Talking To The Screen
Love Liza
Monday 2/17/03, 1:10am
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I developed a distaste for films about mourning shortly after watching 2001?s critically acclaimed ?In The Bedroom?. I found that in this and others, while the emotion following catastrophe is raw and moving, by the end of such a film focused on the mourning process, the shock has flagged, the emotion constant, teary and dull.
?Love Liza? stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Kathy Bates. Hoffman is one of a few actors who will draw me to see a film. Even if the rest of the cast is awful, the script is garbage and the director blind, I can be sure that if he?s in it, I can expect at least one flawless, exciting, professional performance. (Anecdotally, other actors who elicit such a reaction are Tim Roth, Jodie Foster, and Christina Ricci.) Kathy Bates is a powerhouse of an actress with an unequalled screen presence. (Not to mention the personal respect she gets from me for shocking all involved by disrobing at age 58 in 2002?s ?About Schmidt?.)
In ?Love Liza?, Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Wilson Joel, recent widower following his wife, Liza?s, suicide. Kathy Bates plays, Mary Ann, Liza?s mother. Before shooting herself, Liza wrote a letter to Wilson. But he can?t bring himself to open it. To escape from the reality of his dead wife, his mother-in-law and his job, Wilson retreats to huffing gas and a superficial interest in a remote control models. These escapist devices are what make ?Love Liza? worth watching. Unlike other tales of mourning which look at a much larger picture, ?Love Liza? is tightly focused on the time between which Wilson finds his wife?s suicide note to the time he opens it. There isn?t enough time for the emotion to stagnate over the week or so that the film is meant to run. Additionally, Wilson?s drug abuse helps to actualize the isolation that a recent widow or widower must feel following their spouse?s suicide.
It took me a few scenes to come to terms with the remote control model interest that Wilson develops. He uses the models to connect with his brother-in-law, Denny (Jack Kehler). He uses the models to have something to do. He uses models as an excuse to buy gas without a car. But none of those reasons required such a specific device as model airplanes. I believe Wilson?s model plane to be a symbol for himself and his detachment from the world. He fills it up with gas, and watches it fly from a safe distance on the ground.
?Love Liza? has chipped away at my resolve against mourning films. The acting from Hoffman, Bates and Kehler is superb, and the story is told in such a manner as to circumvent what I?ve found to be a major pitfall to the topic of grief: boredom.
Home
I developed a distaste for films about mourning shortly after watching 2001?s critically acclaimed ?In The Bedroom?. I found that in this and others, while the emotion following catastrophe is raw and moving, by the end of such a film focused on the mourning process, the shock has flagged, the emotion constant, teary and dull.
?Love Liza? stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Kathy Bates. Hoffman is one of a few actors who will draw me to see a film. Even if the rest of the cast is awful, the script is garbage and the director blind, I can be sure that if he?s in it, I can expect at least one flawless, exciting, professional performance. (Anecdotally, other actors who elicit such a reaction are Tim Roth, Jodie Foster, and Christina Ricci.) Kathy Bates is a powerhouse of an actress with an unequalled screen presence. (Not to mention the personal respect she gets from me for shocking all involved by disrobing at age 58 in 2002?s ?About Schmidt?.)
In ?Love Liza?, Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Wilson Joel, recent widower following his wife, Liza?s, suicide. Kathy Bates plays, Mary Ann, Liza?s mother. Before shooting herself, Liza wrote a letter to Wilson. But he can?t bring himself to open it. To escape from the reality of his dead wife, his mother-in-law and his job, Wilson retreats to huffing gas and a superficial interest in a remote control models. These escapist devices are what make ?Love Liza? worth watching. Unlike other tales of mourning which look at a much larger picture, ?Love Liza? is tightly focused on the time between which Wilson finds his wife?s suicide note to the time he opens it. There isn?t enough time for the emotion to stagnate over the week or so that the film is meant to run. Additionally, Wilson?s drug abuse helps to actualize the isolation that a recent widow or widower must feel following their spouse?s suicide.
It took me a few scenes to come to terms with the remote control model interest that Wilson develops. He uses the models to connect with his brother-in-law, Denny (Jack Kehler). He uses the models to have something to do. He uses models as an excuse to buy gas without a car. But none of those reasons required such a specific device as model airplanes. I believe Wilson?s model plane to be a symbol for himself and his detachment from the world. He fills it up with gas, and watches it fly from a safe distance on the ground.
?Love Liza? has chipped away at my resolve against mourning films. The acting from Hoffman, Bates and Kehler is superb, and the story is told in such a manner as to circumvent what I?ve found to be a major pitfall to the topic of grief: boredom.