Postcards From the Edge. Directed by Mike Nichols. Carrie Fisher’s one-liners are free of the brassy, New York-style clatter that typifies the work of Neil Simon and, to a lesser extent, Nora Ephron. She’s a well-known Hollywood actress who has never quite become a star, and that’s a fairly apt metaphor for the way she experiences her own life. Looking and feeling better, Doris musters her courage and faces the media waiting for her. The film suggests that sedation is an almost reasonable response to such a crazy life. "[3] In the DVD commentary she notes that her mother wanted to portray Doris but Nichols cast Shirley MacLaine instead. 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. It's just that his life wasn't so well known. At home, Suzanne learns from Doris that Suzanne's sleazy business manager Marty Wiener has absconded with all her money. The series' star is a now a star behind the camera, too, Plus, everything you need to know about Season 3. "[9], 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." Paramount's 'Ghost' is in second place on $5.8 million in sales", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postcards_from_the_Edge_(film)&oldid=984158015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 18 October 2020, at 15:04. There are some incomplete, dimly seen, unrealized scenes in the rehab center, and then desultory talk about offscreen AA meetings. In her first novel, 'Postcards From the Edge,' Carrie Fisher showed how famous parents, plus lovers, shrinks, drugs and a career in the shadows, nearly finished a fictional actress named Suzanne Vale. Adapted by Fisher from her first novel, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE is yet further proof that Hollywood makes its best films about what it knows best--making films in Hollywood. Continuing in the dark comedy vein she began in SHE DEVIL, Streep, as actress Suzanne Vale, starts at rock bottom. mother-daughter drama at the film's core. Working on a film, Suzanne is so addled by a cocaine habit that her director, Lowell (Hackman), must threaten her life just to get her, focused. There her stomach is pumped by a doctor (Dreyfuss) who later asks her out on a date. Suzanne experiences everything as happening to her, mostly because the real drama is the one that’s constantly unfolding in her head. 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. The screenplay by Carrie Fisher is based on her 1987 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title. Like my father, before me, I am an American Nomad. 1 at Box Office Movies: Mother-daughter comedy sales hit $8.1 million. [5] It eventually earned $39,071,603 in the US. View stories. 4 months ago The Dread Pirate Dave 2 min read Add comment. 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. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Blue Rodeo accompanied Meryl Streep on "I'm Checkin' Out," written by Shel Silverstein. Actress Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep) 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. But the movie captures — and celebrates — how easy it is to turn your problems into show biz. On the set, where everyone knows she’s a recovering addict, she endures flurries of gossipy criticism: She’s too fat! She doesn’t look like she’s enjoying her work! The film opened in 1,013 theaters in the United States on September 14, 1990 and grossed $7,871,856 on its opening weekend, ranking #1 at the box office. Suzanne then agrees to go out with him. In the final analysis, POSTCARDS is a mixed bag. In Postcards From the Edge, the mistress of quick-study accents takes a break from virtuosity and gives a warm, funny, loosey-goosey performance. But Postcards isn’t a water-logged soaper like Terms. When she overdoses on sedatives while in bed with Jack Falkner (Quaid), the womanizing producer anonymously wheels her into a hospital emergency room. MacLaine’s Doris, a high-spirited egomaniac, is also an alcoholic — she has an addictive personality, just like Suzanne’s. MacLaine doesn’t overplay the domineering gorgon this time. Updated September 14, 1990 at 04:00 AM EDT. Suzanne is very reluctant to return to the woman from whom she struggled to escape for years after growing up in her shadow. Suzanne arrives home and discovers that Doris has crashed her car into a tree after drinking too much wine (and Stolichnaya smoothies). Keep track of your favorite shows and movies, across all your devices. Trust us. He felt the film's earlier section was "the movie's best, primarily because Nichols is so focused on Streep. 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. Friday Night Movie Review: The Way Back. The scenes in which she acts in an el-cheapo chase comedy capture the workaday absurdity of Hollywood moviemaking, the ho-hum mesh of illusion and reality. 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. Other songs performed in the film include "I'm Still Here" (sung by MacLaine) and "You Don't Know Me" (sung by Streep). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcards_from_the_Edge_(film) The Way Back PG-13 ... David is the Editor in Chief of Postcards From the Edge. For the first time in years, she lives a role instead of ”acting” it — and in doing so, she becomes more of an actress than ever. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. In her 2013 autobiography, Unsinkable, Reynolds noted that Nichols told her, "You're not right for the part.". During the course of a passionate first date, he professes intense and eternal love for her and she believes every word is true. And Streep and MacLaine make a touching pair of embattled misfits. This one, too, is about the messiness of a mother-daughter bond, with MacLaine once again playing a well-meaning maternal pain in the neck. Continuing in the dark...read more, Adapted by Fisher from her first novel, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE is yet further proof that Hollywood makes its best films about what it knows best--making films in Hollywood. Postcards From the Edge follows Suzanne over the few months in which she emerges from a drug-rehab clinic and moves in with her loving but impossibly self-centered mother (Shirley MacLaine), a former Hollywood actress who was a big star. It's easier for them to think I have no imagination for language, just a tape recorder with endless batteries. "[10], BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, "It's Fade-Out for the Cheap Film As Hollywood's Budgets Soar", "Postcards Takes No.