Jennifer Jason Leigh

Single White Female (1992)

Single White Female (1992)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, November 2019) Calling a film influential is not the same as calling it good. At face value, especially when seen today, Single White Female is clearly not that successful: Ludicrous plotting, incredibly familiar plot elements, undercooked direction and an execution that seems to squander the possibilities of its high-concept premise through obvious choices. But this is nearly thirty years later, and the very qualities that made Single White Female a bit of a sleeper hit have been absorbed and endlessly repeated by a certain strain of cinema. What was novel at the time (a female-focused domestic thriller featuring a “roommate from hell,” directed by a woman, featuring two up-and-coming female leads) has become more commonplace. The premise was so compelling that it led to many, many imitators—a good chunk of made-for-Lifetime thrillers (not to mention BET original movies) veers very close to Single White Female. Watching it today is like going to the fountain from which those imitators have drunk. You won’t be surprised to see that it’s somewhat more thematically deep than surface imitations, or that some narrative beats are clunky when they are compared to later streamlined imitators. It’s clearly a B-movie, but both Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh (both of which have had decent careers in the years following their presence here) do well in the lead roles, as director Barbet Schroeder keeps the potboiler going. While much of the plot mechanics play about as well today as they did, the film is clearly stamped with its early-1990s by its portrayal of computer technology at the time, including an early use of the Internet. Single White Female is not a great movie and its imitators have made it far less distinctive, but it’s watchable enough today—especially as an example of female-produced thriller at a time when such things were much less common.

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, March 2019) The history of Stephen King movies across the 1990s is … shaky, but Dolores Claiborne is not going to count as a bad one. Much of this success can be traced back to the original material, which (despite featuring murder in most unusual circumstances) lends very little freedom for filmmakers to go wild in bad ways. Keeping the tone close to the novel, screenwriter Tony Gilroy and director Taylor Hackford deliver a film that sticks close to reality—and thankfully so, considering the film’s themes of domestic violence and abuse: inserting supernatural elements would have been a distracting mistake. A great sense of place, in a small island community off the coast of Maine, certainly helps in creating the film’s convincing atmosphere. Dolores Claiborne is Kathy Bates’s show as she delivers a full-featured performance, but the supporting cast is unusually strong, what with Jennifer Jason Leigh as an estranged daughter, Christopher Plummer as a detective and a pre-stardom John C. Reilly as a policeman. There’s some skill in the way the film blends a modern-day timeline with flashbacks, complete with specific colour schemes and makeup. The eerie colour manipulation throughout the film—and most intensely in the eclipse sequence—clearly prefigures more ambitious (and now commonplace) efforts in current movies. The result, as skillful as it is, can’t avoid a few missteps that reinforce its melodramatic nature—the soundtrack is too insistent at times, adding far too much to something that didn’t need it. The slow start of the film reinforces the impression that it is too long and overdone—a shorter climax would have helped. Still, Dolores Claiborne does stand as a rather good adaptation of the King novel, despite taking a few justifiable liberties (notably in beefing up and adding more characters to the present-day frame). Dolores Claiborne is probably too often forgotten in the King filmography—not horrific enough, not necessarily fitting the mould of what people expect from him—but it’s a successful effort, and one that can still be watched with some satisfaction nowadays.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

The Hateful Eight (2015)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, November 2016) As a confirmed Quentin Tarantino fan, I was expecting The Hateful Eight with a bit of cinephile glee, curious to see what he had in mind. After all, each of his movie is usually an event, doing thing with cinema that other filmmakers usually don’t try. His newest offering makes the unusual bet to transform itself in practically a theatre piece by putting eight characters in a snowbound lodge. The suspense is notable, as most of these characters have backstories and plenty of secrets to reveal in the film’s lengthy running time. By the end, the film becomes graphically violent as tensions erupt in all-out shootouts, poisoning and hanging. The dialogues are good and the performances terrific (with particular applause for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh), with some assured direction from Tarantino. And yet, and yet… The Hateful Eight doesn’t quite amount to something as good as it could have been. For all of the dialogue’s deliciousness, the film does feel overlong and far too busy for its own good. As the complex plotting and counterplotting accumulates, it’s easy to disengage from the experience of the film. The conclusion is also particularly grim, which doesn’t help. As a result, it feels less interesting than (say) Django Unchained and not quite as meaningful either. Still, even a lesser Tarantino film can feel far more fascinating than other films by more pedestrian authors, so let’s count our blessings that the film exists and wait for Tarantino to come up with something new.

The Anniversary Party (2001)

The Anniversary Party (2001)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In theaters, September 2001) The difference between low-budget independent films made by nobodies and low-budget films made by famous actors is that the latter type of movies features faces you know. Otherwise, we’re back to the whining cheap drama and meaningless existential crises that seem to pop up with depressing regularity in budding author’s film. In this case, Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh star together in a film written and directed by themselves, and they’ve invited every one of the famous friends to star in the film. The setup is simple, an anniversary party where the celebrated couple isn’t too stable and most of the guests are as screwed-up as their hosts. Seductions, jealousy pangs, drug usage, weird hairdos, nude scenes, fights and a death ensue. You might start to care late in the film. The cast is stellar (Gwynneth Paltrow, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, John C. Reilley, Parker Posey, etc…) and some of them even get naked… but not those who should. Best considered not as a happy-shiny piece of entertainments, but at a very personal reflection on love, friendship, relationships and the transitory nature of such.