Good start, but then it gets ruined

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Mike Nichols's "Postcards from the Edge" a masterpiece. It's a good movie, but that's it. Both Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine give their best as an actress recovering from drug addiction, and her faded star of a mother. Overall, the movie depicts the entertainment industry as a bastion of emptiness and nastiness (namely in the scene where Streep's character listens to a director talk about her physique). I guess that no one rips at Hollywood more than Hollywood itself.The movie is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Carrie Fisher. I understand that the novel is told partly in epistolary form, hence the title. The movie is told from the usual first-person perspective. It's not the most biting satire, but the conflict between the mother and daughter set the stage. In one scene, the mom recalls an awkward incident with an executive; I suspect that sort of thing happened more often than we realize.In the end, it's worth seeing. I read that Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh were considered for the roles; I would've been inclined to cast them.

Meryl Streep can be the villain, the hero, the sister, the daughter, the mother, the spirit, the icon. In Postcards from the Edge, however, she is a flat out mess. Streep portrays Suzanne Vale, a successful actress who is about to hit the post-I Know Who Killed Me Lindsay Lohan stage of her career. She relies on cocaine just to get through the day. She partakes in casual affairs she doesn't remember the next day. She is like a robot, barely able to function in her daily job. She doesn't want to hurt anybody, but her habits are about to.Suzanne is finally given a wake-up call when she accidentally overdoses on a deadly mix of narcotics. After getting her stomach pumped, she ends up in rehab, struggling to piece her life back together. But her shaky mind begins to rattle even more when her mother, Doris Mann (Shirley MacLaine), arrives on the scene. Doris is not just Suzanne's mother; she is a celebrated legend, a symbol of the '50s/'60s era of Hollywood musicals.Doris means well, but she's possibly too self-centered for her own good. When she throws Suzanne a "welcome-home" party, she opens the front door, mugs for the varying cameras, and, with dramatic emphasis, declares, "My baby is home!" When the party is hitting its last legs, she pressures Suzanne to sing in front of everybody. Yet, the second her daughter finishes, she pulls one of those don't-make-me-sing (wink!) acts and one- ups her without even realizing that it may be just a little bitchy.The rehab clinic advises that Suzanne live with Doris in order to have someone constantly watching her, but that probably isn't a good idea. Whether she'd like to admit it or not, Doris is an addict herself, popping champagne in the early hours of the morning or mixing in an absurd amount of vodka into her fruit smoothies. Within the important first months of Suzanne's recovery, the mother/daughter dynamic is challenged after years of repressed emotions and unexpressed opinions.Postcards from the Edge originally began as an autobiographical novel by Princess Leia herself, the self-deprecating Carrie Fisher. As a film (which was also penned by Fisher), it contains a darkly funny sting. Deeply rooted in time-to-get-my-life-together reality and over-the-top, Norma Desmond-like expression, it's a comedy that is solidly entertaining but also bitterly true. One can only wonder how much of the film is lifted directly from the lives of Fisher and her famous mother, the inimitable Debbie Reynolds.Mike Nichols has made movies that range from profoundly moving to breezily humorous, and Postcards from the Edge lands somewhere in the middle. It isn't as vigorously thought-provoking as many of his other undertakings, but it captures the mindset that, no matter how terrible life is, you can always find the laughter in it. Surely, Doris' diva attitude is sickening to the long-suffering Suzanne, but we see the events through Nichols' eyes. We're laughing, uncomfortably of course, but there's also unrelenting sympathy for both Suzanne and Doris. Suzanne has never lived a day without stooping under Doris' grand shadow, and Doris has never been able to meet the expectations of her ever-grumbling mother (Mary Wickes). Nichols films these women through a comedic lens, but there's an underlying anguish that he captures with enrichment.If Postcards from the Edge is more scathing than it is meaningful, we have Streep, MacLaine, and Fisher to thank for all of its successes. Streep and MacLaine immerse themselves in their roles, understanding the women they're playing with unforced ease, while Fisher's screenplay contains absolutely scintillating dialogue. It isn't without its faults, but Postcards from the Edge rarely misses the mark.Read more at petersonreviews.com

Postcards from the Edge (1990)Mike Nichols is as close to a William Wyler as the New Hollywood (post-1967) gives us. His movies are both impeccable and emotionally taut. They feature the very best production values and impressive acting. And they take chances carefully, which isn't actually an oxymoron. Nichols knows he's pushing boundaries, but within the established forms. Even this movie, with its insider look at Hollywood, feels ingenious in a safe way, with echoes of "The Bad and the Beautiful" but with everyone toned down to a perfect realism.One of the tricks of this movie, which is a little over the top in so many small ways (again, careful restraint all around), is keeping the acting believable. And foremost is Meryl Streep, lovable and sympathetic but not quite admirable or otherworldly the way older generation actresses so often get portrayed. Streep as a drug-troubled actress is a wonder, and right behind, with deliberate hamminess, is the woman playing her mother, Shirley MacLaine. Add Gene Hackman and Richard Dreyfuss in smaller roles, a cameo by Rob Reiner, and a pretty boy role for Dennis Quaid, and you can see there is something cooking here. So why isn't this a great movie? It has the trimmings of greatness, even beyond the acting. Story by Carrie Fisher, music written by Carly Simon (and performed by the cast). Photography by German import Michael Ballhaus (who by the 1990s was also working for Coppola and Scorcese). Well, some might say it really is great. Even though it is lightweight, even airy as a farce, and even though it leaves you only slightly glad, or happy, at the end rather than transformed, you could argue that Nichols intended something with this flavor, and achieved it. Could be. But for a simple example, take his second movie, "The Graduate," and notice the same tone, humor and irony laced with important topical and emotional strains. How different the effect there, and maybe for a couple of reasons. One, I think, is the subject matter here is the famously glib, plastic, unsympathetic world of overly rich, tabloid saturated Hollywood itself. Another is the inherent plot. What happens? A woman overcomes her addiction to star in another movie, and she seems to move a little forward in her relationship with her mother. Enough? Maybe not.But knowing it's not trying to change the world, you might appreciate the illusory nature of the medium, exposed for us in a whole bunch of different ways (moving props, back projection, doubles used for blocking and framing, lights and camera in action, screening rooms and overdubbing, and so on. This is the stuff behind the drama enacted by Streep and MacLaine and the rest. It's worth watching in its own right.And Nichols and Ballhaus have filmed this to glossy perfection, layering and moving and keeping the long takes going as long as possible (with an apology by Hackman, as a movie director, to Streep, the actress playing the actress, for using such long takes all the time). It's almost as if Nichols is making fun of himself, and the excesses that cause the cast and crew to go a little crazy.Brilliant and entertaining? Completely. Probing or socially satirical in any way? No, not even into Hollywood, which is safely behind all these layers. Still, a film not to miss.

Postcards From the Edge could have been a great character piece, considering its credentials. However, Mike Nichols went through a period of struggle with his work during the 1980s. His films lacked decent pace and proportionate screen time for all of its characters and subject matter and thus lacked focus. Postcards has this problem. It ends before you know it, it wraps up like it's tired and wants to go to bed, and the conflict has a short burst of presence till it completely diffuses.However, this film has an incredibly high point of enjoyment to level it off. This would be the appearance of a young and beautiful Meryl Streep in a snug police suit. Her curves, her maternal hips, her thighs, her overall thin yet plush softness radiates sensuality.As for her performance, she is of course very enthralling in her depiction of Carrie Fisher's depiction of Carrie Fisher. It's always fascinating to see how comfortable she is with repressing herself just enough to ooze those indescribable facial and tonal expressions that are trademark Meryl.