The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 286 Days to go: 276
Movie #91: Dolores Claiborne
Most people, in my estimation, read a book first and then see the movie based on it afterward. That’s generally how these things work anyway; books come out years before their film adaptations, so obviously the books are read first. Except in my case. Not that I’ve never read a book before I’ve seen the movie, but most times I see a movie and discover it’s based on a book, and that’s when I seek the book out. I’m backwards that way. Always have been.
When the book Dolores Claiborne was released in the early ’90s sometime, I bought it as a gift for my friend — a big Stephen King fan — for her birthday, probably. (I suppose it could’ve been Christmas, but birthday seems more likely.) I didn’t give it much thought after that. Several years later, I saw the movie when it came out, and it struck me — the sadness, the harshness, the years of misunderstanding and resentment that can tear a relationship apart, or the years of mutual pain and shared hardships that can bring people closer. So I sought out the book. I really liked it as well, and because it contained a reference to another book, Gerald’s Game, I read that one as well. It scared the ever-loving bejeezus out of me and I pretty much gave up reading King after that. Still, this movie hangs on to me somehow.
Kathy Bates is brilliant in just about everything, but she doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her portrayal of Dolores. A bitter, hardened, frosty woman who’s lived every inch of a difficult life, most of it as a domestic servant to the wealthy Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), who Dolores is being accused of murdering — most vigorously by investigator Detective John Mackey (Christopher Plummer), who says she’s killed before.
Dolores Claiborne is a slowly building fire of secrets, lies, accusations and atrocities. Peppered with flashbacks, some of them unwelcome intrusions, it reveals, piece by piece, the truth about Dolores’s relationship with Vera, and the one she had with her husband (David Strathairn) almost twenty years earlier, when he died under questionable circumstances. It also deals with the crumbling, broken relationship Dolores has with her daughter Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and how its rift came about.
The movie creates a pervasive mood of distance and depression, with cold, blue-tinted lighting that is unforgiving to say the least and a score by Danny Elfman that is subtly haunting and ominous and sorrowful (in case you thought he could only do playful quirkiness). In contrast, the flashbacks are all shot in bright, rich color — soft, warm beauty to be juxtaposed with the pain hiding just beneath the surface.
Jennifer Jason Leigh has never been an actress I’ve been particularly drawn to, but here she perfectly embodies a tortured and emotionally wrecked Selena, self-medicating with liquor and pills to help her get through her days (Ellen Muth as Selena’s younger self is also quite good). Christopher Plummer is relentless and angry and out for blood, pursuing Dolores with unwavering focus that has more to do with her husband’s death than Vera’s. Dolores, meanwhile, is single-minded and she couldn’t care less about the accusations against her, past or present, nor her standing or reputation in the town. She only cares about one person, and everything she’s ever done has served that purpose.
The film is also about the difficulty of being a woman — the difficulties of being a mother, of being a daughter, and of being a friend. Many times women feel alone in the world, with no supporters, and that was true of all these women — Dolores, Vera and Selena. And yet, sometimes unbeknownst to each woman individually, the others had their backs. Dolores and Vera looked out for Selena. Dolores looked out for Vera — and Selena supported her in death. Vera, and eventually Selena, looked out for Dolores. Sometimes a woman may feel like being a bitch is all she has to hold onto, but that’s not necessarily the case. The ones who love us and look out for us are there too.
Viable Option 