MY MOVIE SHELF: Pretty Woman

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: 25 Days to go: 20

Movie #415:  Pretty Woman

Several years ago I bought Pretty Woman on DVD, and the only version on the disc was some wretched Director’s Cut with all sorts of crap in it that wasn’t in the theatrical release and that greatly disrupted my expected viewing experience. I was livid — not only because all I had was this version, but because nothing on the packaging indicated that’s what I’d be getting. So ever since that time, I’ve been trying to find the theatrical version somewhere and thanks be to God, I found it on blu-ray. Movie studios and distributors and directors take note: I want the movie I want, not the one you want me to have.

So I was incredibly grateful to have obtained this version sometime last year. Pretty Woman is one of those seminal films that shaped my view of the world and was assimilated into my consciousness, as another part of who I was. To this day, I impress my children with the observation that your foot is the same length as your arm from your elbow to your wrist. Anytime I’m driving at night, I’m probably saying to myself, “Lights. Lights would be good here.” And there hasn’t been any significant time in my life that’s gone by since 1990 when I haven’t pondered the thought that the more you’re put down in life, the more likely you are to believe it and that, for whatever reason, “The bad stuff’s easier to believe.” I will even blurt out, at random times, that something corners like it’s on rails. Also, “Kiss” is my favorite Prince song, I love strawberries with champagne, and I used to be quite obsessed with seeing if I could get my legs to measure 44 inches from hip to toe, but I gave up around age 17. Pretty Woman is inside my head, and has been for 25 years.

A lot of people discredit Pretty Woman because it’s a fantasy tale that glamorizes prostitution and that Vivian (Julia Roberts) is just another one of Hollywood’s famed hookers with a heart of gold. I see it a different way, though. One of the things I love about Pretty Woman is the way it humanizes prostitutes, not glamorizes them. Vivian is treated like a person, like a woman who made a few missteps in her life and found herself in a bad situation, but who perseveres in order to make ends meet. She’s doing what so many women do, which is to earn money the only way they can, because the types of jobs available to people who don’t graduate high school and live in slums and don’t have money for transportation or professional clothes, much less fees, often don’t pay the rent. This doesn’t make Vivian dumb or worthless or inferior, and the movie acknowledges that. And it doesn’t just shine that light of humanity on Vivian either. Her roommate Kit (Laura San Giacomo) has been in the business longer, is tied to drugs more as a means of self-medication, and still gets portrayed as a woman who’s allowed to have agency and control over her life and who is allowed to have dreams and to strive for betterment. The movie knows it’s a fantasy — the “Cinder-fuckin-rella” line isn’t a coincidence — but it allows that even in romantic fantasies, women (hookers included) are allowed to have goals and make decisions and be human.

Pretty Woman is also incredibly funny and engaging, and Julia Roberts lets her infamously disarming personality come straight through the character of Vivian, making her someone who is not tactful or cultured but who is insightful and clever and good-hearted. She also knows that, if you have money, if you aren’t constantly struggling to survive, then you should enjoy your life more than Edward (Richard Gere) seems to, so she helps him to loosen up, to see the way to joy in his life, and to feel more fulfilled. The “she saves him right back” line isn’t just a hokey way to neatly end the film, it’s an observation on everything Vivian has done for Edward over their week together. Often people look at their relationship and only see the ways Edward saves Vivian from a life on the streets by giving her money and clothes and whatever, but like she says, “That’s just geography.” On a personal and emotional level, Vivian’s life was much richer than Edward’s at the start of the film, and she helps him to change that. She saves his soul. She saves his heart. As she says when they first meet, “I ain’t lost.”

Honestly, the only thing that truly bugs me about the film is how bad Vivian is at math. When she first quotes a price for Edward, it’s $100 an hour. Then, for the rest of the night — which presumably is more than 3 hours — it’s only $300. Then for seven days and six full nights, she starts off at a measly $4000 and bargains down to $3k. Now, I know three thousand dollars went a lot further in 1990, but come on. She should’ve been pulling in over ten grand, easy. Although I suppose it’s possible she made it up on her clothes allowance.

That shopping trip IS pretty sweet, and so iconic it’s been imitated in dozens of movies since. Being swept off my feet by romance is nice, but a “reallllly offensive” spending spree in Beverly Hills is a fantasy I could get behind. Anybody got a credit card I could use?

MY MOVIE SHELF: Stepmom

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: 167  Days to go: 118

Movie #271:  Stepmom

My son was born ten days late. They brought me in first thing in the morning to induce labor and twelve hours later he still hadn’t dropped an inch, so I ended up with a c-section. To this day, he still would much rather stay in his comfort zone than venture out of it, and you basically have to prod him along to get him to do anything. My daughter, on the other hand, was a scheduled c-section before my due date. The day before admittance, I had an amniocentesis to ensure her lungs were strong and was having so many contractions afterward they were going to send me up to delivery right then. This threw me into a panic, because all my plans had been made for the next day. Luckily, my doctor wasn’t available and since it wasn’t urgent they sent me home. The next day, as I was being prepped for surgery, I went into labor. She likes to throw wrenches into all my plans, that one. Stepmom came out before I had kids, but it gave me the idea that a child’s delivery was an indication of their personality, and I bought into it because of my own delivery. (I was a month late, because back in the day they allowed that sort of thing, and on the day my mom was to be induced, her water broke. I basically will put everything off as long as I possibly can, and then I’m like, “FINE.”) I actually ask about all my friends’ deliveries, and tell those stories all the time, for that same reason. All because of Stepmom.

I think Stepmom gets kind of a bad rap. It’s a horrible title for the film, which I remember the entire cast acknowledging in some HBO First Look or something back in the day, but there’s not really an immediately evident better one. That doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t have its merits. On the contrary, it has many, and I almost never fail to stop and watch if I happen to catch it on TV. (That’s not always an indication of a great film, but in this case I do like Stepmom quite a bit.)

The film is about the rivalry between Jackie (Susan Sarandon) and Isabel (Julia Roberts) — Isabelle being the new woman in Jackie’s ex-husband’s (Luke, played by Ed Harris) life. Jackie is basically SuperMom to her and Luke’s two kids, Anna (Jena Malone) and Ben (Liam Aiken), whereas Isabel is still trying to figure them out (and meeting a lot of resistance along the way). It may be emotionally manipulative in places, but what I really love is how, in truth, neither woman has all the answers, but neither one of them is wrong, either. They lash out at each other, which is often mean and unwarranted, but you can see that it originates from pain and fear and frustration. And it turns out to be just heartbreaking. When Ben says to Jackie, of Isabel, “If you want me to hate her, I will,” her face plummets with the realization of what she’s doing to her kids by undermining Isabel and how she’s teaching them to hold negativity in their hearts, and it kills her more than having them like Isabel ever would.

Essentially, that’s what it’s all about. Jackie is still bitter that her husband left her, that her marriage failed, and that he’s found some young, beautiful, successful someone new while she remains the responsible homemaker, and she’s terrified of losing her kids to this interloper as well. Meanwhile, Isabel is flustered by the abrupt changes in her life that sharing it with two kids eventually brings, but more than that she feels perpetually inadequate compared with Jackie. So even though she really grows to love the children and to want to spend time with them, she believes she always suffers by comparison to their mom. And Jena Malone (who is really great here, by the way, long before she knocked all our socks off in Catching Fire), plays Anna with such a true and sincere combination of insecurity and spitefulness and loyalty. She loves her mom, of course, and she feels a sense of solidarity and obligation to her to stand on her side and to disparage everything to do with Isabel on principle. Her coming around on that point is so gradual and so tentative and so authentic, it really drives home how difficult these changes are for everyone.

And the thing is, I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of a lot of these feelings and issues, so I can say with certainty how true to life the underlying emotions of the film are. Sure, these people are all inordinately genteel compared with how two sides of a broken family more likely are. (Jackie are Luke, for example, despite having some contentious arguments at times, are still close friends, which is not impossible but is insanely hard.) But I think they’re like that in order to best convey how possible it can be to act in the best interests of your kids (difficult, but possible), and how that should be the goal. I’ve actually kept that in mind all through my divorce and my second marriage. It’s not something I’ve always achieved, but it has always been what I’ve striven for.

The two resolve their differences by the film’s end, as movie rivals often do, though it’s maybe made easier by the state of Jackie’s health, which is kind of cheating. Still, it’s a really nice moment. And the conversation they have about someday in the future, at Anna’s eventual wedding, is one that consistently brings me to tears and one that I’ve thought about often with regard to my own dear stepdaughter and my hope that one day she’ll come to realize, as Jackie says, that “they don’t have to choose. They can have us both.”

It can be painful, but the alternative is worse.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Steel Magnolias

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: 168  Days to go: 119

Movie #270:  Steel Magnolias

“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”

When Steel Magnolias came out, that’s how I would describe it to people. How, one second I’m crying my eyes out and the next I’m dying of laughter, and how amazingly great that was. It was really the first time a movie had elicited that kind of bold physical reaction from me, and I’d be hard pressed to think of even a handful that have come out since that could do it even half as well. Steel Magnolias is a rare gem.

The story of six women living in Louisiana, Steel Magnolias feels like home to me. My mother’s family is from the deep south, and growing up we spent several weeks there every summer and sometimes in the winter as well. These people are my people. The characters of Steel Magnolias are people I recognize, with familiar habits and personalities and lifestyles. The gathering together of food to care for people who are suffering a hardship is commonplace. The catty but not malicious gossiping about everyone in town is just as common. The blending of church and community, of town functions and socializing at the beauty parlor are all rituals I’ve both witnessed and taken part in. That kind of authenticity and familiarity really helps bring the movie to life.

It’s often labeled a chick flick, as if that’s something to scoff at, but Steel Magnolias lifts up female relationships in a beautiful way. When Shelby (Julia Roberts) faces several health scares throughout the film, Truvy (Dolly Parton), Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine), Clairee (Olympia Dukakis) and Annelle (Daryl Hannah) are there for Shelby and her mother M’Lynne (Sally Field). Whether it’s to tell a joke or give a hug or just to grasp a hand in solidarity, these women support each other through all the ups and downs that come in life. Through laughter and tears and everything in between, these women stick together and build each other up.

I have to say, I never really related to Shelby the way I suppose I probably should have when I was younger. There’s an arrogance of youth that perpetuates the idea that nothing bad will ever befall them, and no one will ever die. I had that same arrogance, I swear, but Shelby always struck me as selfish and stubborn. She was also inordinately difficult toward M’Lynne, but perhaps that’s just part of the nature of mothers and daughters. I have been inordinately difficult with my own mother from time to time, and she remains the one person in the world who can drive me crazy at the drop of a hat. Still, Shelby and new husband Jackson (Dylan McDermott) both seemed so in-the-moment, unaware of risks and consequences and mortality. That’s always been sad to me, and one of many reason why I’ve always felt compassion toward M’Lynne.

I’ve always felt for Truvy, too, whose husband Spud (Sam Shepard) was always distant and rarely showed his love for her, even though it was always there. And I’ve loved Clairee’s color and humor and her desire to make everything more enjoyable. I’ve even commiserated for Annelle, who enters the film sort of lost and spends the vast majority of it trying to find her place. But most of all, I love Ouiser, because she and I share the same misanthropic tendencies, though I do openly love a lot more things than she does.

Steel Magnolias is full of important life lessons for any woman to internalize. Never have a groom’s cake at your wedding if it looks like a bleeding animal. Never allow your husband to shoot birds out of your trees. Listen to doctors when they tell you things. When someone screams they want to hit something, offer them up a hated individual. Tell people you love them more than your luggage, even if nobody knows what it’s supposed to mean. And most importantly, get someone to do calisthenics for you if you’re ever in a coma. (I would add that this person also be in charge of your leg shaving. It’s very important to have a girlfriend for this purpose. If I am ever in a coma, dear God, someone shave my legs for me.)

Also, always always always have a group of girlfriends you can count on. In many ways, they will be some of the most important relationships in your life.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Ocean’s Eleven

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: 179  Days to go: 181

Movie #198:  Ocean’s Eleven

Do you remember how fantastic and surprising Ocean’s Eleven was when it came out? I do. It was charming and slick and utterly unexpected. It took an old Rat Pack movie so boring and dull nobody even remembered it anymore and made it a bright, memorable, amazing heist film that is still as great today as it was then.

George Clooney is Danny Ocean, a thief getting paroled from prison and, despite his claims to the parole board, immediately on the lookout for his next big score. He contacts a former cohort and current blackjack dealer — Frank Catton, posing as Ramon since his real identity won’t get him past the gaming commission, played by the late great Bernie Mac — and finds out his partner in crime Rusty (Brad Pitt) is out in L.A. So off he goes.

Rusty is teaching poker to young celebrities (Topher Grace, Joshua Jackson, Shane West, Holly Marie Combs, and Barry Watson), which looks like its boring him to tears. When Danny shows up, the two have a little fun with the group, fleece them of several thousand dollars, and set out to learn the job, which is this: Danny has a plan to rob the Las Vegas casinos, The Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand. The score is upwards of $150million, but that’s not all. Danny’s ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts) is dating Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) now, the owner of these three particular casinos, and Danny hopes to get her back while hitting him where it hurts. To do it, he needs a crew.

Reuben (Elliott Gould) is the money. He has a history of owning Las Vegas casinos himself and knows the risk, however he has a grudge against Benedict himself, so he’s in. The first time I saw his gaudy shorts and robe outfit the first time he’s on screen, I laughed so hard I completely missed their entire conversation.

Frank comes out from Atlantic City and gets a job inside the casino. He’s the inside man. “You might as well call it White Jack!” He also has a serious interest in moisturizing techniques.

Casey Affleck and Scott Caan are the Malloy brothers, Virgil and Turk. I forget the cool heist nickname they have, but their competitive chemistry together is spectacular. They bicker and bait each other, both for fun and for profit, but Turk’s laugh when he runs over Virgil’s remote control monster truck (with Turk’s life-sized monster truck), is the best thing in the film.

Eddie Jemison is Livingston Dell, the technology guy. He’s nervous and he sweats a lot. This proves dangerous later.

Shaobo Qin is Yen, a Cirque de Soleil performer who is crazy flexible and acrobatic to an almost frightening degree. He’s the grease man. I’m not sure why they call him that.

The fabulous Carl Reiner is Saul Bloom. He got out of the game a year earlier because of ulcers, but came back in because of the score. He is maybe not in the best of health. Will it harm the team?

Matt Damon is expert lifter Linus Caldwell, who mostly gets treated like a kid and pretty much resents the hell out of it. After all, these guys have rap sheets longer than his … they’re very long.

Finally, my boyfriend Don Cheadle is Basher, the munitions guy. He has a cockney accent and crawls around in the sewers on occasion, but he’s really good in (and with) a pinch.

Ocean’s Eleven is set up as the perfect heist movie, giving away part of the plan, letting more of it play out as it happens, and leaving some hidden even then, only revealing their secrets after the boost is successfully completed. It works flawlessly this way, offering obstacles and red herrings and misdirections to the audience to keep them not entirely sure of how this is going to play out or if it’ll even be successful. And in the end, the con is extremely satisfying.

Be careful what you say, though, because in Terry Benedict’s hotels, “someone is always watching.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Notting Hill

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: 180  Days to go: 182

Movie #197:  Notting Hill

“Tempting, but no.” That’s just one of the many, many great lines from Notting Hill, and it’s most definitely the one I say most often in my everyday life.

That’s the thing about Notting Hill, though. It’s a romantic comedy about an ordinary guy (Hugh Grant as William Thacker) and an international movie star (Julia Roberts as Anna Scott) who happen to meet and fumble through attempting a relationship — with all the difficulties of managing fame and paparazzi and being in the public eye — but still feels totally relatable and authentic.

Hugh Grant is delightfully understated here, not a sexy cad but also not a stuttering, fidgety mess. He’s reserved, witty, self-deprecating, and still sort of hesitant and unsure of how to act around this amazing dream of a woman. Julia Roberts, meanwhile, is understated as well, tentative and on guard at times, daring or defensive in others. Ironically, it might be her most humanizing role ever because it feels like her most vulnerable and the most like maybe she really is. And the two of them together have a sweet, lovely, teasing and easy chemistry that bubbles like fresh champagne in all their scenes together.

It’s actually that bubbling chemistry that makes their rifts so painful and heart-wrenching. The scene when William is confronted with Anna’s wayward American boyfriend (Alec Baldwin) is awkward and uncomfortable, but so is the following set of scenes, as William’s friends try to set him all with all manner of other women in order to forget Anna, full of sorrow. And the engineered tracking shot of William walking through the Notting Hill Market, as seasons change and people’s lives evolve around him, while “Ain’t No Sunshine” plays over the soundtrack, is simply gorgeous. It’s bar none one of my favorite scenes of any film from any time. It so perfectly illustrates that feeling of a broken heart, of having to trudge through life while it still stubbornly happens all around you, and not being able to engage with any of it.

Another strong point of Notting Hill are William’s collection of friends. There’s Tim McInnerny as best friend (and horrid cook) Max, Gina McKee as other best friend and wheelchair-bound attorney Bella, Earl of Grantham Hugh Bonneville as obtuse Bernie, Emma Chambers as William’s baby sister Honey, and the amazing, perfect, incomparable Rhys Ifans as the illustrious flat-mate Spike. Max and Bella are William’s rocks, supportive and loving. Bernie, as hapless as he is, points out how nice it is when someone wants to go out with you. Honey is amazing, and her proclaiming to Anna that she’s always felt they could be best friends, is kind of exactly how I feel about at least a half-dozen celebrities of my own (call me, Kelly Ripa!). And Spike is a disaster and a hero, and since he’s the only one reasoned enough to point out what a “daft prick” William is for turning down Anna’s final offer, when she’s “just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her,” he kind of saves the entire day.

The final scene, where William admits his daft prick-ness to Anna in a room full of reporters, is sweet and perfect, and the following montage, as the movie comes to its close, as the two are wed, stepping out together on the red carpet, and reading peacefully on a bench as Anna strokes her baby bump, is easily one of the best endings to any romantic comedy ever, because it encompasses a true “happily ever after” sensibility. It warms my heart so much, and I simply can’t get enough of it. Honestly, I can’t figure out why more people aren’t crazy in love with this one.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Hook

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: 233  Days to go: 238

Movie #144:  Hook

Hook is an interesting movie — kind of sad, kind of sweet, kind of weird, and way too long. Based on the premise that the original Peter Pan story really happened, it posits that Peter (Robin Williams) eventually stayed with Wendy (Maggie Smith) in London — having fallen in love at first sight with Wendy’s granddaughter Moira (Caroline Goodall) — and grew up to be a boring, old fuddy-duddy named Peter Banning who has two kids, Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and Maggie (Amber Scott). But when the Banning clan travels back to London to visit Granny Wendy, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) returns and kidnaps Jack and Maggie to incite a war with Peter.

Spielberg has an affinity for father-son stories, and Hook delves into that quite a bit. Peter is a busy and important businessman with little time for family commitments — he takes a call (on a GIANT flip phone) during his daughter’s play and he misses Jack’s baseball game entirely. He doesn’t like his kids running around or making noise or being childish, and he frequently tells Jack, especially, to grow up. So when Jack finds himself in Neverland, and his father once again disappoints by not making enough of an effort (in Jack’s mind) to save them, Jack is easily swayed by the encouragement of Captain Hook and soon forgets his parents altogether. (Neverland makes you forget.)

Peter has also forgotten, but what he can’t remember is his life in Neverland, his life as Pan. “He can’t fly, he can’t fight, and he can’t crow,” as new Lost Boy leader Rufio (Dante Basco) points out. But Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) believes in Peter, and she convinces the Lost Boys to give him a chance. Bit by bit, he regains his memory and his playfulness and even his happy thoughts, naturally saving the day and returning home to their Happily Ever After, but the movie is clunky in several areas.

The casting of Hook is very, very weird. Robin Williams makes a great Pan, in theory, but he’s more than a little disquieting as a disapproving parent. Julia Roberts is an odd choice for Tinkerbell, in just about every conceivable way. I like her a lot, and I don’t mind the performance, but it’s a strange fit. Dustin Hoffman affects an unusual voice for Hook, and plays him with far more severity than the blundering silliness that had heretofore been a hallmark of the character would seem to call for. Meanwhile, Maggie Smith was only 57 when this movie came out and yet she’s costumed to look older than she currently does, actually approaching 80, on Downton Abbey. And there are all sorts of cameos that make no kind of sense at all: Phil Collins as a detective, David Crosby, Jimmy Buffett and Glenn Close as pirates, and a smooching George Lucas and Carrie Fisher just because.

Bob Hoskins actually works pretty well as Mr. Smee, but where the real casting triumphs are fall within the Lost Boys. Rufio is cocksure and swaggering — a confident leader with no use for this old, fat Peter. But he’s also just vulnerable and jealous enough to feel threatened by the Lost Boys’ faith in Pan. When his arrogance is struck down in a fight against the pirates, it’s an honest loss felt by all. The rest of the boys, too, are all adorable moppets with varying levels of smudged-nose adorableness and enthusiastic roughhousing, with the cream of the crop easily being Raushan Hammond as Thud Butt — a super cute, rotund little man who literally rolls himself into a ball to knock down some pirates in battle. He’s sweet and earnest and oh, so lovable. His genuine glee and awed pride at receiving Pan’s sword warms the heart for days.

The story itself is also a bit awkward and labored, but really seems to lend itself to being more enjoyable the more you disconnect from your rational mind — much like Peter needs to do in order to find his Pan. If you open your imagination and childlike spirit, the film can be quite touching and fun.

Sadly, not even childlike imagination can save Hook from being way too long. It could easily lose thirty minutes and probably be a much better film for it, but I still find it hard to let this one go. I keep it on my shelf through thick and thin because something in it just appeals to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lost my marbles.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Erin Brockovich

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: 279  Days to go: 270

Movie #98: Erin Brockovich

Really fun Soderbergh retrospective, but it really bugs me when "Erin Brockovich" gets so casually dismissed. http://t.co/d16xqfzw7l

— Joe Reid (@joereid) August 10, 2014

As if note-perfect star vehicles are so easy to make.

— Joe Reid (@joereid) August 10, 2014

That was Joe Reid, the Entertainment Editor for The Wire, tweeting truth about Erin Brockovich — one of Steven Soderbergh’s most successful, yet least revered, films. (And before you go noting that Soderbergh was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for Erin Brockovich the same year he won for directing Traffic, I’ll point out that politics and popularity come into play concerning Oscar nominations and wins a lot more than AMPAS would like you to believe, and that Soderbergh managed not to split votes with himself and lose out to Ang Lee (probably the most deserving nominee, for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) or Ridley Scott (for Best Picture winner Gladiator) in part because, given the choice, nobody would vote for Soderbergh’s direction of Erin Brockovich over his work on Traffic. It just wasn’t going to happen. Ever.) Erin Brockovich is — a lot like its title character — outspoken and flip and not overly artful, but, man, does it get the job done.

Julia Roberts is phenomenal as Brockovich — a tough, uncultured woman fighting to get by who elbows her way into a job, stumbles across some shady dealings between Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and the town of Hinkley, CA, and by sheer force of personality and will, helps bring about “the largest settlement every paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history.” Say what you will, not every actress can play bold and brash the way Roberts can. Just as she did in Pretty Woman, she manages to portray someone who stands out and rubs everyone the wrong way and makes people uncomfortable, but who wins people over and clearly has a huge, loving, generous heart. That’s a difficult balance to achieve. And it’s right in Roberts’s wheelhouse.

Of course, Hollywood loves true stories like this, the little guy beating out the big, bad corporation, and the film is definitely engineered to be a crowd-pleaser. But what I love about it is how honestly it portrays the struggle of a single mother. Single mothers get put on pedestals when their child grows up to be a famous athlete or something, but a lot of times they’re vilified — never overtly, but politically and societally. Erin Brockovich’s story isn’t all that different from a lot of women’s: She got married and had a baby when she was young, her husband leaves her with a couple of kids and she has no education or work experience to get herself a job — not one that’s going to pay her enough to cover her bills, at least. She can’t afford insurance or child care, and she has no benefits. So how is a woman like that supposed to survive? The movie sets her up as someone to be admired for her perseverance and gumption and “bootstrap” mentality, but in the real world very few employers will give you a chance based on your word, and even fewer will see your value to a company when you don’t necessarily play by the same social rules as everyone else, even if you get more work done, and do it better, than anyone else on the team. People make their assumptions about you, and it’s really hard to change them. Even Ed (Albert Finney) tells Erin in the film, “Look, I’m sorry but you were gone for a week. I assumed you were off having fun.” She responds, “Oh, and why the hell would you assume that?” Unfortunately, we don’t always get to challenge someone else’s assumptions about us.

The movie doesn’t just deal with how hard it is to get and keep a job, though, it also addresses how hard it is to find and keep a relationship, and all the stigmas attached with it. Because Erin’s been divorced not once but twice, she’s clearly perceived by those around her as some sort of low-class floozy, as if she chose for her husbands to leave her. And when she meets George (Aaron Eckhart), he initially bucks the trend of men in her life by embracing her work and her kids, but when the pressures of the PG&E case take too much of a toll on her time and her health and her state of mind, he caves. He scolds her for her attitude and tries multiple times to guilt her into quitting, and when she asks him to stay to prove he’s not like the others, he leaves anyway. So not only is she at fault when she can’t provide for her family, she’s also at fault when the job that allows her to provide for them keeps her away from them too long. It’s a no-win game for her — for lots of women — but she’s forced to play it regardless.

Of course there are lots of references to her looks or her using them to her advantage, but whether you buy into that or not — whether you find her brazenness distasteful or not — you can’t argue with the passion with which she fought for her clients (featuring some nice work in small roles by Marg Helgenberger and Cherry Jones) and her obvious sacrifices in order to do right by them. Roberts never lets you forget that. “That’s my work, my sweat, my time away from my kids! If that’s not personal, then I don’t know what is!”

If I had to guess, I would say a lot of people remember Erin Brockovich for the lines. “They’re called boobs, Ed.” “That’s all you got, lady. Two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes.” “Do they teach beauty queens to apologize? Because you suck at it.” There are some great ones, as well as quite a few powerful monologues, but the truth of the matter is there’s a lot more to it than that. This is Julia’s movie, through and through, and she owns every single scene with defiance and audaciousness and fierce commitment. No other Oscar nominee put that much vitality and magnetism into her role that year, which is why she won. Plus, she wore that gorgeous vintage Valentino with the pleated train. High class or less so, the woman knows how to own it.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Closer

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order, by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 307  Days to go: 295

Movie #66: Closer

“Plain. Jane. Jones.”

Closer is a beautiful, painful, raw, uncomfortable, wonderful film that explores the natures of truth, love, happiness and identity. Is it enough just to love someone? Or just to say you do? Is it enough to know someone? Even if they don’t know themselves? Is it better to know the thing that will hurt you, or to let it fade away and just follow your heart? Is that even possible?

Alice Ayers (Natalie Portman) is a lie. A fabrication. She’s a woman who reinvents herself as a barrier to being vulnerable, and so when she meets Dan (Jude Law), she becomes the woman he wants her to be. It’s not the woman she is, not technically, but it doesn’t mean she loves him less. Indeed, I think Alice is the one whose love is truest, most devoted, unconditional. She accepts Dan and loves him. She would have loved him forever, if he could’ve accepted it.

When Alice (and we) meet Dan, he is a schlubby, sad obituary writer who is dazzled and enthralled by her. She is worldly and knowing, confident and luminous. He simply wants to bask in her glow, she is so magnetic to him. She is drawn to him as well, perhaps by the way he looks at her, perhaps by what she sees in him, and they instantly fall in love. We don’t see their love story, though. The movie cleverly jumps ahead to the moment Dan meets Anna (Julia Roberts). Alice has changed him now, and he’s more confident. He wrote a book — a good one, according to Anna — and is poised for success. His sadness has been replaced by arrogance, and that arrogance leads him down a path that will overturn the lives of Alice and himself and of Anna and a doctor named Larry (Clive Owen) she has yet to meet.

The movie skips ahead in time at its whim, revealing only the times when there is change or turmoil in these four lives — specifically with regard to these four lives: how Dan’s obsession with Anna brings her to Larry and drives them apart, how Alice lives with the burden of it until she doesn’t, how Larry is vengeful and seeks to destroy them all. It only flashes back twice — to Anna’s anger- and pity-fueled meeting with Larry and to Dan’s discovery of Alice at the club — so even the audience doesn’t know what’s true or what’s not. Did Alice sleep with Larry? Or did Larry say that just to ruin Dan? Does Alice admit to it because she knows that’s what Dan’s fishing for and that he won’t accept the truth that nothing happened? We don’t know. What we do know is that his obsession (and Larry’s obsession, and the hostile, rage-filled competition between them) killed the last of Alice’s love. “I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye.” It’s a line she gives him in their first meeting, as the only way to leave someone, so it’s not a surprise when it comes and yet it’s devastating all the same — particularly to Dan, who is so broken and useless at this point. Everything that was good in him was Alice, but he killed it until there was no more Alice anywhere.

Natalie Portman is so perfect in this movie, it’s almost transcendent. She and Clive Owen both deserved Oscars for this. (Not that I have anything against Morgan Freeman or Cate Blanchett or the roles they won their Oscars for, but Morgan Freeman should’ve won for about a half-dozen other things and Cate Blanchett should’ve won for Elizabeth, so in a sense these were just career-recognition Oscars, which are always a tiny bit of a letdown because they detract from truly great performances by, perhaps, less-accomplished, less-known, less-revered actors.) In their ways, they are both so honest about their emotions and their motivations — he, constantly angry and graphic and crude, she, always calm and straightforward, yet sly and seeming evasive even when she’s not. They know Dan and Anna better than either Dan or Anna know themselves or each other. Larry uses it to his advantage, however he can. Alice accepts it for what it is and abandons it when it’s pushed too far.

Larry gets what he thinks he wants. Does he feel better about himself? Probably not, given his admission of as much when he offers a malicious trade to Anna. Is he happy? Is Anna? Do they pretend they are?

What about Dan? He’s back to being a miserable wretch of an obituary writer, smiling maybe his truest smile in the longest time when he happens upon the truth about Alice.

And where is Alice? Gone. Back to who she was before she met Dan, but different from who she was too — older, more mature, a little harder, and even more sure of herself. Is she better off? Probably. Is she happy? We don’t know, but I hope she is. Out of all of them, she deserves it the most.