She's So Lovely Blu-ray Review
Anything Goes
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, April 22, 2013
"Love is so . . . difficult."
She's So Lovely was originally titled "She's De-Lovely", which comes from a line spoken near
the end of the film, but the title was altered at the request of songwriter Cole Porter's estate. The
change hardly makes a difference, because no title could capture the uniquely crazed spirit of the
last original feature film scripted by the pioneer of independent cinema, John Cassavetes, who
died in 1989 before he could direct it himself. In 1996, when Cassavetes' son, Nick, was
completing his first film as a director,
Unhook the Stars (starring his mother, Gena Rowlands),
the younger Cassavetes convinced a group of producers led by the Weinstein Brothers to fund
production, and he cast his father's original choice, Sean Penn, in the lead. Rowlands advised her
son against working on material so close to home, but he couldn't be talked out of it. Rowlands
ultimately took a small role in the film.
As Nick Cassavetes emphasizes in the interview included on this Blu-ray,
She's So Lovely isn't
"a John Cassavetes film", because only his father made those. Still, it's impossible to miss the
emotional rawness and revolutionary spirit that infuses the elder Cassavetes' work and continues
to inspire later filmmakers. Whatever the subject, John Cassavetes was relentless in his search for
emotional honesty. He cared more about exploring messy, flawed, often illogical lives than about
rounding off neatly structured tales with clearly drawn morality. Viewers who have trouble
accepting irrational behavior from movie characterse.g., those who walk out of the films of
someone like Derek Cianfrance (
The Place Beyond
the Pines or
Blue Valentine)
pronouncing
judgment on the "stupidity" of the charactersmight as well stop here. A writer-director like
Cianfrance is a clear successor to Cassavetes, and even he doesn't go as far out on a limb as
Cassavetes did when he wrote
She's So Lovely.
At its core,
She's So Lovely is about the irrationality of love, but not in the comically operatic
style of
Moonstruck. By turns heartbreaking,
amusing, disturbing, infuriating and depressing, the
film repeatedly shifts registers, so that you're never sure where it's taking you. That, too, was a
John Cassavetes trademark. Life didn't fit into a single genre, and neither did his films.
She's So Lovely didn't do particularly well in America, but at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival,
Sean Penn was awarded Best Actor, and cinematographer Thierry Arbogast received the
Technical Grand Prize for both
She's So Lovely and
The Fifth Element (which, when you think
about it, has its own variety of anarchic spirit and is also, at its core, about love).
The "she" of the title is Maureen Murphy Quinn (Robin Wright), beautiful but troubled and an
alcoholic, who lives in a flophouse with her husband, Eddie Quinn (Penn), a small-time grifter
who also has a drinking problem and isn't all that stable when he's sober. (The now-divorced
Wright and Penn had been living together for six years when they made the film and married
shortly before its release.) Though he loves Maureen, Eddie disappears for days at a time without
a word. Maureen finds this hard enough under normal circumstances, but it's especially bad right
now, because she's just learned that she's pregnant.
Their neighbor, Kiefer (a pre-
Sopranos James Gandolfini), is only too happy to take advantage of
Eddie's absence, and he accosts Maureen in the hallways and at the neighborhood bar, where he
plies her with drinks while she inquires about Eddie with his best friend, Shorty (Harry Dean
Stanton), and his girlfriend, Georgie (Debi Mazar). When they return to their rooms, naturally
Kiefer has further plans. In the ensuing struggle, Maureen hits him with a bottle and Kiefer
knocks her cold. When Maureen awakens in the morning, she has a black eye and a bruised face.
Terrified that Eddie will return, see her condition and respond by killing Kiefer, Maureen seeks
aid from a psychiatric rapid response unit, where the efficient counselor (Chloe Webb) is all too
familiar with Eddie. Maureen is as inarticulate with the counselor as she is with everyone else,
and she almost immediately regrets making any report. When she finally struggles home,
distraught and soaked from the rain, she find Eddie in the bar with Shorty and Georgie, carousing
and ordering drinks. Eddie immediately knows that something is wrong, but he insists that they
go out for a night on the town, including dancing and dinner with two friends who own a
restaurant (cameo appearances by Burt Young and an uncredited Talia Shire).
When they return to their room, they encounter Kiefer in the hall, and violence ensues. The next
morning, Eddie loads his gun, and Maureen panics. She calls "mobile response", and as Eddie
sits in the bar with Shorty becoming increasingly agitated, two attendants arrive. Eddie goes
berserk. The slow-motion shot of him bursting through the bar's plate glass window into the
street was heavily featured in the film's trailer, and it's equally beautiful and chaotic at the same
time. (By all appearances, no stunt man was used.) Dripping blood, Eddie runs through the
streets, but he is eventually apprehended and committed for treatment.
Time passes. I don't want to reveal anything by saying how much, but it's enough for Maureen to
give birth. After an evaluation by a case worker (Rowlands), Eddie is released and immediately
goes to get a haircut and facial so that he no longer looks like an inmate. The hairdresser, Saul
(David Thornton), gets carried away and dies his hair blond, so that when he first emerges, he
looks for all the world like an older version of Jeff Spicoli from
Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
(I am convinced this was a deliberate visual joke.) Eddie's old pal Georgie recuts his hair and
repairs the damage.
But things are different now. Maureen has a new man in her life. His name is Joey Germoni
(John Travoltayes,
John Travolta), and he's a successful contractor with plenty of money and a
great house. By all appearances, Maureen has made a better life for herself. So why is she so
frazzled at the prospect of Eddie's release?
I've left out several key pieces of information, and it's impossible to discuss the latter half of
She's So Lovely without revealing them. Suffice it to say that the film portrays two people whose
connection exists at the cellular level, for reasons that neither of them can explain but that both
of them recognize in themselves and each other. It isn't rational, it isn't practical, and it isn't
good for them or other people, but it's real and it has to be dealt with. How Maureen and Eddie
deal with their intense connection drives the story. Cassavetes (both father and, at least here, son)
never cared about
pleasing an audience; he wanted to challenge viewers with something difficult,
and his approach provoked anger and frustration as often as admiration. Not everyone finds it
enlightening to experience the struggles of two inarticulate alcoholics to express their love for
each other, and maybe (or maybe not) achieve sufficient self-awareness to sacrifice their own
happiness for the sake of each other's well-being. To those who do, Cassavetes Jr. and Sr. offer a
disturbing, sometimes touching, often funny, thought-provoking film.
