Happy Pride Month! Here's some camp!
Suzanne (Meryl Streep) was born into Hollywood royalty as the daughter of legendary actress Doris Mann (Shirley MacLaine) but struggles with substance addiction and finding her own identity outside of her mother's shadow. A near-fatal overdose sees her career jeopardized and the only way she can be covered by insurance is if she moves in with a responsible adult. She doesn't know any so she's forced to live with her mother.
Carrie Fisher wrote the screenplay, which was based on her semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. The movie feels so candid and realistic that it would be easy to omit the semi- part but that does Fisher an injustice as a writer. She was immensely talented and consistently underrated.
Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep. There's no praise that hasn't already been heaped on her. For me, the stand-out of this movie, the star of the show is Shirley MacLaine doing the greatest Debbie Reynolds impersonation I've ever seen. I was shocked to find out she got very little recognition for this part.
Fisher, very famously, grew up under the scandal of her father, Eddie Fisher, leaving her mother, Debbie Reynolds, for real-life femme fatale Elizabeth Taylor. Ironically, another famous cad, Warren Beatty, has his own six-degrees-of-separation in this. Shirley MacLaine is his sister, his wife Annette Bening has a small role, and his ex-girlfriend Carly Simon did the music. See, kids, Hollywood used to be so small all the actors had to rotate sexual partners. You just had to wait your turn.
Shel Silverstein, yes, the same guy, wrote the ending song "I'm Checkin' Out" which got nominated for an Oscar. Streep performs it in the movie, but Reba McIntyre was tapped for the ceremony and had to go out in front of a live audience and sing after learning her entire band had died in a plane crash.
We're talking Layers of Drama in and around this movie.
I caught this on the very last day it was streaming on the Criterion Channel but it's worth a rental if you can't find it anywhere else.
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