Main Cast: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard, Tess Harper
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Beth Henley (who also penned the screenplay), Crimes of the Heart stars three high-powered actresses as three high-strung sisters. Lenny (Diane Keaton), Meg (Jessica Lange) and Babe (Sissy Spacek) gather at Lenny's deep-South home for her birthday. Lenny, the oldest, can't seem to sustain a relationship with a man. Meg is an aspiring actress who hasn't progressed beyond commercial voice overs. And Babe is released on bond from jail after shooting her senator husband. Add to this information the fact that the girls' mother killed herself in Lenny's house, and that when Meg offhandedly expresses the wish that grouchy grandfather Hurd Hatfield would slip into a coma, he does, whereupon the sisters, despite every effort to treat the situation with proper sobriety, burst into helpless laughter over her "psychic" powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Bruce Beresford seems to have a special affinity for the American South. In projects such as Tender Mercies (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Rich in Love, he's used the region's more leisurely pace to explore relationships in films that thrive on a minimum of plotting. That certainly describes his adaptation of Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, in which the three sisters of a rather eccentric Mississippi family return to the family manse for a reunion. None of the three have had much luck with men or marriage, and their humorous commiseration about their sometimes scandalous past and affirmation of their relationship with each other are the core of the film. Yet, the Southern Gothic black comedy aspects of the piece, such as Babe's (Sissy Spacek) reaction to having shot her husband, and the suicide of their mother, which might have worked well as anecdotes on the stage, sit less easily within the realistic framework established by Beresford. Henley seems to be using this tone to keep the audience at a safe distance, and one comes away wishing she had probed a bit more deeply. Still, this is a very funny film, and the three actresses work wonderfully as an ensemble. Sam Shepard is good as a former lover of Meg's (Jessica Lange), as is Tess Harper as an irritable next-door neighbor. Cameraman Dante Spinotti also does wonders with the soft Mississippi light. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
David Carpenter - Barnette Lloyd; Hurd Hatfield - Old Grandaddy; Beeson Carroll - Zackery Botrelle; Jean Willard - Lucille Botrelle; Greg Travis - Willie Jay; Tom Mason - Uncle Watson; Annie McKnight - Annie May Jenkins; Connie Adams - Zackery's Concubine
Credit
Ferdinando Giovannoni - Art Director, Albert Wolsky - Costume Designer, Bruce Beresford - Director, Anne Goursaud - Editor, Burt Sugarman - Executive Producer, Georges Delerue - Composer (Music Score), Ken Adam - Production Designer, Dante Spinotti - Cinematographer, Freddie Fields - Producer, Garry Lewis - Set Designer, Beth Henley - Screenwriter, Kay Rose - Supervising Sound Editor, Beth Henley - Play Author
The story focuses on the Magrath sisters - Meg, Babe, and Lenny - who reunite at the family home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi after Babe shoots her abusive husband. The three were raised by Old Granddaddy after their mother hanged herself and the family cat and have been eccentric ever since. Lenny is a wallflower who bemoans her shriveled ovary. Egocentric Meg is a singer whose Hollywood career ended abruptly when she suffered a nervous breakdown. Unruly and impulsive Babe shocks her sisters with stories about her affair with a teenaged black boy. Past resentments bubble to the surface as the women are forced to deal with assorted relatives and previous relationships while coping with the latest incident that has disrupted their dysfunctional lives.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "that most delicate of undertakings: a comedy about serious matters. It exists somewhere between parody and melodrama, between the tragic and the goofy. There are moments when the movie doesn't seem to know where it's going, but for once that's a good thing because the uncertainty almost always ends with some kind of a delightful, weird surprise ... The underlying tone ... is a deep, abiding comic affection, a love for these characters who survive in the middle of a thicket of Southern Gothicclichés and archetypes." [2]
Rita Kempley of the Washington Post described it as "Hannah and Her Sisters with a southern accent, a lilting gingerbread gothic with Diane Keaton, Sissie Spacek and Jessica Lange ding-a-linging harmoniously as Dixieland belles" and added, "Playwright Beth Henley has no dire message for us, but her adaptation is nicely restructured, glib as all get-out and character-wise ... The powerhouse performances are directed by Bruce Beresford, who maintains balance among the actresses and keeps a lovely tone and smooth pace. As with his critically acclaimed Tender Mercies, the Australian director again looks at American types with a fresh eye." [3]
