MacLaine's star still shines in an otherwise mediocre sequel
By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan
JAKARTA (JP): The fundamental problem confronting The Evening Star is the inevitable scrutiny it will come under in being compared to its 1983 predecessor. Yes, sequels are a chancy business at best. Terms of Endearment didn't only win five Oscars including Best Picture, but Aurora Greenway also gave Shirley MacLaine a character which redefined her career.
The Evening Star's opening credits attest to screenwriter- director Robert Harling's awareness of this history. Michael Gore's familiar Terms of Endearment theme plays softly over pictures of MacLaine, Debra Winger and Jeff Daniels, rekindling memories of that memorable upper class Houston family held together by Aurora Greenway, the indomitable matriarch. Her volatile relationship with her feisty only daughter Emma, as we remember, ended up in a heart-tugging reconciliation when Emma was discovered stricken with terminal cancer.
The sequel, again based on Larry McMurtry's novel, finds Aurora 15 years older and little-changed. Still the same self- absorbed, vain, jealous, good-hearted, and smart as a whip know- it-all, she watches with horror how the three grandchildren she raised have turned out. Tommy (George Newbern) is a sullen sort, doing time in the local slammer for drug possession. Teddy (MacKenzie Astin) is generally likable, but he lacks ambition and is shacked up in a trailer with a girlfriend and their baby.
But the main focus is 18-year-old Melanie (Juliette Lewis), who is a carbon copy of her rebellious, devil-may-care mother. The relationship mainly consists of Aurora being strict but nice, and Melanie pouting and yelling at her. She moves out. She moves in again. Then she insists on running off to Hollywood with her narcissistic, ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Bruce (Scott Wolf).
An unhappy Aurora is tricked by her loyal housekeeper Rosie (Marion Ross) into seeing a young, air-headed therapist named Jerry Bruckner (Bill Paxton). Little does she guess that Aurora and Jerry will quickly jump into a September-May fling. Through various trials and tribulations, Aurora tries to make sense of her life by organizing photos and mementos into a scrapbook.
Relationships
While the key to Terms' success lay in its pitch-perfect study of a contentious mother-daughter relationship, the creators of The Evening Star are hell-bent on examining other relationships taking place in Aurora's orbit. She reacts, but she remains a fixed character, as constant as the evening star, so to speak. So we have Aurora's friendship with Rosie, Rosie's romance with next-door neighbor Arthur Cotton (Ben Johnson in his last role), Aurora's rivalry with Emma's best friend Patsy Carpenter (Miranda Richardson in a deliciously over-the-top performance), Melanie's relationship with Bruce, and Aurora's strange relationship with a former flame, General Hector Scott (Donald Moffat), who still stops by her kitchen on a daily basis.
As with Terms, the first part of The Evening Star is racy, laid-back and full of bawdy humor. Halfway through, it starts killing off characters. Indeed, the boorishness of the grandkids, the haphazard stringing of only marginally-related episodes, and the way neighbors walk in and out of one another's houses, give this film an unmistakable air of sitcom. Oh yes, and the not one, not two, but three funeral scenes. After all, it's Harling's screenplay which buried Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias, so he's on familiar territory.
Astronaut
Not content to jerk tears with just a parade of funerals, the film also brings back retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson) for a blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameo. Although it seems more like a visit to the set than anything integral to the narrative, it is clear that the film refuses to end without him. However, the balding flyboy with the killer smile makes the best out of the opportunity; he seems both genuinely pleased to see his old love, and genuinely unsure of how to interact with her. There is so much affection and charm in those few scenes, that it almost feels like 1983 all over again.
MacLaine gives another of her luminous, full-bodied, and open- hearted performances -- one that she delivered to prickly perfection in Mrs. Winterbourne and Postcards from the Edge. She obviously has a blast returning to the role, and that obvious joy is likely to bring an audience with her farther than the material itself deserves. Watch her preening deliciously after she spends the night with Jerry, smiling venomously as she catches Patsy in a deception, and making overbearing motherhood her own personal fiefdom.
Terms' clear focus allowed MacLaine a complete, effective switch from comedy to pathos. Director James L. Brook's expert human portraiture also made it possible for the audience not to feel so manipulated. The Evening Star, however, tries to tackle too much -- too many characters and too many years. The dialog almost has a fluffy quality -- a slapstick or otherwise self- satisfied feel that's alien to the bedrock goodness and humanity of Terms. The overall result is a sense of haste, insincerity, less honest affection for the characters, which is a great pity given the exceptionally fantastic cast.
This is not to say, however, that this film doesn't include a good deal of the human foibles that make any movie family believable. And rather than presenting another of those sickeningly sweet families, it has the courage to stand as a proudly and honestly dysfunctional family.
Lest we forget, this film is also about aging. While we may scoff at the silliness of Aurora's relationship with a man young enough to be his son, these things, after all, do happen. Her reconciliation with every one around her, including her arch rival and nemesis, also proves that age inevitably brings a certain hard-won wisdom. Her moments of quiet introspection, too, are particularly telling of that aging process: the need to explain her place in this world.
Thus, the film's unabashed celebration of the older actor is something to be commended on its own. Indeed, why should a MacLaine be relegated to playing any leading character's mother when she is so clearly still a shining star?