Hawn smooths rough edges of 'The First Wives Club'
By Dini S. Djalal
JAKARTA (JP): "Don't get mad. Get everything," declares Ivana Trump in The First Wives Club. Spoken like a true pro who knows only too well the point of this controversial "feminist" film.
The film could have been about her and countless other women facing middle age, and the husbands who don't want to know about it. After giving the best years of her life to helping the Donald build his fortune, Manhattan's most famous first wife was dumped for a younger, blonder woman.
Did Ivana soak her Hermes silks in tears? Perhaps, but she also got a new hairdo, a nose job, the sympathy of the tabloid- reading world, and an alimony agreement worth the GDP of a small third world country.
Real stories like Ivana's are what made this film such a hit. Within four months of hitting the screens, The First Wives Club grossed US$100 million in the United States, and it looks to double this with international distribution. The film struck such a chord among jilted wives (and their ex-husbands) that it sparked debates across the U.S., culminating in a Time Magazine cover story on the contentious topic of vengeful partners. Even Goldie Hawn was rescued from the has-been bin and renamed champion of girl power.
But is the film as relevant as its hype, or are adult women just starved of films they can relate to? The answer may lie in your marital status. There's no denying the film's good points; a great set in rich colors to match the Upper East Side personalities, and a great script full of punchy one-liners ("You are genuinely happy ... lithium?"). But as funny as the jokes are, a recent divorcee may laugh just a tad louder. She may even laugh off the film's rough edges, of which there are many.
Feminist swindlers
First, the premise. Three school chums (Goldie Hawn as Elise, Diane Keaton as Annie, and Bette Midler as Brenda) reunite after mutual pal Cynthia dives to her death out of her Park Avenue penthouse. While mourning their heiress friend, the trio discover that they still share many things in common, with the most significant being philandering husbands. They decide to get even. And, according to Hollywood, how do many Americans spell revenge? M-o-n-e-y.
This Hollywood mentality also implies that once the newly- empowered threesome crunch their heads together, they're unbeatable swindlers. It also hints that all they needed to tap their individual savvy, and hence regain self-esteem, was freedom from their husbands. This is empowerment? Can an open check compensate for a failed marriage? Free women in a free market indeed. The assumption that counting cash equals a lover reveals that this well-intentioned film has veered off the mark.
For example, the women complain that their husbands dared to leave them after twenty-odd years of selflessly helping their careers. Excuse my unfashionably romantic notions, but shouldn't marriage be more than just a business transaction? If this is the face of 90s feminism, take me back to the kitchen.
Crude representation is essentially the film's biggest failure. This is a film about women for women, right? Then why do the female roles, dominant though they may be, seem like they walked straight off a Disney storyboard? Why are they all over- the-top whingeing ninnies? This film is a cartoon -- just listen to the background music, an homage to Tom & Jerry.
Take Keaton, one of the cinema's most charismatic and intelligent actresses (Annie Hall, Reds, The Godfather trilogy). Here she's reduced to a shrieking, babbling shrew. While Bette Midler (Beaches) may be forgiven for playing another catty nag as she rarely takes on other roles, making Keaton scream, cross her eyes, and even join a chorus line is practically criminal. It's damaging to both her reputation and that of women out there trying to gain a little respect.
However, the wives look positively stoic next to the girlfriends -- another mockery of real women. Sarah Jessica Parker (Honeymoon in Vegas) has perfect comic timing as social climber Shelly, but she is one big joke. She's green, lean, and mean, with not one sympathetic bone in her bulimic body. Making the mistresses grotesque may be key to making the wives look good, but please, put some meat into the enemy.
The only one with a fleshy, albeit finely toned, role is Goldie Hawn (Private Benjamin), who, as aging actress Elise Eliot, may well be playing herself. Hawn is a well-preserved 51 years old, but, like her character, she admits she works hard to look young. In the collagen-addicted Elise, Hawn has found her catharsis.
Unlike the miscast Keaton and the typecast Midler, Hawn both softens and hardens the dumb blonde stereotype. Sure she's a sex kitten, but Hawn can switch from a demure purr to a shrill meow. Like her wild blond mane, Hawn is radiant -- and brilliant.
And with scriptwriter Robert Harling (who adapted the screenplay from Olivia Goldsmith's best-selling first novel), she saves the movie. It's a pretty big accomplishment.
A map of where the film went wrong is like a sketch of Bangkok traffic. For one, the editing. Sometimes the tempo is picture perfect, but at other times the splices seem whacked off by a lumberjack's axe, with long awkward moments between the bumps. Considering that editor John Bloom won an Academy Award for Gandhi, the choppiness is surprising.
The sitcom format doesn't help the artificial mood. You know the scene by heart -- somebody does a slapstick gag, another mugs a stupid look, while another screams in shock, when in fact there's not much surprise value to the scene at all.
Who's the culprit? Well, it's produced by Scott Rudin, who usually hits the jackpot (Clueless, Sister Act, The Addams Family). Judging by his films, Rudin's obviously got a soft spot for off-the-wall comedies.
His choice of director may be the problem. No wonder The First Wives Club looks like a sitcom as Hugh Wilson was the man behind TV staple WKRP in Cincinatti. Wilson also directed Police Academy. With knowledge of these credentials, the film's cartoon feel and its bloopers start making sense.