Wish You Weren't Here

Movie Review:
Postcards From the Edge

R / 1 hr., 41 min. / 1990

I rented Postcards From the Edge knowing only that there was a shot of Meryl Streep hanging from the ledge of a building and trying to find the best delivery in her call for help. The shot in isolation was very funny. The context for the shot is less so. This is one of those films you find in the comedy aisle, but which doesn’t really belong there at all: While some humorous situations and verbal interplay dance across the surface, at heart this is a drama.

Postcards From the Edge is the semi-autobiographical retelling of actress Carrie Fisher’s own experience recovering from a drug addiction. Kind of. It’s actually more about her relationship with her mother once the film hits its first turning point.

In this fictionalized version, Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep) barely finishes principle shooting on her latest film when she overdoses and lands in rehab. As a recovering addict, she is now a liability for film insurance companies, and finding good work will be nearly impossible. There is a film company interested in hiring her, but on one condition: That she live with her mother for the duration of the production.

Vale’s mother is Doris Mann (Shirley MacLaine), faded has-been and mild alcoholic – never drunk, but always with a drink on hand. And she is one of those mothers that manages to be selfish in her generosity, always giving advice, giving encouragement, giving opinions – because it makes her feel good and in control to do so. And because it then gives her a reason to upstage her daughter. Vale has no hope of ever being the woman her mother’s lectures envision.

As Vale’s new film role commences shooting, she has to learn to deal with the ever-present drug urge, an adoring hunk (Dennis Quaid) who may or may not want her just for sex, an onslaught of “helpful” advice from the producers of the film, and her mother. Coping is not always easy.

There is a sense in which the film is nearly flawless. Mike Nichols (The Graduate) directs a smart script by Carrie Fisher and draws out a strong chemistry between Meryl Streep (Sophie’s Choice) and Shirley MacLaine (Steel Magnolias), a chemistry made that much more potent by Fisher’s story. I’m looking at Nichols’ list of credits, and he appears to specialize in real-life, present-day dramas, which is evident here.

Streep does a fine job of portraying a woman on the titular edge. She often looks strained, worn out, tired of fighting and coping. How easy it would be to take a few forbidden pills and retreat to rehab’s cozy private bedrooms again, and the weary fight against this temptation comes out in her performance.

Holding her own against Streep’s fine work is MacLaine, who is always reliable as a feisty overbearing type. She creates Doris as a self-proclaimed expert on life and fame and money and coping, but whose constant verbiage serves more to drown out her own pain rather than actually have a positive effect on anyone around her.

The lovable Mary Wickes (The Music Man) plays Mann’s mother, and the three generations in one room reveal a lot about why Vale turned to drugs. Also in supporting and cameo roles are Dennis Quaid (The Big Easy) as a smarmy lover, Gene Hackman (Mississippi Burning) as a Richard Donner-esque film director, and Rob Reiner (Sleepless in Seattle) as a film producer with the uneasy task of requesting a drug test from Vale. And that’s not including Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws), Annette Bening (Mars Attacks!), Simon Callow (Shakespeare in Love), and more. There’s a buffet of top talent scattered throughout the production, sometimes in roles that disappear before you can look twice, and none of which ever hit a wrong note.

Several scenes take place on the set of Vale’s film, and provide both amusing images and poignant symbolism. Many shots reveal facades and rear projection backdrops, hinting at the phony exterior Vale puts on in public while she wrestles with her inner agonies. Sometimes I had more fun looking at the film equipment and crew members at work than in following Vale’s journey.

But here’s the paradox: All this nearly flawless material adds up to a film that is just, well, uninteresting. I can offer no compelling reason to see it even once, let alone see it again or own a copy. I’m sitting here at my word processor trying to think of something, anything, that grabbed me, or of anyone I know to whom I would mention it with even a degree of enthusiasm. And nothing comes to mind.

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen too many movies. Everything this movie has can be found elsewhere, and presented at least as well as it is here. For instance, the dialogue is strong, but there’s more interesting dialogue out there. For snappy conversations between a mother and her child, I recommend Mother by Albert Brooks, starring, interestingly enough, Carrie Fisher’s mother Debbie Reynolds. The performances here are good, but Streep and MacLaine are good elsewhere, too. Other films about characters struggling against addictions have touched me deeper.

Really, I’m clutching at straws here trying to fathom why this movie even really exists, besides the pedestrian explanation that a producer somewhere liked the script and so on. If it disappeared completely, or had never even been made, the cinema world wouldn’t be lacking in any way. And in fairness, I suppose that could be said about a lot of movies.

I’m not trying to slam the film. All its parts are excellent, but those parts just add up to a whole that completely fails to captivate me. I’ve seen other films where the same could be said, but this is the greatest disparity I’ve ever noticed between a film’s superior artistry and inferior entertainment. It’s that disparity that has me stumped.

If I could pinpoint an actual complaint, it is that the songs go on way too long. Both Vale and Mann have singing talent, and it is showcased twice in the film. In both instances, the respective singer covers the entire song, and in one case she does so in a single close-up. The songs are not a useless conceit – some family dynamics are revealed in the first musical moment – but their sheer duration brings the proceedings to a halt.

No doubt some fan of the film will read this and be stupefied, and I’ll be told that it’s a wonderful film. To this I can only say that while I agree it is quite exceptional in its execution, we all have our preferences and mine do not include Postcards From the Edge.

If you haven’t had your fill of MacLaine as a grouchy old woman, or if you have a compulsion to see everything Streep has ever appeared in, give it a go. You certainly won’t be wasting your time on a bad movie – far from it. And if you like it more than I did, more power to you.

My Score: 7