THE DAYTRIPPERS |
| CREDITS: Director: Greg Mottola. Cast: Hope Davies, Pat McNamara, Anne Meara, Parker
Posey, Liev Schreiber, Campbell Scott & Stanley Tucci. USA 1995. INTRODUCTION: Mottola's directorial debut comes to us with the production backing of the "Sex, Lies and Videotape" pairing Nancy Tanenbaum and Steven Soderburg. SYNOPSIS: Louis (Tucci) and Eliza (Davies) D'Amico apparently have the perfect relationship, but when Eliza discovers a love letter to Louis, and chain of events are set in action that will threaten that relationship. Going to her overbearing mother Rita Malone (Meara) with the letter for advice, Eliza soon finds them both loaded up into the family station wagon along with her father Jim (McNamara) at the wheel and her younger sister Jo (Posey) and Jo's boyfriend Carl Petrovich (Schreiber) in the back. Together the family head off to the city to confront Louis. On route they encounter a young man hiding his alimony-dodging father, a pair of sisters bickering over their dead mothers out-of-date medication and the charming Eddie Mazzler (Scott), before finally learning the devastating truth of the letter from Louis. REVIEW: Despite attacks over the years by everyone from Plato to Marx, both of whom sort to place the responsibility for child rearing into the hands of the state, the family has survived pretty much unaltered from time immemorial. Yet recent figures concluded that 97% of American families are dysfunctional, Mottola uses this apparent dichotomy as a springboard for an in-depth study of the values of contemporary American society. As Mottola ably demonstrates in his film the family is the archetype of totalitarian society, with one supreme and unquestionable leader who holds absolute power over the rest of the family, traditionally this has been the father figure, although in this film Mottola hands over the duties to the Malone Family's mother Rita (Meara) who dominates her husband and daughters alike while dotting on their respective partners. The families encounters with the alimony-dodging father and the bickering sisters allow Mottola to examine other dysfunctional families, and how they relate to the Malones, in fact there is not a singly well adjusted person in the entire movie. Davies may be the lead but her weakly written role gives her little leeway for anything but a rather uninspired display of hysterics. It is Meara who steals the show with her ingratiatingly great performance as the fastidious and domineering mother only to have it stolen off of her in turn by McNamara when the worm turns and the long suffering Jim finally puts his foot down. Indie queen Posey puts in another of her now perfunctory spunky performances, Schreiber excels as the pretentious pseudo-intellectual Carl who yearns for the return of the monarchy as a solution to the problems of modern society, while the ever reliable Scott and Tucci provide strong support in horrendously under-written roles. By taking the archetypal family and cramming them into a station wagon for a trip downtown Mottola creates an uneasy fusion of the traditional value-ridden family drama, and the rebellious independence of the road movie, creating a film so packed with opposing ethos that it threatens to tear itself apart, much like the family itself. When they do finally break-free of the cramped confines of the car out on to the street, all hell breaks loose. Pent-up angers are released as they are shot symbolically alone, divorced from each other and society as a whole. Indicative of the breakdown of family and society as a whole in the run up to the millennium. The ending however offers some hope as Eliza and Jo head off together drawing strength from there fraternal bond. A film for anyone that doesn't fall into that weird 3% with a functional family life. Mutt's Rating: **** |