Pfeiffer Radiates, Even in Deep Grief
When Michelle Pfeiffer shows anguish, it is palpable. A beautiful
actress with warmth, grace and an ever increasing range that continually
amazes me, she is one of the motion picture industry’s unrewarded,
underrated treasures. In The Deep End of the Ocean , a meticulous and
heartfelt film of uncommon emotional forcefulness, she surpasses even
herself. As a mother facing every parent’s worst nightmare–the
loss of a child–she touches nerves I forgot I had and, without turning
the focus of the film on herself, transforms what some cynics might label
Movie of the Week material into a shared experience of compelling
magnitude.
Sensitively adapted from the best-selling book by Jacquelyn Mitchard
that touched the emotions of millions, the screenplay by former film critic
Stephen Schiff (who brings honor to us all) carefully catalogues the
harrowing events that alter the lives of a family of Midwesterners
struggling to survive one of life’s cruelest blows. Ms. Pfeiffer plays
a Wisconsin housewife with three children, a successful career as a
photographer and a loving, devoted husband (marvelously underplayed with
solid strength by Treat Williams). In 1988, she piles her kids into the car
and drives to Chicago to attend her 15th high school reunion. While
she’s checking in at the registration desk, the youngest son
completely vanishes in the middle of the hotel lobby without a trace.
Concern, exasperation and a desperate plea to local cops for help
eventually give way to hysteria, but nothing changes the brutal facts: A
3-year-old child wearing a red baseball cap has disappeared in broad
daylight in the blink of an eye and in a heartbeat, a lifetime of hope and
faith collapses.
In the weeks and months that follow, Ms. Pfeiffer’s character sinks
deeper into lethargy and depression–sleeps all day, forgets her
responsibilities, neglects her husband, abandons her career and, most
importantly, ignores the guilt her older son feels for losing his little
brother who was under his charge on that dismal day. Grief and despair
affect the family members in different ways–all of which is detailed
with minute-to-minute observations in the excellent script and in the
finely tuned performances of a superb cast–but inevitably the
structural unit of the entire family is compromised, traumatized and
eroded. Then the movie shifts gears and another arc builds when, after nine
years, the doorbell rings.
Standing there, a boy the same age as her missing son inquires about
mowing the lawn, and Ms. Pfeiffer as his mom is visibly shaken. The same
hair, the same eyes, the identical facial structure. A mother knows these
things. Could her lost son have been living in the same neighborhood all
these years? More elements. A mystery to be solved. Identities to be
investigated. And finally, it becomes another movie, with a baffled
12-year-old stranger in the house who doesn’t know these people at
all, two disturbed siblings forced to adjust to a new brother, a distraught
and innocent adopted father who loves the kid as his own son, not to
mention a gossip-slobbering press hellbent on turning the story into
front-page news.
As wrenching as their ordeal has been, and as restorative as the healing
process becomes, the family’s happiness at finding their lost son is
challenged by an even stronger test of character. In the end, it is Ms.
Pfeiffer’s selflessness, conviction and love that provides the courage
to do what is best for a tortured and confused child by letting him go. But
there is more, and the final, surprising resolution comes from the children
themselves, proving that kids often have their own set of rules and values
for problem solving that parents overlook. If there’s a dry eye or
bored grimace at the end of The Deep End of the Ocean , I would
advise you to check your pulse. You may be dead without knowing it.
Director Ulu Grosbard has always displayed a talent for bringing out the
best in actors, but the unifying effect of this first-cabin cast’s
ensemble efforts makes this one of his best films. Even Whoopi Goldberg
surmounts her distracting celebrity presence as the loyal detective who
stays on the case after everyone else has abandoned hope, and the two
central performances by Jonathan Jackson, as the cynical older brother, and
Ryan Merriman, as the long-lost boy whose disappearance is life-altering,
are nothing short of miraculous. Michelle Pfeiffer’s transformation
from anger and anguish to resignation and wisdom is breathtaking. And
everything in the narrative flow of the film is logical, honest and
true.
Such are the times that it’s not enough for a movie to be
professional, meaningful and distinguished. To be a hit, it’s got to
be wild, sick, violent, vulgar and insane. The Deep End of the Ocean
may prove to be the exception. It’s penetrating, thoughtful, moving
and suspenseful and it rings with decency and a maturity that is inspired.
Orchids to Ms. Pfeiffer, who also produced it, and to everyone who
contributed to its power and distinction. Subtle, joyous and
life-affirming, it will make you glad to be alive.
Junior Einsteins Invent an Escape
Baby Geniuses is a movie for people who are easily reduced to
a state of demonic stupefaction by the sight, sound, wiggle and drool of
anything in Pampers. I am not one of them, so I find an entire film costing
millions of dollars populated by computer-generated infants mouthing
self-consciously contrived baby talk like “Let’s check out the
world like Jerry Springer and have fun!” about as enchanting as diaper
rash. But if sheer guts, unabashed optimism and a complete disregard for
commercial acceptance are success factors in Hollywood, I have to admire
the zealous enthusiasm of the filmmakers responsible for this curiosity.
They seem to be possessed. Not since the all-bird cast of Bill and
Coo have I seen anything quite so bizarre.
As the film opens, a high-risk lab rat has escaped from a scientific
think tank called Babyco. Helicopters are dispatched. Warnings are shouted:
“Be careful, he’s dangerous!” The escapee turns out to be a
curly-haired, 2-year-old toddler in Dr. Dentons named Sylvester, leader of
an underground gang of über-moppets in a secret laboratory 25 stories
below a theme park called Joyworld run by a diabolical female Frankenstein
named Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner). Her infant-care products
conglomerate and tourist annex, operated by a computerized control center
that can produce every special effect from rampaging Teletubbies to burps
that sound like freight trains, is really a cover-up for an underground
research facility designed to tap into the source of infant brain waves for
power and wealth.
“Every baby might know the secrets of the universe,” she
croaks to her noodling assistant (Christopher Lloyd). “This would be
the greatest breakthrough in the history of science!” She may be
insane, but she may also be right. In their glass cages, her baby Einsteins
compose symphonies, construct architectural wonders and communicate in
their language of egghead baby talk. “Goo-goo” is translated as
“She’s Darth Vader in a skirt.” Baby poop is “diaper
gravy” and a laundry hamper full of soiled diapers is
“aromatherapy.” I know this is supposed to be amusing, but
still.
The big problem is Baby Sylvester, whose twin brother Whit has been
adopted by a so-called normal family (Kim Cattrall and Peter MacNicol,
whose sitcom antics often appear more demented than the mad scientists). In
the comic confusion of what passes for a plot, Sylvester (played by
triplets) escapes again to experience Christmas at Macy’s, where he
stocks up on video games and models baby tuxedos, cowboy outfits and
leather jackets. The twins get switched in the mall, and it’s up to
the normal babies to join forces under Sylvester’s command and rescue
Whit and the lab babies from Kathleen Turner’s clutches before she
ships them all off to Liechtenstein. Needless to say, the caca hits the
fan.
The big finale involves a screen filled with crawling, winking,
giggling, gooey-faced babies who take over Joyworld’s computers,
turning robotic dinosaurs, space aliens and 10-foot-tall dolls into their
allies in the war against child psychology. This is accomplished through
the kind of computer-generated animatronics that brought Godzilla
and Mighty Joe Young to life. The process morphs the human eyes and
face, digitally erasing the babies’ eyes and mouths and replacing them
with tongues, teeth, cheeks and moving eyebrows while they engage in
everything from karate to ballroom dancing. While the special effects
impress, the baby talk will make you groan.
When a boy baby in need of a disguise approaches the cradle of a girl
baby, the dialogue goes like this: “Take off your clothes.”
“O.K., Slick, but at least you could take me to dinner first.”
“Don’t forget–I’m listed.” Out of the mouths of
babes, so to speak, that kind of lame Mickey Spillane repartee (written by
the gifted Steven Paul) lacks the comic impact intended.
Meanwhile, brief appearances by the grown-up veterans (Kaye Ballard,
Ruby Dee, Dom DeLuise and especially Ms. Turner) are minimized to the point
of sabotage. Bob Clark, who directed the kid’s movie A Christmas
Story , gets some cute shots of the toddlers, and there’s no doubt
infants are smarter than we suspect. But Baby Geniuses is still a
one-joke idea that tries adult patience faster than a Gerber’s baby
food commercial.
