Postcards from the Edge
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| Postcards from the Edge | |
|---|---|
 original film poster |
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| Directed by | Mike Nichols |
| Produced by | John Calley Mike Nichols |
| Starring | Meryl Streep Shirley MacLaine Dennis Quaid Gene Hackman Richard Dreyfuss |
| Music by | Carly Simon |
| Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus |
| Editing by | John Shirley |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1990 |
| Running time | 101 min. |
| IMDb profile | |
Postcards from the Edge is a 1990 Columbia Pictures comedy/drama motion picture starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, with Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner, Mary Wickes, Conrad Bain, Annette Bening, Simon Callow, Gary Morton, and CCH Pounder.
Directed by Mike Nichols, the screenplay was written by Carrie Fisher (best known as Princess Leia from Star Wars fame), based on her 1987 fictionalized semi-autobiographical novel of the same title.
Postcards from the Edge received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep) and Best Music, Original Song (Shel Silverstein for "I'm Checkin' Out").
101 mins.; color.
[edit] Plot
The story is about a movie actress, Suzanne Vale (played by Streep), who is a recovering drug addict trying to pick up the pieces of her career and get on with her life. After completing a project with director Lowell Korshack (played by Hackman), she overdosed and was rushed to the hospital, where her stomach was pumped by Dr. Frankenthal (played by Dreyfuss).
After being discharged from a rehab center, she returns to work. She then learns from the head of the studio, Joe Pierce (played by Reiner), she can only be cleared by the insurance people if she tests for drugs regularly and lives with her famous mother, Doris Mann (played by MacLaine), a bright star of the past whose wine consumption seems alcoholic to Vale.
It is not easy for Vale, as she struggled for years to get away from her mother. Things are not made any better when Mann, a brassy, upstaging, competitive woman, who continuously changes the subject to herself, gives her daughter loaded advice and insinuating value judgments while treating her like a child. Her mother's husband, Marty Wiener (played by Morton), watches TV all the time, in his own world (shades of Harry Karl).
Vale's maternal grandpa (played by Bain) is a quiet man, while her down-to-earth, plainspoken grandma (played by Wickes) is a wisecracking and crotchety old woman. It occurs to Vale that not only do daughters have mothers, mothers do too.
Eventually, Jack Faulkner (played by Dennis Quaid) re-enters Suzanne's life. At first she does not realize that Jack is the one who drove her to the hospital during her overdose. She reluctantly agrees to go out with Jack. When Jack arrives at Doris' home to pick Suzanne, Doris' flirtation almost goes a bit too far, which sets up the idea that Suzanne constantly feel as though she is in competition with her own mother.
Jack and Suzanne share a passionate first date where Jack professes eternal and intense love for her and Suzanne falls for it. After a very late evening out, Suzanne returns home to find Doris waiting up for her. "What if you had been doing drugs or something?," Doris asks. Suzanne actually questions Doris' own drinking. The two have a quiet, but pointed exchange.
"How would you like to have Lana Turner or Joan Crawford for a mother?" she asks.
Vale is amused. "Please. These are the options? You, or Lana, or Joan?"
Upon hearing an indiscreet comment about Jack's actions from her movie co-star, Suzanne catches up with bit-player Evelyn Ames (Annette Bening in one of her earliest breakout roles) and finds that Jack has been sleeping with Evelyn at the same time as Suzanne. She drives to Jack's place directly from the studio, all the while still in her police costume. After confronting him with the news she's learned from Evelyn, the two fight and Suzanne decides to storm out. As she gets into her car, Jack infers that she was much more interesting when she was loaded and insults a film he earlier told her was his favorie. She begins shooting at him with a gun....but it's merely a prop gun from the movie set. "Relax, they're blanks."
When she gets home from Jack's, Suzanne is informed by Doris that her business manager has run off with all her money. A bigger fight ensues between mother and daughter and Suzanne storms out. Doris misses that Suzanne merely said she was going to a looping session. The looping session proves fruitful for Suzanne, when her director (Gene Hackman) tells her that as soon as she gets clean, he has another job for her.
Suzanne arrives home to discover that Mann tore off looking for her and, due to too much wine, crashed her car into a tree. When Suzanne greets her mother at the hospital, Doris is not wearing her wig and practically bald. Suzanne's grandparents are in the room as well, and Grandma is being pretty bossy with daughter Doris. Suzanne pushes Grandma out of the room and mother and daughter have a calmer heart to heart while Suzanne does Doris' makeup and adds a scarf to her head.
Once properly made up ("We're designed more for public than for private," Suzanne quips), Doris musters her courage and faces the press over her accident. Vale then sees Dr. Frankenthal (Dreyfuss), who pumped her stomach. He asks if she will go out with him to a movie. Vale replies, "Sure, we could go see Valley of the Dolls." In seriousness, Vale tells the good doctor that she is not ready to date yet and needs more time for her recovery. The doc says he'll wait.
The film ends with Suzanne beginning a comeback with a music video, as her mother watches from above the set.
Postcards from the Edge gives a reasonable perspective of life behind the glamour, as the two powerful lead actresses explore their relationship as mother and daughter together. Vale admits to feeling inferior to her mother and explains how Mann's behavior affected her childhood, while Mann admits to feeling old and a bit jealous of her daughter's success.
[edit] Trivia
- Scenes were filmed with John Cusack playing one of Vale's friends in rehab that belonged to the Manson Family. His scenes were later cut.
- Though the scene in the hospital room where Doris Mann is not wearing a wig shows her as practically bald, the fight scene during TV's These Old Broads, where Debbie Reynolds's wig is pulled from her head, makes it obvious that Reynolds actually has a full and lustrous head of hair.
- The 1967 movie Valley of the Dolls, about actresses on drugs, marked one of Richard Dreyfuss's first movie roles, an assistant stage manager, which was uncredited.
- Meryl Streep did her own singing. She was accompanied for "I'm Checkin' Out" by the band Blue Rodeo, a Canadian rock group.
- The song "I'm Checkin' Out," nominated for an Academy Award, was due to be sung by Reba McEntire at the awards show. The week before the show, on March 16, 1991, her road manager and seven members of her band were killed in a plane crash. She went ahead and appeared on the program and dedicated the performance to them.
[edit] External links
Julia (1977) • The Deer Hunter (1978) • Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) • Manhattan (1979) • The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) • Sophie's Choice (1982) • Silkwood (1983) • Falling in Love (1984) • Out of Africa (1985) • Plenty (1985) • Heartburn (1986) • Ironweed (1987) • A Cry in the Dark (1988) • She-Devil (1989) • Postcards from the Edge (1993) • The Bridges of Madison County (1995) • Marvin's Room (1996) • Music of the Heart (1999) • The Hours (2002) • Adaptation. (2002) • The Manchurian Candidate (2004) • Prime (2005) • A Prairie Home Companion (2006) • The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? • The Graduate • Catch-22 • Carnal Knowledge • The Day of the Dolphin • The Fortune • Gilda Live • Silkwood • Heartburn • Biloxi Blues • Working Girl • Postcards from the Edge • Regarding Henry • Wolf • The Birdcage • Primary Colors • What Planet Are You From? • Closer • Charlie Wilson's War
