"Living Out Loud" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL Yesterday I went to see a new release called "Living Out Loud," not expecting to see anything I'd consider a feminist film. But much to my surprise, that's what it is. Screenwriter par excellence Richard La Gravenese, whose writing credits include "Beloved," "The Mirror Has Two Faces," "The Horse Whisperer" and many more, is responsible both for the script and the direction of this film (it's his directorial debut). And he's got a winner here. I think this is the best picture made by a man about a woman getting her life on track since Victor Nunez's "Ruby in Paradise." The film is all about Judith (Holly Hunter) whose story is all too familiar: she's a smart kid from the lower classes who makes it to college and then medical school. But then she lets her own dreams get sidetracked by marrying a nice looking and wealthy medical student. Instead of becoming a doctor she becomes a nurse and a doctor's wife. They are married for sixteen years; they have no children because he said he didn't want any; and he dumps her for a woman doctor ten years her junior. That's where the film starts. Judith is still living in the Upper Eastside Manhattan apartment she had shared with her husband and she works as a home health care nurse. But she's lonely, depressed, and at loose ends. The elevator operator in her building, Pat, played by Danny DeVito, is lonely and at loose ends himself. And his daughter has recently died. Furthermore, he has gotten himself in debt to some Brooklyn loan sharks who play hardball. Judith and Pat strike up a friendship largely because she has insomnia and he's someone awake to talk to. When the loan sharks come after him at work he makes up a story and Judith lends him $200 to help him out. When she does, he's filled with gratitude and admiration for her. Judith's only other friend is Liz (played by Queen Latifa), a singer in a downtown jazz club whom Judith is a big fan of, but who Liz just rudely ignores when Judith compliments her on her singing. One night at the club, while looking for the bathroom, Judith opens the wrong door and a man grabs her and kisses her. Then he realizes she's not who he was expecting. He apologizes and tries to explain. Hearing his story, Judith feels comfortable with him and since both are very needy they kiss passionately and agree to meet there the next weekend. Judith shows up, the man doesn't. Since in the ensuing week she had built up a fantasy based on the story she could tell about how she met her second husband, she's devastated that he doesn't cooperate. She gets very drunk and Liz helps her out and sees that she gets home. From that incident their friendship develops. Liz is instrumental in getting Judith to start telling the truth to herself and to others and to articulate her needs and her wants instead of what she believes others want to hear. I believe this is one possible meaning of "living out loud." Of course things get complicated and there are misunderstandings. Pat ends up falling in love with Judith, and, indeed, in a sense she loves him too, but it's a sign of her growing sense of self that, despite this, she knows that is not what she wants. One of the delightful aspects of this film is the way in which La Gravenese takes you seamlessly into scenes that are being played out solely in Judith's imagination, like one in which you are led to think that Judith committed suicide by jumping out of her bedroom window until you hear the voice of a new commentator reporting on her death and adding that "oddly enough, she fell on her ex-husband and his new wife and all three were killed." And the camera pans back to Judith snug in her bed after that satisfying revenge fantasy. One night Liz, who has man problems of her own, i.e., her boyfriend is gay, takes Judith to an after hours bar downtown in the meat district "The Confessional." It's this huge barn-like place that turns out to be an all women scene with a great dance floor and hundreds of women of all descriptions doing erotically charged gyrations together on the floor. Judith, after her initial amazement, fits right in and is soon dancing energetically and later languidly with a young woman. The film doesn't say explicitly what the upshot of this experience is, other than in the morning she acts outrageously at the closing of the sale of the country house she and her husband owned--so outrageously, in fact, that they force her to forfeit her interest in the property to keep them from pressing charges against her for assult and battery. Nonetheless, it's quite possible to read this as Judith's awakening to a new aspect of her sexuality. |Then there's an epilogue where we see Judith, Liz, and Pat and what they are doing six months later. I won't tell you what they're doing, because I want you all to see this film, but suffice to say, I'd classify this one as a "liberation film" because Judith has clearly found a path that's working very well for her. And you know she'll be "living out loud" in her own voice from now on. For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film. Copyright 1998 by Linda Lopez McAlister. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or reproduce this review without the permission of the author: mcalister@chuma1.cas.usf.edu Linda Lopez McAlister, Chair Dept. of Women's Studies, FAO 153 University of South Florida Tampa, FL 33620