Cast:
Parker Posey ("Jackie-O" Pascal), Josh Hamilton (Marty Pascal), Tori Spelling (Lesly), Freddie Prinze Jr (Anthony Pascal), Geneviève Bujold (Mrs. Pascal) Directed by Mark Waters (#151 - Mean Girls, #204 - Freaky Friday (2003), #236 - Mr. Popper's Penguins)
Review:
"Basically, what we wanted to achieve was a heightened reality. The situations and characters are out there, but the actors are always coming from a real place. They're not wacky cartoon characters."
Oh hell, sometimes you have to go outside the box when it comes to picking movies involving directorial debuts and, uh, movies with one standout cast member in a limited ensemble. The film is based on the play of the same name by Wendy MacLeod, which originally was brought to the stage in San Francisco for 1990; various productions have been done over the years, which included one run on off-Broadway. Mark Waters adapted the play to the screen to direct, which came after years of waiting. He had seen the play and apparently saw immediate things that he would do to make it cinematic. When he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, he got the attention of MacLeod and got a manuscript copy from her while saying he was a film producer. It took five years and graduation from the AFI Conservatory with a master's degree in filmmaking, but he eventually found his way to making the film, which was his feature debut. Aaron Spelling and his company Spelling Entertainment helped to finance the film for who else but his daughter Tori to serve as one of the key actors (Waters had planned to fund the film from foreign pre-sales, but hey, why not Spelling and his considerable television presence?). The film was shot over the course of 24 days for a budget under $2 million. Miramax apparently liked what they saw when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 and bought the rights to distribute it, which did not turn out to be a success in limited numbers. Perhaps an attempt at making a Gothic tale with macabre taste about an assassination was doomed from the start to do anything other than mild attention, but this was the year of other "family" films such as The Ice Storm and The Myth of Fingerprints (the latter had also premiered at Sundance that year). Of course, maybe I could do a teensy, tiny, little primer of what the film involves. It is set on Thanksgiving in 1983 and involves a main character that dresses up like Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis) that has their own neat little secret to go with trips to the funny farm (footage from her tour of the White House is utilized with a young version of "Jackie-O", as played by Rachael Leigh Cook). Oh, and she and her brother have a certain connection that involves details of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Waters would return to the director's chair in 2001 with Head over Heels.
You know, I had a feeling that this film was going to be an interesting experience, even with its stagey execution with odd dealings. It grew on me for its 85-minute runtime beyond my expectations of just being a mild experience with only a taboo to stick out or just hints. Of course, emotional obsession can make for quite a fun time for those who take investment into that sort of thing for their dark comedies, and it works out just fine for this feature, which goes into the jaws of psychosis and finds that one really cannot stop at the bottom, regardless if one belongs to the class of the rich, who might as well be called "the house of yes". So it isn't a movie about the Kennedys but merely the myth that centers around them. Of course, the film is carried most by Posey, who was once called "Queen of the Indies" for her work within various independent films, such as Party Girl (1995). She is the best part of the film because of how confident she is with such an unpredictable role, one that is extravagantly dangerous without being pegged down as a simple loon. She is captivating in how she grips your concerns for how much obsessive and irrational love can inflict their claws on someone that could pervade everything around them until that is all there is. As such, the scenes spent with Hamilton in the throes of mental anguish provide a quality tete-a-tete between the attempts at trying to be "normal" on one side and trying to, well, see how much things having in common really matters. Bujold is the ever-watching eye that can only help but pay attention to the charade of affluent breeding. Spelling was known for her role on Beverly Hills 90210. I suppose it makes sense that she ends up playing the most "normal" of the limited cast, and she actually holds her own pretty well in being the perfect plain contrast that has the biggest crime of being "normal". Prinze Jr was actually in his second film role here, having gotten into show business because his grandfather told him to in order to "fix what your father fucked up". He may not be close to the best thing about the film, but his odd duck youthfulness gels just fine when it comes to uncomfortable amusement, spent mostly with Spelling in a different kind of charade built on warped desire. As a whole, the film doesn't become too warped in sincerity or camp value to lose sight of what matters in a film about people who are never told no that go with snappy dialogue and useful pacing to make a darkly enjoyable surprise for those who buy into that sort of thing, especially with its final fateful decision. I dug it and where it went in its stagey foundations with a good dark chuckle.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
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