Okay, so: my mother has this friend, "Curly." Nobody else in the family has ever met Curly, but we love her anyway, because she writes the most insane Christmas letter in the history of the winter holidays—three single-spaced, seven-point-fonted pages of monomaniacal commitment to The Dread Lord Overshare. Not one detail is omitted from Curly's annual review: carpool-schedule adjustments, subtle shifts in ambient humidity, cavity repair, the circumstances under which her husband left the family and moved into an apartment in a neighboring town...no, seriously! She put that shteez in the Christmas letter—cheerily, as befitted the season; I distinctly recall a handful of smilies after the phrase "couples counseling"—and then she described the apartment. And if you think she didn't top herself the next year, think again. Let's just say the word "fistula" figured heavily in the proceedings.
You've already read the title of the entry, so you know where I'm going with this, but if Curly's Christmas letter could take human form, it would clearly take the form of Jennifer Jason Leigh—too real, too much information, horrifying and awesome, candy canes and gangrene, utterly authentic and utterly uncomfortable. And my reaction to Curly and to Leigh is the same: That I kind of wish they could turn it down, or off, just once, but at the same time, I have to admire their dedication. I don't want to subscribe to The Diverticulitis Gazette, particularly, but Curly keeps sending it out, and I keep reading it. Leigh, same thing; "watch borderline personality decompensate over course of two hours" isn't on my to-do list anywhere, but I can't un-know what it looks like now.
1. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). Where you score this on The Jennifer Jason Leigh Oh My Hairy God Let It End Scale depends on how you feel about the accent; in my opinion, the Dr. Roosevelt's Famous Original Sour Balls acting choice actually muffles Leigh somewhat. She gives Dorothy Parker a sodden, exhausted physicality—I've never seen a better rendition of the moment when the drunk becomes the hangover, and about an hour into the movie, I start to feel enervated myself.
As a culture, we have a compartmentalized relationship with Dorothy Parker; we celebrate her diamond-hardness, but we don't want to see the great pressures brought to bear as the diamond comes to be. With that said, Parker is one of Leigh's less discomfiting roles, but she does have a few too-much moments, partly because she always does, but primarily because she's often sharing the screen with charisma vacuums like Matthew Broderick and Andrew "Blando Calrissian" McCarthy, who throw her into sharper relief. Even as she's lolling on the stairs at a New Year's party, once again interacting with her own head as though it's the globe of Atlas, you can feel the effort Leigh puts into her lassitude; Broderick just frowns in a standard way and reads his lines with the occasional capital-P pause.
2. Single White Female (1992). Friendships between adolescent girls can sometimes take on the qualities of romantic obsession—there's a profound and ridiculous intensity to these relationships, a need to inhabit and be completed, and from the middle of it, you can't see that it's bad opera. Leigh gives that to us here, note for note, and it's a heartbreaking performance that has no business in director Barbet Schroeder's movie, which is not very good—it's one of those "damn, bitch crazy" thrillers from the early '90s (including but not limited to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Poison Ivy, and The Crush), in which women scorned must inevitably morph into highly organized engines of destruction. This bears no resemblance to how people actually behave, although Leigh tries to humanize it, and it's interesting to watch the effects of that—Leigh disrupts the suspense's momentum by pulling Bridget Fonda out of the orbit the script designates for her. Hedy Carlson as written is a plot locomotive, not a person, but Leigh doesn't play her that way. As a result, Fonda can't always go with the pro-forma line delivery she might prefer; she responds to Leigh in spite of herself. When Allie finds Hedy's bloody clothes in the sink, Hedy offers her period as the reason; the audience knows she's lying, and Allison should know it too, but Leigh makes such a convincing cramps face that you're not entirely convinced it's untrue, and Fonda is quite clearly torn between acting suspicious, as the script demands, and accepting the monthly bill as paid, which Leigh demands. You can almost hear Barbet Schroeder muttering, "Fine, do what you want."
3. Rush (1991). If I recall correctly, the contrast between Leigh and everything else in this 1970s-set undercover cop drama didn't seem quite as stark back in the day as it does now, but then, the film itself didn't seem as hacky as it does now. We've seen it done a thousand times: the cop who plays by his own rules, the fresh-faced rookie roughed up by the hypocrisies of the system, the Howard-Hughesian drug dealer whose isolation has subverted his blah blah blah fishcakes. And let's not forget The Lieutenant Whose Patience Has Its Limits. Without Leigh, Rush is fertile ground for a drinking game: Sam Elliott phones it in using two tin cans and some dirty string—drink! Gregg Allman confuses "menacing" with "bad clams"—drink!
But Leigh is in it, and when she's listening to her partner/mentor/lover Jim Raynor (Jason Patric) lecture her, again, some more, about the perils of deep cover, she's doing the work—feeling afraid, resenting the condescension, taking the leap but looking down. She makes Kristen's face a dutiful, determined mask and drops her voice to steady it from fear, but her eyes don't stop moving; she's thinking she can fake it until she actually feels it. She's also thinking, "Why don't I feel it yet?" It opens up a jarring gap, that multi-layered act, because Raynor is one of those Dylan McKay types whose sense of his own broody tragedy informs everything he does and is more tiresome than affecting, and Patric is too limited to get us on his side. (Also, The Beard That Ate Frankie Carbone is about to swallow his head.) There's probably a pretty good movie in there somewhere, if you recast some roles and cut it down by about 15 minutes; Leigh's performance just reminds you that that isn't the movie you're seeing.
4. The Anniversary Party (2001). A recently reunited, but not fully reconciled, couple throws an anniversary party, attended by all their neurotic film-industry friends, at which everyone takes Ecstasy. Nightmare! On top of that, the film is written and directed by two actors—Alan Cumming, and Leigh herself—so it sounds like a recipe for bundle-of-nerve-endings flambé, Leigh-style. It's actually the exception that proves the rule. Leigh's Sally Nash is maddening, because she's familiar—she's a friend of yours, the one you wish would just break up with the guy already if she's that miserable, and she's also half of that couple who always fights at dinner parties while everyone else folds and refolds their napkins and waits for the tears to start so that one of them will flee the room, the other will follow, and you can finally talk shit about them. It's vintage Leigh, so awkward you can't look at it straight on, and it's only watchable in this case because Jane Adams's Clair—a rubber-jointed post-partum mess who's self-medicating to no positive avail—is so much more uncomfortable that Leigh's scenes come as a welcome respite. Between Adams wiggling through her blocking all "hih hih hih," Cumming doing his West-Elm-catalog-sprite thing, and John Benjamin Hickey screaming so hard during the charades scene that the artery in his forehead picked up a SAG card, Leigh is like a drink of cold water. And after #5, she owes us that much...
5. Georgia (1995). If you've seen it, I trust I need not elaborate. If you haven't, I recommend it, if only because it is a badge of honor to get through the Van Morrison sequence without pausing the movie to rest and reflect. Or to run into the pillowy embrace of traffic. Anything. Anything to fucking end it. Sadie Flood is so awful to watch, so disordered and busted down, and in the few scenes when she's not sending the 3:46 Acela full-speed into the side of a mountain, she's annoying—and Leigh rides that to the end of the line.
Directed by Ulu Grosbard, and written by Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, the film itself is irritating, in an under-your-skin way. Sadie, who fancies herself a singer, wants everything her older sister Georgia has: a successful singing career, achieved in spite of a stated lack of ambition on Georgia's part; a loving husband and a traditional family; the house the two sisters grew up in. From the first scene, it's on; Georgia is playing to a full arena, Sadie is in the audience, and on Leigh's face, sisterly pride is facing off against confusion, rage, guilt (because of the rage), and more rage (because of the guilt).
It's an ugly dance that's older than dirt and frustrating as hell, the sibling dynamics that don't change, but it's brilliant in both casting and execution. Even while wanting to kick Sadie, you still feel for her, because Mare Winningham is just as perfect in the Georgia role as Leigh is in the Sadie one; the round placidity of Winningham's face makes a nice visual contrast with Leigh's witchy angles, as well as strongly suggesting a smugness in Georgia—a secret satisfaction in the knowledge that Sadie will never get it together, that Georgia can keep offering Sadie money and never expecting anything better of her, and that, thus enabled and infantilized, Sadie will never threaten her primacy.
Leigh occupies Sadie completely—you can smell her, the sour fug of Marlboro Lights and dirty hair that must attend Sadie's movements—but manages to let us see what Georgia sees, this off-putting and childish broken-down charmer that can't be written off. It's a brilliant job, but I would rather watch Un chien andalou a hundred times in a row and then eat the razor they used than sit through it again.
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Sarah D. Bunting is co-editor-in-chief of Television Without Pity.com and co-author of Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) About TV. More of her writing appears at Tomato
Nation.com. This is her first article for The House Next Door.
Always entertaining to read Sars' writing. I just discovered this blog last week, and am impressed by the insightful reviews. This is now among my must-reads every week!
For my rankings, I think I'd go:
1. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.
2. Georgia
3. Short Cuts
4. Last Exit to Brooklyn
5. Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
"Fast Times" just missed the medal podium; I couldn't get dug into a position that was really about JJL and not the movie as a whole.
I would put "Georgia" first in terms of a strict ranking, really, but leading with that one is tough.
Miami Blues kicks some butt.
There's a few others in there, but here's my five…
1. Short Cuts (already mentioned)
2. Kansas City (throws that entire pic out of whack.)
3. The Hudsucker Proxy (same…what's with these 30s roles? Why are they all so gawdawful?)
4. Single White Female
5. Mrs. Parker…
I'll go with, in order:
1. Short Cuts. JJL as a housemom and the wife of emotionally and sexually constipated suburbanite Chris Penn (her onscreen soulmate, methinks). She makes money doing phone sex. In one scene she's doing an NC-17 deluxe on a guy while diapering her baby. As Robert Altman said in an interview, if you know any male consumers of porn who don't know the reality of what they're buying, they really need to see this movie.
2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It's an ensemble movie, yes, but JJL is the heart of it. The deflowering scene was a kind of mental deflowering for this moviegoer, who was 11 at the time; it was the first sex scene I'd witnessed that wasn't filtered through what Laura Mulvey titled "The Male Gaze" — it's all about her; her anticipation and curiosity, and then her bewilderment that there are no trumpets singing, just some guy on top of her grinding away while she looks up at the underside of the bleachers.
3. Georgia. The film with which Jennifer Jason Leigh officially stopped being a movie actress and became an issue. Like nails on a chalkboard, this movie, and this performance. Emotionally pornographic; I'm not sure how true a place it came from, since there seemed a whiff of sadism to the whole thing — a pleasure at making the audience squirm. But it's one of her most daring roles, and surely emblematic of what she stands for.
4. The Anniversary Party. A beautiful, beautiful performance. She could stand toe to toe with anybody Ingmar Bergman ever employed. The movie's surprisingly rich and engaging, for a party film (he wrote, from a standpoint of some authority) but if it has any gravity at all, and if it stands any kind of test of time, it's because of her.
5. The Hudsucker Proxy.. When I first saw this Coen bros. movie, I was inclined to agree with Owen Gleiberman's assessment of Leigh's nutball hardboiled dame performance as the muckraking big city newspaper columnist, a three ring circus of self-aware choices, complete with rat-a-rat line readings, air-jabbing hand gestures and strangely glassy gaze (somehow it reminded me of Quint's description of a shark's eyes in Jaws — "…like a doll's eyes"). Yet I really do buy her falling in love with Tim Robbins' rube-turned-titan-of-industry, and the scene where she tries to infilitrate his inner circle by convincing him that they went to the same high school (by pretending to recite the high school fight song along with him, while staying half a beat behind and pretending to be "remembering") is just brilliant. And Jesus, at the very least, give her points for degree of difficulty. I'll quote a critic friend of mine to whom I said, a couple years after the movie came out, "She's trying to do Rosalind Russell, Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck all at the same time." He replied, "Well, yeah — you try doing that when you're four foot eleven in heels."
Forgot to quote Gleiberman on JJL's performance in Hudsucker: "She's a disaster, I'm afraid."
I like how Leigh's interpretations can be so extreme that some of the choices selected come off more cautionary than as recommendations. I mean, I agree with Sarah and Matt, is GEORGIA a triumph or a train wreck? Is it so thoroughly the latter that it peversely becomes the former? Would Leigh even acknowledge the distinction?
But she's the right tonic for what ails you when the homogenity of most mainstream movies starts to wear you down. Leigh was never suited to cookie-cutter filmmaking, and the times she's tried (SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, BACKDRAFT) she's always managed to be more interesting than the rest of the film put together.
1. EXISTENZ. My favorite Leigh performance, because of the saucy way it links her hyperemotional persona to movie history once the designer gets stuck in her game. That bit where Allegra Geller (as always with original Cronenberg scripts, great name) steps on the tire to look Pikul in the eye when she gives him what for feels more authentically screwball than anything in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (which I also love; particularly the Muncie fight song bit that Matt references). And her reluctant passion during the pair's literally obligatory sex scene is hilarious revenge on such gratuitous moviemaking.
2. KANSAS CITY. Possibly the most hated prformance of Leigh's career, or at least a toss-up with GEORGIA, but it breaks me apart each time I see it. I hadn't thought of this till now, but the last few films mentioned make me wonder how self-conciously Leigh models what she does as a dialogue (or an assault) on Golden Age Hollywood acting.
3. SINGLE WHITE FEMALE. What Sarah said.
4. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. What Matt said, with the added note that her flirting at the end is perfectly charming and alerts you that Leigh could have been another Pretty Young Thing if she'd desired.
5. THE MACHINIST. Just to point out that for all the buzz Bale got for emaciating himself, Leigh had to caress that walking skeleton as if it were sexy. I'd say that's as impressive a feat.
Bruce: Though I know it's a fave of hardcore Cronenbergians (of which I'd like to consider myself one) I couldn't like Existenz because it played too much like the director making a movie based on having read scholarly papers about his ouvre. However, he's so self-conscious about it — so extremely self-conscious — that I think I might have to revisit it and see if I find it funny rather than irritating this time. Certainly Leigh is tuned into his wavelength.
I adore The Machinist, though — Bale's performance gets richer each time I see it, and I've seen it four times now (once in its theatrical run, more times late night on cable, when I really should be doing productive things). The losing-60-pounds thing is a big distraction, but I think Bale earns the right to call it more than an actors' gimmick. It truly seems to turn him into a different person — less of a captain-of-the-soccer-team stud, more of a withdrawn, fragile freak. That Leigh matches him in a handful of scenes tells you that she's playing on a whole other level though — or maybe she's operating in an entirely different universe.
Except for maybe Judy Davis, I can't think of another actress who's stayed a lead over such a long period of time who's routinely made such radically individualistic choices.
Matt, I do love EXISTENZ; particularly regarding the topic, as Leigh bears most of the burden of pulling off the final shift in perception where you realize the rotted, unhealthy core of the film comes from her (and Law), not the story itself. There are moments in the game where Geller displays an almost childish delight (spotting the two-headed lizard, say, or her excited outbursts when she "wins"), but her disgust, which is kept in such check that it's barely noticible unless you're looking for it, shades even her giddiest moments, and keeps bubbling to the surface in flashes and starts. A smart use of Leigh's typical mercurial temperment. But yeah, it's self-conscious in a way Cronenberg usually avoids, I see your point.
Upon rereading, I see my comment on THE MACHINIST comes off as possibly a slam on Bale. Not at all intended, as he's just about my favorite actor at the moment. (Additional confirmation: his sly, seductively mysterious turn in THE PRESTIGE.) And he is wonderful in THE MACHINIST beyond the weight loss. Suffice it to say it's a film with two great performances, and it's unfortunate, however understandable, that Leigh's was (pardon the expression) overshadowed.
Agreed as well on Judy Davis. Have she and Leigh ever shared a scene together? Did the camera manage not to shiver and explode?
And this is a good a place as any to say thanks for the main page rejiggering of hiding the posts beneath the fold. It makes playing catch-up every few days much easier.
She's perfect in Hudsucker and anyone who says different is nuts.
"I'll stake my Pulitzer on it!"
Another vote for Miami Blues. Plus Existenz, Mrs. Parker, Kansas City, um…any love for Dolores Claiborne? I really need to see Hudsucker Proxy.
Re: JJL in Hudsucker: "a three ring circus of self-aware choices, complete with rat-a-rat line readings, air-jabbing hand gestures and strangely glassy gaze"
I find the self-consciousness on JJL's part adds an element of commentary on the studio era screwball working-woman-that-must-be-reigned-in stereotype – particularly since that sense of open artifice is much stronger and more startling towards the beginning of Hudsucker and gradually morphs into emotional honesty by the end. The stereotype evolves into a recognizable human being before our eyes.
If anything, the artifice and JJL's perceived detachedness from what she's doing towards the beginning makes the character that much realer and more affecting to me. It's my favourite piece of JJL, and probably one of my favourite performances of the 90s.
Also, I hope Sarah returns to The House Next Door, and often – this was a fantastic read.
Thank you, goran.
JJL in Hudsucker…I haven't seen the movie in a while, so my opinion of Leigh in it may have changed, but for me, it came off as a virtuoso performance technically that was not…felt.
Leigh always has a bunch of mannerisms going — Sadie Flood is an audibly jangling neuron that won't stop firing — but they usually present as organic to the character. Amy Archer seemed…not studied, exactly, but knowledgeable and accurate, and a bit flat for that, like Leigh intellectualized it too much, or had so many physical-blocking bits to keep track of that she had to focus on the mastery of them and couldn't dig into the character as far.
The fact that I'm nuts is duly stipulated by the defense. Now let's change the subject to The Best Little Girl in The World
JJL's work in MIAMI BLUES is flawless and brave, reminding me of the best work of Warren Oates. JJL didn't make her character smarter than written, playing to the truth of her limitations, and in that truth is the kind of performance that is risky to one's career. Oates did that too, and he did it so well that he was often mistaken for his dumbass characters. JJL displays that same courage in MIAMI BLUES with her heartbreaking performance. BTW: it's a very good movie, too, based on the same writer who created COCKFIGHTER — Charles Willeford.