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Postcards from the Edge (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Postcards from the Edge' is a 1990 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Carrie Fisher is based on her 1987 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title. The film stars Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid.
Plot
Actress Suzanne Vale is a recovering drug addict trying to pick up the pieces of her acting career and get on with her life after kicking a cocaine-Percodan habit; after Vale overdosed while on a date, her mother admitted her to a rehab center from the emergency room. When she is ready to return to work, her agent advises her the studio's insurance policy will cover her only if she lives with a "responsible" individual such as her mother Doris Mann. Suzanne is very reluctant to return to the woman from whom she struggled to escape for years after growing up in her shadow. The situation is not helped by the fact that Doris is very loud, competitive, manipulative, self-absorbed and given to offering her daughter unsolicited advice with insinuating value judgments while treating her like a child.
Producer Jack Faulkner runs into Suzanne on the set and reveals that he is the one who drove her to the hospital during her last overdose, and the two kiss. Suzanne then agrees to go out with him. During a passionate first date, he professes intense and eternal love for her and she believes every word is true. Suzanne's euphoria is short-lived, however; she subsequently learns from Evelyn Ames, a bit player in her latest film, that Jack is sleeping with Evelyn as well. Still dressed in the costume she wears as a uniformed cop in the schlock movie, Suzanne drives to Jack's house and confronts him. As their argument escalates, Jack implies that Suzanne was much more interesting when she was trying to function while she was on drugs.
At home, Suzanne learns from Doris that Suzanne's sleazy business manager Marty Wiener has absconded with all her money. This leads to an argument between the two women, and Suzanne storms out to go to a looping session. There the paternalistic director Lowell Kolchek tells her he has more work for her as long as she can remain clean and sober.
Suzanne arrives home and discovers that Doris has crashed her car into a tree after drinking too much wine (and vodka smoothies). Suzanne rushes to her hospital bedside where the two have a heart-to-heart talk while Suzanne fixes her mother's makeup and arranges a scarf on her head to conceal the fact she bloodied her wig in the accident. Looking and feeling better, Doris musters her courage and faces the media waiting for her. Suzanne runs into Dr. Frankenthal, who had pumped her stomach after her last overdose, and he invites her to see a movie with him. She declines, telling him she's not ready to date yet. Dr. Frankenthal tells her he's willing to wait until she is.
In the film's closing moments Suzanne performs Shel Silverstein's "I'm Checkin' Out", a foot-stomping country western number, for a scene in Lowell Kolchek's new film.
Cast
Fisher said in the DVD commentary that Jerry Orbach filmed a scene as Suzanne's father, which was later cut.
Production
In discussing adapting the book for the screen, director Mike Nichols commented, "For quite a long time we pushed pieces around, but then we went with the central story of a mother passing the baton to her daughter." He added "Carrie doesn't draw on her life any more than Flaubert did. It's just that his life wasn't so well known."
Nichols began pre-production in New York, where he assembled a group of actors to run lines from the script in order to perfect it. In return the actors, one of whom was Annette Bening, were given small roles in the movie when it filmed.
Responding to questions about how closely the film's Suzanne/Doris relationship parallels her relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher stated "I wrote about a mother actress and a daughter actress. I'm not shocked that people think it's about me and my mother. It's easier for them to think I have no imagination for language, just a tape recorder with endless batteries." In the DVD commentary she notes that her mother wanted to portray Doris but Nichols cast Shirley MacLaine instead. In her 2013 autobiography, 'Unsinkable', Reynolds noted that Nichols told her, "You're not right for the part."
Blue Rodeo accompanied Meryl Streep on "I'm Checkin' Out", written by Shel Silverstein. Other songs performed in the film include "I'm Still Here" (sung by MacLaine) and "You Don't Know Me" (sung by Streep).
Reception
Box office
The film opened in 1,013 theaters in the United States and Canada on September 14, 1990 and grossed $7,871,856 in its opening weekend, ranking number 1 at the US box office. It eventually grossed $39,071,603 in the US and Canada and $24.3 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $63.4 million.Critical response
The film earned positive reviews from critics and holds an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews. The critical consensus read, "Uniting a pair of powerhouse talents with a smart, sharply written script, 'Postcards from the Edge' makes compelling drama out of reality-inspired trauma". Metacritic gave the movie a score of 71 based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".Vincent Canby of 'The New York Times' said the film "seems to have been a terrifically genial collaboration between the writer and the director, Miss Fisher's tale of odd-ball woe being perfect material for Mr. Nichols's particular ability to discover the humane sensibility within the absurd."
Roger Ebert of the 'Chicago Sun-Times' observed, "What's disappointing about the movie is that it never really delivers on the subject of recovery from addiction. There are some incomplete, dimly seen, unrealized scenes in the rehab center, and then desultory talk about offscreen AA meetings. But the film is preoccupied with gossip; we're encouraged to wonder how many parallels there are between the Streep and MacLaine characters and their originals, Fisher and Debbie Reynolds... 'Postcards from the Edge' contains too much good writing and too many good performances to be a failure, but its heart is not in the right place."
Hal Hinson of 'The Washington Post' said, "Meryl Streep gives the most fully articulated comic performance of her career, the one she's always hinted at and made us hope for." He felt the film's earlier section was "the movie's best, primarily because Nichols is so focused on Streep. In fact, almost nothing else seems to matter to him... But while Nichols is servicing his star, he lets the other areas of the film go slack... [He] is finely attuned to the natural surreality of a movie set, but when he moves away from the show-biz satire and concentrates on the mother-daughter relationship, the movie falters."
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable"|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| rowspan="2"| Academy Awards
| Best Actress
| Meryl Streep
|
|-
| Best Original Song
| "I'm Checkin' Out"
Music and Lyrics by Shel Silverstein
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| American Comedy Awards
| Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)
| Meryl Streep
|
|-
| Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
| Shirley MacLaine
|
|-
| Artios Awards
| Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Casting Comedy
| Juliet Taylor
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| British Academy Film Awards
| Best Actress in a Leading Role
| Shirley MacLaine
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Carrie Fisher
|
|-
| Best Original Film Score
| Carly Simon
|
|-
| DallasFort Worth Film Critics Association Awards
| Best Actress
| rowspan="2"| Meryl Streep
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Golden Globe Awards
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress Motion Picture
| Shirley MacLaine
|
|-
| Best Original Song Motion Picture
| "I'm Checkin' Out"
Music and Lyrics by Shel Silverstein
|
|-
| London Film Critics' Circle Awards
| Newcomer of the Year
| Annette Bening
|
|}
American Film Institute recognition:
* AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs Nominated
References
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