Jane Fonda is Viveca, a faded actress and major drunk of this or any other generation, who wakes up in bed with a strange man next to her who happens to have a knife sticking out of his chest. She draws a blank. Did she kill him or not? She cleans the guy's apartment of any trace of herself before leaving and gets home by hitching a ride with a retired policeman, Jeff Bridges. She gets drunk again, wakes up in the morning and tries to take a shower but finds the same dead body propped up in the shower stall.
Her estranged husband, Raoul Julia, does what he can to help but he's involved with his tony hair dressing business and Fonda winds up turning to Bridges for safety, succor, and sex.
Then the plot gets a little twisted.
I think Sidney Lumet must have gotten lost during a binge in New York night spots and woke up in Los Angeles. But he gets it just about right. When Fonda first leaves the corpse's apartment she finds herself on an unfamiliar street, the kind that characterizes LA perfectly. The opening sequence shows us blank warehouse walls on empty industrial boulevards and the avenues of pastel, middle-class apartments are equally devoid of pedestrians. That's the difference between LA and New York. In Los Angeles nobody walks. In New York if you step out your door you are mugged by the crowd.
Fonda is a professional actress undone by age but the role is played with craggy inconsistency. She's pretty tough. She makes wisecracks to the cadaver while she's scrubbing his apartment. She's aggressive and manipulative at LAX. On the other hand, she plays Viveca as a shrill, nervous wreck with a semiquaver in her voice, even when she's supposed to be mellowed out on Thunderbird, a cheap wine. However, Fonda looks just fine considering that she's no longer the teenager of her earlier movies. She's just my age. I saw a recent photo of her and she still looks stunningly beautiful, as do I.
I've always like Raoul Julia's performances. He's reliable, reassuring, good in almost everything he does. Too bad he wasn't around longer. Jeff Bridges usually brings something unique to each of his roles but he's hobbled here by the limitations written into this stereotype of stability. He's a handyman, the eternal fixer-upper, a guy who takes old busted things and refurbishes them, every wife's dream of a man who is good with a wrench and knows how to reintroduce the sputtering home computer to the concept of reliability. He's a man of nature, comfortable enough in his own skin to use ethnic epithets like "beaner" and "spade" good naturedly and without self consciousness, a Mellors the grounds keeper for our time.
The script has little hackneyed touches that I find hard to believe originated with such a seasoned and talented director as Sidney Lumet. Fonda is backing out of the dead man's apartment, bumps into someone, there is a sting in the score, and it's merely Jeff Bridges who has followed her without Fonda or the audience knowing it. It's done twice, and it's pretty cheap. And when Fonda changes her hair from phony blond to natural chestnut or burnt sienna or whatever it is, a grand dramatic display is made of it. The viewer is supposed to applaud because, now, THAT'S the iconic Jane Fonda we know and love. No phoniness here. (She smokes and drinks during the first half of the movie, but not the last half.) The score is by Paul Chihara and the main theme is carried by a soprano saxophone. This might have been a novelty in 1986 but now, after ten years of Kenny G, it's enough to induce thyrotoxic storm.
On the admirable side, she simply stops drinking for a couple of days and is determined never to get drunk again. We are spared the tears and anguish we might experience if she went through withdrawal -- the bottle looming in the foreground, the trembling hand, the half-full glass poured back into the bottle. Still, I have to say that the ending of Lumet's "Verdict" was more realistic. There, Paul Newman's drunk has found himself at the end but it doesn't stop him from drinking.
Also on the good side of the ledger, some snappy lines in the dialog. Viveca's real name is Alexandra Sternbergen. Bridges prefers her real name and so does she -- "In arguments, it's harder to yell 'Alexandra'." It's got a bit of spark.
Her estranged husband, Raoul Julia, does what he can to help but he's involved with his tony hair dressing business and Fonda winds up turning to Bridges for safety, succor, and sex.
Then the plot gets a little twisted.
I think Sidney Lumet must have gotten lost during a binge in New York night spots and woke up in Los Angeles. But he gets it just about right. When Fonda first leaves the corpse's apartment she finds herself on an unfamiliar street, the kind that characterizes LA perfectly. The opening sequence shows us blank warehouse walls on empty industrial boulevards and the avenues of pastel, middle-class apartments are equally devoid of pedestrians. That's the difference between LA and New York. In Los Angeles nobody walks. In New York if you step out your door you are mugged by the crowd.
Fonda is a professional actress undone by age but the role is played with craggy inconsistency. She's pretty tough. She makes wisecracks to the cadaver while she's scrubbing his apartment. She's aggressive and manipulative at LAX. On the other hand, she plays Viveca as a shrill, nervous wreck with a semiquaver in her voice, even when she's supposed to be mellowed out on Thunderbird, a cheap wine. However, Fonda looks just fine considering that she's no longer the teenager of her earlier movies. She's just my age. I saw a recent photo of her and she still looks stunningly beautiful, as do I.
I've always like Raoul Julia's performances. He's reliable, reassuring, good in almost everything he does. Too bad he wasn't around longer. Jeff Bridges usually brings something unique to each of his roles but he's hobbled here by the limitations written into this stereotype of stability. He's a handyman, the eternal fixer-upper, a guy who takes old busted things and refurbishes them, every wife's dream of a man who is good with a wrench and knows how to reintroduce the sputtering home computer to the concept of reliability. He's a man of nature, comfortable enough in his own skin to use ethnic epithets like "beaner" and "spade" good naturedly and without self consciousness, a Mellors the grounds keeper for our time.
The script has little hackneyed touches that I find hard to believe originated with such a seasoned and talented director as Sidney Lumet. Fonda is backing out of the dead man's apartment, bumps into someone, there is a sting in the score, and it's merely Jeff Bridges who has followed her without Fonda or the audience knowing it. It's done twice, and it's pretty cheap. And when Fonda changes her hair from phony blond to natural chestnut or burnt sienna or whatever it is, a grand dramatic display is made of it. The viewer is supposed to applaud because, now, THAT'S the iconic Jane Fonda we know and love. No phoniness here. (She smokes and drinks during the first half of the movie, but not the last half.) The score is by Paul Chihara and the main theme is carried by a soprano saxophone. This might have been a novelty in 1986 but now, after ten years of Kenny G, it's enough to induce thyrotoxic storm.
On the admirable side, she simply stops drinking for a couple of days and is determined never to get drunk again. We are spared the tears and anguish we might experience if she went through withdrawal -- the bottle looming in the foreground, the trembling hand, the half-full glass poured back into the bottle. Still, I have to say that the ending of Lumet's "Verdict" was more realistic. There, Paul Newman's drunk has found himself at the end but it doesn't stop him from drinking.
Also on the good side of the ledger, some snappy lines in the dialog. Viveca's real name is Alexandra Sternbergen. Bridges prefers her real name and so does she -- "In arguments, it's harder to yell 'Alexandra'." It's got a bit of spark.