Meryl, Kurt and Cher—a Silky Cinema Menage

On its face, it may not seem like Silkwood (1983) would be a highly entertaining film—it’s a grim, ripped-from-the-headlines tale of a nuclear plant worker who blows the whistle on its shady business practices and shines a light on the cancer-causing health effects of working with radioactive materials.

But in the hands of master storytellers, headed by prolific director Mike Nichols (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Angels in America) and screenwriters Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) and Alice Arlen, the story of real-life labor union activist Karen Silkwood’s relentless quest for truth and justice becomes an absorbing, compelling and supremely watchable movie, punctuated by dark humor and enlivened by a triumvirate of unforgettable star performances.

Meryl Streep as Karen Silkwood

In 1974 in Oklahoma, Kerr McGee plant worker and union member Karen Silkwood (played by Meryl Streep) died in a mysterious car accident, after having been repeatedly contaminated with radiation, seemingly as a punishment for planning to share her story with The New York Times. As Karen digs further, uncovering ethical and safety violations, her coworkers and even her lover Drew Stephens (Kurt Russell) and roommate Dolly Pelliker (Cher), who also work for the plant, turn on her for upsetting the status quo and putting herself in danger.

Kurt Russell as Drew Stephens

Evoking the Deep South of the 1970s, with banjo music prominently featured in the film score and a Confederate flag draped behind the bed that Karen shares with Drew, the milieu of Silkwood is pure country, with most actors sporting convincing southern drawls and Streep memorably warbling an an impressive a cappella rendition of the gospel standard “Amazing Grace.” Director Nichols goes for gritty authenticity all the way.

An effective workplace and kitchen sink drama as well as an anti-nuclear polemic, Silkwood has universal themes—most everyone can relate to the concept of a toxic work environment, for example! But here, of course, the drama is heightened because this crew isn’t “working with puffed wheat,” as Drew says, but with uranium and plutonium. If you make a mistake, you’re “cooked”—not figuratively, but literally. Exposure to radiation causes cancer—but back in the early 70s, most nuclear plant workers were not fully aware of the risks.

Cher as Dolly Pelliker

Despite the subject matter, if you appreciate fine acting, you’ll love Silkwood. The chemistry among the three principals is, pardon the cheap pun, as smooth as silk. Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher work wonderfully together as the three coworkers sharing a ramshackle house to cut their expenses, enduring the drudgery of their boring, repetitive and dangerous jobs but creating a family unit of their threadbare existence.

This is truly one of Streep’s best roles, and with her stellar resume of iconic performances, that’s saying a lot. As promiscuous, willful, complicated Karen, Streep brings tremendous vulnerability along with fierce determination and ironic humor to the role. Always at odds with her coworkers, her lover, her ex-husband, Streep’s Silkwood is an antiheroine but heartbreakingly human. For her performance in Silkwood, Streep was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award (she’d already won her second Oscar just the year before, for Sophie’s Choice.)

Drew clocks in

The role of Karen’s loving, patient and long-suffering boyfriend Drew Stephens may well be the ultimate Kurt Russell dramatic performance. Here, Russell is soulful, masculine yet vulnerable,  forgiving of Karen’s indiscretions, deeply caring and supportive, trying vainly to calm her obsessions and tame her wildness.

Thelma (Sudie Bond) gets "cooked"—just another day at the office

One of Hollywood’s most underrated actors, Russell is a charismatic and versatile actor who has been able to turn easily from drama to comedy to action adventure in his 50+ year career. A child star who acted with Elvis Presley before portraying him in a TV movie years later; a teenage male ingenue for a handful of 1970s Disney classics; leading man to his longtime lady love Goldie Hawn in memorable comedies like Swing Shift and Overboard; and of course, iconic action hero Snake Plissken (thanks to his long-time partnership with director John Carpenter), the hardworking Russell has played almost every type of role in every film genre imaginable.

Don't worry, there's plenty of Kurt in this one!

Though Russell is far more than just a handsome face and physique, he is undeniably easy on the eyes, especially here in Silkwood. In fact, Kurt, shirtless throughout 75 percent of this film, shows more skin here than in any other film except maybe Captain Ron (in which he nonchalantly strutted through much of the proceedings in a speedo!). Some Kurt Russell fans may want tune in to Silkwood just for the eye candy!

Cher’s performance as sardonic, lonely lesbian Dolly Pelliker in Silkwood was a revelation and paved the way for an acclaimed new career as a serious actor. As the female half of a popular singing duo who made it big in prime time television, Cher had always proven herself an able and enthusiastic performer. Her flair for comedy had already been established in the Carol Burnett-style comedy sketches of her TV variety shows. She triumphed on the Broadway stage in a non-singing role in Robert Altman’s Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (reprising her role in a low-budget film version that nobody really saw at the time), and then Mike Nichols hired her for Silkwood. Cher would receive her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for the role of Dolly; in the coming years she would earn a Best Actress nod for Mask and then the Oscar itself for Moonstruck.

Streep, Scarwid and Cher

Silver

Nelson doctors the negatives

Silkwood’s supporting cast is also peppered with brilliance, with brief turns by David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck, Dolores Claiborne), Fred Ward (Big Business, The Player), Craig T. Nelson (Poltergeist, Book Club), and the wonderful character actress Sudie Bond (who appeared with Cher in the star’s very first film, Come Back to the Five and Dime.) Other standouts in the cast are Diana Scarwid (Inside Moves, Mommie Dearest) as the funeral parlor makeup artist and object of Dolly’s affections; and Ron Silver (Reversal of Fortune) as the labor union leader with whom Karen has a brief fling in Washington, D.C.

For Silkwood, both Streep and Cher were nominated for Oscars, as were director Mike Nichols, screenwriters Ephron and Arlen, and film editor Sam O’Steen. Kurt Russell was once again overlooked by the Academy, and even to this day has still not received a single Oscar nomination (maybe because he always makes his job look so easy). But for his portrayal of earthy Drew Stephens, Russell did earn a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. 

Perhaps because of its downbeat subject matter, Silkwood is rarely shown on classic movie channels, but it deserves a place in history alongside well-made true-life, politically themed films like All the President’s Men and Erin Brokovich (which won Julia Roberts her Best Actress Oscar for playing another colorful antiheroine). And if you are a loyal fan of Streep, Cher or Russell, this one is a must-see.

I'm so excited to participate in the Kurt Russell Blogathon hosted by RealWeegieMidget Reviews and Return to the 80s! What a pleasure, and I look forward to reading all the entries. The amazing Kurt Russell deserves a blogathon AND an Oscar, in my opinion! 

A Postcard from Carrie

To the world at large, she’ll undoubtedly be best remembered as Princess Leia. But Carrie Fisher gave us so much more than just one iconic portrayal. She lives on in my movie collection as the aforementioned rebel princess in the original Star Wars trilogy; as nymphomaniac Lee Grant’s rebellious yet equally promiscuous daughter in Shampoo; and as kooky Dianne Wiest’s romantic rival for Sam Waterston in Hannah and her Sisters. But Fisher’s masterwork, in my opinion, is a film in which she does not appear in front of the camera. In Postcards from the Edge (1990), Fisher reveals hilarious, uncomfortable and touching truths about herself, her famous mother and show business in her brilliant screen adaptation of her own best-selling autobiographical novel.

 In the hands of master filmmaker Mike Nichols, the vivid characters and the wry poetry of Fisher’s incisive script shine like diamonds, with frequent Nichols muse Meryl Streep (Silkwood, Angels in America) bringing Fisher’s pithy dialogue and beleaguered heroine to life with her usual aplomb.

In Postcards, the fun begins when troubled actress Suzanne Vale overdoses on opiates and her horrified bedmate (Dennis Quaid) drops her off, unresponsive, at the emergency room (literally). She’s resuscitated and shipped off to rehab, only to discover that the only way that anyone will hire her again is if she is under the watchful eye of a guardian. So she goes home to live with her estranged mother, who also happens to be a famous actress—a prospect as painful as the stomach pumping she’s just endured. 

Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale

Shirley MacLaine as Doris Mann

Fisher’s jaundiced view of the movie business is evident here, as a still-fragile Suzanne is badgered by producers and directors as she begins work on a new film, a comedy in which she portrays a lady cop (opposite the dreamy Michael Ontkean, who has precious little to do here). The awkward moments where producer Rob Reiner asks Suzanne for a drug test/urine sample, the endless notes and criticisms Suzanne endures regarding her performance, and the clucking of a smug wardrobe woman (a hilarious turn by Dana Ivey) about the actress’s appearance (“Her thighs are...well, bulbous!”), are uniformly both funny and raw, essayed by a skilled cast and director Nichols. With deft humor and bullseye accuracy, Fisher neatly captures the grueling drudgery of filmmaking, the schadenfreude, jealousy and foibles of the film business.

Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep in the looping scene

Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover

Fisher’s reverence for old Hollywood shows in the film’s many old-movie references including an obvious homage to the famous looping scene from Inside Daisy Clover (remember how Natalie Wood has that hysterical nervous breakdown in the dubbing booth?). In Postcards, Streep’s Suzanne struggles with the effects of the pills she’s just taken (and thrown up) as she attempts to correct the sins of the past—on film, at least-—during the voice-over recordings.

The cameos are worth their weight in Hollywood gold: Richard Dreyfuss as the amorous doctor who pumps Suzanne’s stomach; Lucille Ball’s second husband and Borscht Belt comedian Gary Morton as her agent; Rob Reiner as the gruff producer; Annette Bening as an empty-headed actress who mispronounces “endorphins” as “endolphins”; Gene Hackman as Suzanne’s tough but supportive director; veteran character actress Mary Wickes (The Trouble with Angels, Sister Act) as the “lovable loud mountain” of a grandmother and Diffrent Strokes star Conrad Bain as her senile spouse.

Doris and Suzanne

Carrie and Debbie

Of course, though, the centerpiece of the film is the uneasy relationship between Suzanne and her mother, legendary movie star and gay icon Doris Mann, played with relish by the indefatigable Shirley MacLaine (as unsinkable as Debbie Reynolds herself and a longtime family friend). Of course, MacLaine imbues the character of Doris with her own brand of star power, as does Streep. Much more than stand-ins for Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, Streep and MacLaine add dimension and their own subtle older-and-younger actress-to-actress competitiveness to the proceedings. Sparks of chemistry fly, and the results are absorbing, thanks to the screenplay, the performers and the expert guidance of a true actor’s director.

 Fisher’s often prickly script evokes the relationships of Joan and Christina Crawford and Lana Turner and Cheryl Crane in a tense confrontation scene between Suzanne and a drunken Doris, played under a print of a famous Life magazine cover featuring Shirley with daughter Sachi, who incidentally wrote a cruel Mommie Dearest–type tell-all about life with Mama MacLaine just recently. (Fisher and Reynolds posed for many a similar magazine layout over the years.)

Shirley and Sachi

 It’s not all recriminations and bitchy repartee, though, not by a long shot. The complexity of the mother-daughter relationship is beautifully drawn by Fisher as the film unfolds. There is much love and cameraderie lurking amid the awkward silences and the screaming matches between Suzanne and Doris. Like Debbie Reynolds did for Carrie Fisher, Doris encourages Suzanne in her singing, a talent she is not famous for but truly excels in. Streep’s strong performances of “You Don’t Know Me” and “I’m Checking Out” are counterpointed by MacLaine’s glitzy, showy and slightly camp rendition of Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here.” (Indeed, Carrie Fisher was a lovely singer, too—check out her sweet and soulful version of “The Way You Look Tonight” in the audition scene from Hannah, and her brassy belting of “Happy Days Are Here Again” in her 2010 one-woman show Wishful Drinking.)

Reportedly, Debbie Reynolds was unhappy with the character of the alcoholic, self-centered mother, frightened that the public would believe it was really her. ( “I am not an alcoholic,” Doris Mann insists in the film. “I just drink like an Irish person.”) In the press, Carrie agreed with her mother that the character she had created was fictional, merely using her real-life upbringing as a jumping-off point for her made-up story. (You could almost see Fisher rolling her eyes in interviews at the time; it’s so clear she wanted to help her mom save face, without negating her own experience as the movie star’s daughter.)

Streep, Reynolds, MacLaine and Fisher at the Postcards premiere

 Ironically, the supposed rift between Carrie Fisher and her mother over this portrayal served to bring the two much closer together than they had been in recent years. As they grew older, their relationship flourished. In 2001, Carrie and Debbie had a ball filming a TV movie called These Old Broads with Doris Mann herself Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and none other than Elizabeth Taylor…not a great (or even good) film by any stretch of the imagination but a camp curiosity nonetheless. How surreal it must have been for Ms. Fisher to pen that scene between Liz Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, their characters reminiscing about the cheating crooner who left one to marry the other (obviously based upon Carrie’s father, Eddie Fisher).

 Fisher’s admiration and protective affection for Reynolds is glimpsed in the final mother-daughter scene of Postcards, played in the hospital where Doris has ended up after an alcohol-induced car accident. Suzanne gently makes up her mother’s face to help her face the paparazzi crowding outside her hospital room, singing tenderly to her. It’s a sweet moment that says a lot; eventually, the child becomes the parent, and the parent becomes the child...did that occur as well in real life for Debbie and Carrie?

Soul sisters

 At the time of their surprising dual deaths (Debbie passed away a mere 24 hours after her daughter, the week after Christmas 2016), Carrie and Debbie had been longtime next-door neighbors in Beverly Hills—and, by all accounts, soulmates. As 84-year-old Debbie’s health and vigor declined, it was 60-year-old Carrie who accepted many of the recent life achievement awards and honors on her mother’s behalf, most notably Debbie’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award Oscar in 2015.

 As Hollywood royalty, Carrie Fisher lived her entire (abbreviated) life in the spotlight, but she gave us so much, first as an actress, later as an advocate for mental health—and ultimately, she might add herself with that streak of dark humor, as a cautionary tale. But Carrie Fisher’s talents reached their zenith as a writer, with her unerring ear for witty dialogue, her frank storytelling and unconventional sense of humor, all gloriously apparent in one of my favorite films, and the outstanding book it’s based upon. Thanks for the Postcards, Carrie!

The Queen of Mean

When a 2016 presidential candidate was recently described as “Lucifer in the flesh,” the first image to flash into my mind was not a politician at all, but rather a slim, elegant and impeccably dressed woman played in a movie by Meryl Streep.

Based upon Lauren Weisberger’s roman a clef novel, inspired by a stint as assistant to none other than Vogue maven Anna Wintour, The Devil Wears Prada (2006) is given a slick and entertaining film treatment by director David Frankel and features fabulous fashions, sumptuous production design and engaging performances by a bevy of attractive and talented actors. But the film really belongs to just one person, in the eponymous title role.

Meryl Streep as the Devil incarnate

The character of Runway editrix Miranda Priestly joins the ranks of cinema’s greatest female bosses from hell including Joan Crawford’s Amanda Farrow in The Best of Everything, Susan Hayward’s Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls, and Sigourney Weaver’s Katharine Parker in Working Girl. Miranda is brought to terrifying life with brilliant precision by the most multifaceted actress of all, Meryl Streep, who earned a richly deserved Academy Award nomination for the role. (If only she had won that third Oscar for this juicy part, and not as a bucktoothed and boring Margaret Thatcher!)

Miranda Priestly is everything an iconic screen villain should be—an irresistible combination of beauty, brains and cruelty. She’s narcissistic and self-centered; talented and driven; ruthless and cold-blooded;  in short, a glamorous embodiment of pure and unadulterated evil. 

Miranda Priestly, editor of Runway magazine

Streep takes great pains to fashion a completely original character in Miranda, who looks and sounds nothing at all like Anna Wintour. Instead, Streep cleverly makes her antiheroine a soft-spoken dragon lady; her vicious putdowns and catty remarks are all uttered sotto voce, with ladylike deportment. But her murmured asides are skillfully designed for systematically belittling, criticizing and dismissing her long-suffering staff, who exist only to please her. But the mere pursing of her lips in displeasure is “a catastrophe.” Her opinion is the only one that matters.

Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs

Giving an endlessly long string of orders to her assistants in a hushed monotone, demolishing deadlines and rescheduling meetings, the Queen Bee then sighs with weary disappointment when her worker bees and drones fail to fulfill her commands quickly or efficiently enough. “It’s baffling to me, confusing to me“ she sighs in quiet exasperation, “Why is no one ready?”

Stylish, poised and supremely self-possessed, and fortified by a healthy case of borderline personality disorder, Miranda cuts a swath of pure terror through the Runway offices. Her few redeeming qualities — talent, a singular focus and a steely determination to survive in the shark-infested waters of the New York fashion pool—do little to offset her hard-as-nails persona.

Here she comes: "Gird your loins"

Described by other characters as “a notorious sadist” who is “not happy unless everyone around her is panicked, nauseous or suicidal,” Miranda is as iconic as Cruella deVil and Mommie Dearest, minus the cartoon campiness. Streep imbues the character with disturbing reality.

Perfectly playing Snow White to Streep’s glamorous Wicked Queen is Anne Hathaway in one of her most winning roles. As fresh-faced Northwestern graduate Andrea Sachs, who reluctantly takes the job of second assistant to Miranda, Hathaway arrives fully prepared to pay her dues, but doesn’t yet realize she’ll be paying in tears, toil and blood. (And by changing every aspect of her appearance to measure up to the fashion industry’s impossibly high standards. Hard to believe that the willowy Hathaway is shamed for eating and described as “fat” by her new coworkers.)

Andrea and Emily (Emily Blunt)

Nigel (Stanley Tucci) and Miranda

The ice queen puts her new assistant through her paces, treating her like dirt when she acknowledges her presence at all, damning her with the faintest of praise. Like a starving animal, Andrea eagerly laps up the few crumbs of approval that are offered by her new employer. Then, in true Faustian fairy tale fashion, Andrea becomes the girl Miranda wants her to be, ditching her friends, lover and personal integrity in the process.

Though Andrea enjoys a personal happy ending, walking out on Miranda and getting her dream job as a newspaper reporter, the villain is far from vanquished at the close of this story. Ultimately, it is her power that allows Andrea to get her next job; ironically confirming that Miranda’s influence will probably continue, undiminished, perhaps indefinitely. Evil triumphs!

Nate (Adrian Grenier) and Andy

Simon Baker as Christian

Though Streep and Hathaway dominate here, they’re bolstered by an impressive cast and production that make the film an utter delight to watch again and again. Brilliant supporting performances by Emily Blunt as a bitchy Miranda mini-me and Stanley Tucci as a twitchy gay fashion director (sharp-tongued but with a heart of gold, of course!) are perfect foils for Miranda and Andrea. Adrian Grenier and Simon Baker add some tempting male eye candy to the proceedings. Costume designer Patricia Field (Sex and the City) captures the fashion zeitgeist of that moment, and the soundtrack and cinematography capture the mood and magic of the New York and Paris fashion worlds.

Though Meryl Streep has aced practically every kind of role imaginable, like most actors she really seems to relish this rare opportunity to play an out-and-out evil bitch. And a decade later, it remains one of her most memorable roles. 

Thanks to Speakeasy, Silver Screenings and Shadows and Satin for hosting The Great Villain Blogathon of 2016. So much fun to participate!