though kindhearted, son. She catches the eye of her hunky neighbor, Marvin King (Gregory Hines), but like the other three women, has had such atrocious luck with men, that she has reservations about allowing him into her life.

The women of Waiting to Exhale are wonderful characters, and each actress has a moment to shine. Unlike First Wives Club, the women never descend into sexist stereotypes. The book is faithfully and loving transferred onto film, and it goes by breezily. The Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds-helmed soundtrack also moves things along, adding a lush romantic proceedings to the love scenes, while punctuating the ache in the heartbreak moments.

Oscar-winning actor Forrest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) does a solid job directing his theatrical film debut. He moves things at a brisk pace, employing standard, conservative shots. He also shoots his stars attractively, making sure each looks like a million bucks.

The performance of Bassett is predictably the strongest. Her portrayal is reminiscent of her acclaimed turn as Tina Turner. The most famous sequence of the film is the memorable scene where Bernie piles all of her husband’s possessions in a car and sets it on fire. Bassett’s quieter moments are equally potent — just watch her scene with Wesley Snipes in a wonderful cameo as a charmer in a bar; the two stars share a superb chemistry and the script is insightful and sensitive.
Devine is almost Bassett’s equal as the jovial Gloria. The film is careful not to take potshots at her weight, even though it’s mentioned. She has a wonderful comic sensibility and is humane. Rochon is also impressive, capable of showing joy and sadness. Houston is the least impressive, though she isn’t bad, just a little stiff. She moves through her scenes as if she were wearing a back brace, but in the humorous scenes, she shows a potential comic persona.

Waiting to Exhale was released over a decade ago. Unfortunately, the state of Black actresses in Hollywood hasn’t improved much. The four actresses have struggled to maintain their profiles in film (even the tabloid-favorite Houston who got more press for her drug and marrital woes, than for any work she’s done). Waiting to Exhale is a great example of what Hollywood can accomplish when it really reflects reality.

World War II is a fascinating  and fruitful period to make films, though it’s also terribly difficult to succeed in depicting such a monumental and complex time in history without exploitation, trivializing the subject or glossing over the horrors of the time. A great thing about a multi-facted part of history like WWII is that there are often stories not very well known that can be uncovered and dramatized: case in point, showing the war through the eyes of women. Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road (1997) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea with Mussolini (1999) are two examples of films that show the effects of war on women. There is a marked difference in that Beresford’s is a gritty and disturbing story of women interned in a Japanese war camp — while arguably not as horrific as the Nazi concentration camps, the women did suffer unimaginable atrocities, some of which made into the script. Zeffirelli’s tale is a fluffy trifle that has a decidedly more sanitized outlook of the war.Beresford, an Oscar-nominated director most famous for his 1989 hit Driving Miss Daisy, takes an oft-ignored story of WWII that takes place when Japan takes over
Singapore. The women interned are of diverse backgrounds — many of them British or American, and though rigid class and racial differences exist, predictably a bond builds as the women must face the cruelty of their captors. A novel way they maintain some semblence of order and sanity is the women start a choir, much to the perverse delight of the Japanese soldiers. The discipline and the routine help the women keep theri wits about them, and it also strengthens their friendship. Their bond is often tested, most graphically when one of the prisoners is set abalze for an infraction. The leader of the choir is a musical scholar, Adrienne Pargiter (Glenn Close, Reversal of Fortune, Fatal Attraction), who recognizes that the best chance for survival for the women is for them to remain united. She is supported by an impish British missionary, Daisy Drummond (Pauline Collins, Shirley Valentine) and a beautiful American woman (Julianne Margulies). The cast also features Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, The Aviator) Tea with Mussolini is quite different in tone — a sort of Enchanted April for the late 1990’s. Franco Zeffirelli’s alter ego Luca is a young boy who is being raised by a band of British women dubbed the scorpions. Luca’s surrogate mother is Mary Wallace (Joan Plowright, Enchanted April), a kind-hearted woman who worked for his absent father. She is joined by a band of friends, including a teary amateur artist, Arabella (Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love); Georgie Rockwell, a gay anthropologist (Lily Tomlin); Lady Hester Random (Maggie Smith, Gosford Park) and former-showgirl Elsa Morganthal (Cher, Moonstruck). The women live in the Tuscan countryside, and view the war, initially as little more than a nuisance. Lady Random especially feels that Benito Mussolini won’t let anything happen to her, because of his promises (the title refers to a lunch Lady Hester had with Il Duce). Of course, Mussolini reneges on his promise and the women are arrested when England and the
United States enter the war, yet because of Elsa’s anonymous generosity, they all still manage to live in style in a luxury hotel. There are plot twists that provide dramatic force for the film – Elsa is Jewish and could get into trouble with a man she is dating – though for the most part, the movie simply glides along and for the most part, skirts the horrors of war.  

is a better movie than Tea with Mussolini because it best represents the reality of World War II. Mussolini, at times, comes off as an old MGM-WWII weepie that was mass-produced during the war to drum up sentiment and pro-American morale. Zeffirelli seems to want to do the same thing Roberto Benigni did with Life Is Beautiful – he wanted to make a humane comedy about the War. It’s when Zeffirelli strays away from the sometimes-forced whimsy that the movie does shine. A great example would be a scene where the British women are being taken away after it’s announced that
England has entered the war. At one point, Georgie, a prickly character sees her friends loaded on a bus, and quietly blinks back a few tears – it’s a tiny moment, but a moving one that illustrates the indignities of war, no matter how minor.  

Even though I would recommend Paradise Road first, Tea with Mussolini has the superior cast – it just has to contend with an inferior script. Glenn Close does her dependable, spotless performance as the rebellious choir director, while Collins twinkles in her supporting role. However, the other women, including Marguiles and Blanchett aren’t nearly as impressive, and the movie starts to take the feeling of a documentary.  

Tea with Mussolini has a great cast of Academy Award winners and nominees, all doing some of their best work. Plowright is wonderful as the gentle Mary – she’s the only level-headed character in the film, and even in moments of great anger, she still manages to exude kindness. Dench is also good, though her character is written quite drearily, as she tears and bawls throughout the film. Smith, predictably steals scenes with a crackling wit, and of course is gifted with the film’s best one-liners. Tomlin is hilarious, though as mentioned earlier, is up to the more emotional scenes, as well.
Cher, looking gorgeous (despite her construction site face lift), is most memorable, playing the frivolous and flamboyant Elsa.  

Neither Paradise Road or Tea with Mussolini are classic films. With the former, you’re sure to learn something, and you may come out a better person. With the latter, you won’t get as much emotional truths, but you’ll certainly be entertained more.