Movie Type: Psychological Drama, Psychological Thriller
Themes: Mothers and Daughters, Haunted By the Past, Domestic Abuse
Main Cast: Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judy Parfitt, Christopher Plummer, David Strathairn
Release Year: 1995
Country: US
Run Time: 131 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A daughter who has come to imagine the worst about her mother learns the facts are quite different -- and more shocking than she ever imagined -- in this adaptation of Stephen King's best-selling novel. Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) has spent nearly a quarter of a century looking after a mean-spirited woman named Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt) on a small island off the coast of Maine; when Vera is found dead after falling down a flight of stairs, Dolores is considered a prime suspect in her murder. Word of the affair reaches New York-based journalist Selena St. George (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Dolores's estranged daughter. Though she's about to leave on an important assignment, Selena instead flies to Maine to find out what's happened with her mother. Selena's father, Joe St. George (David Strathairn), died under mysterious circumstances 15 years before; more than a few people believe Dolores killed Joe, and many feel she did the same with Vera. Though the strong and tough-talking Dolores stands her ground, police detective John Mackey (Christopher Plummer) is convinced that there's more to her story than she's letting on, and in time Selena learns the ugly truth about her mother's connection to both deaths. This was Kathy Bates's second starring role in a film based on Stephen King's work; she earned an Academy Award for her breakthrough role in the movie version of King's Misery. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Having given her best, Oscar-winning performance in Misery (1990), actress Kathy Bates returns to the well (so to speak) of Stephen King adaptations with this dour but moving drama. Bates had a richer, more full-bodied character to play in the earlier film to be sure, but she does a remarkable job here of bringing to life a woman who is stronger than she seems at first glance. In fact, Dolores is ultimately revealed to be tougher than a hickory knot, and it's a testament to Bates's skill as an actress that she is convincing throughout most of the film as soft, yielding, and thoroughly weak, but renders believable the sudden revelation of Dolores's true nature. Jennifer Jason Leigh thankfully relinquishes the distracting affectations of some previous roles while Christopher Plummer sinks his teeth into the part of a detective clearly in the mold of Inspector Javert from Les Miserables. Although a timeworn device that filmmakers should be discouraged from employing, director Taylor Hackford utilizes the flashback sequence to great effect, understanding that King's dour tale is not really about a rural murder case but about how the past can so powerfully inform and control the present. Somber and depressing, Dolores Claiborne won't be to the taste of many horror-loving King fans, but the film's a well-acted emotional journey that ultimately proves worth taking. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Eric Bogosian - Peter; John C. Reilly - Constable Frank Stamshaw; Wayne Robson - Sammy Marchant; Roy Cooper - Magistrate; Frank Adamson - Detective Supervisor; Vernon Steel - Ferry Vendor; Bob Gunton - Mr Pease; John Benjamin Hickey
Credit
Dan Yarhi - Art Director, Michael Kelly - Associate Producer, Nancy Klopper - Casting, Shay Cunliffe - Costume Designer, Josh McLaglen - First Assistant Director, Taylor Hackford - Director, Mark Warner - Editor, Danny Elfman - Composer (Music Score), Glen Gauthier - Musical Direction/Supervision, Danny Elfman - Songwriter, Freddie Cooper - Camera Operator, Bruno Rubeo - Production Designer, Gabriel Beristain - Cinematographer, Taylor Hackford - Producer, Charles B. Mulvehill - Producer, Steve Shewchuk - Set Designer, Ted Ross - Special Effects, Tony Gilroy - Screenwriter, Stephen King - Book Author
This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2009)
As the story begins, Dolores Claiborne (Bates), a middle-aged domestic servant in a coastal town in Maine, is heard having an argument with her employer Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), after which Vera falls down the stairs. Dolores ransacks the kitchen and is then caught by a mailman as she stands over Vera with a rolling pin, intending to kill Vera. Vera dies and Dolores is charged with her murder.
Dolores' daughter, Selena St. George (Leigh), a journalist, arrives in town to support her mother. Dolores insists that she did not kill her wealthy employer, but since she is already believed by the public to have murdered her husband, Joe St. George (David Straithairn) almost 20 years earlier, few believe her. One of these people, Detective John Mackey (Christopher Plummer), the chief detective in her husband's murder case, is determined to put Dolores away for life.
Selena and her mother have not spoken for over a decade, mostly due to Selena's belief in Dolores's guilt in Joe's death, even though the death was ruled an accident. As the film develops, the audience learns more about Dolores' troubled past, and of how Joe frequently beat her, until she finally rebelled and threatened him from ever harming her again.
The film's flashbacks also reveal that Dolores started to suspect Joe of molesting Selena. Dolores went to work for Vera Donovan as a housemaid in order to raise enough money for her to take Selena and flee Joe's wrath, but the plan backfired when Joe started stealing the money from Selena's account.
Back in the present, Mackey refuses to believe that Vera Donovan wanted to commit suicide, and his beliefs are further justified when he reveals that Vera has left her entire fortune to Dolores, who has lived in near squalid conditions since Joe's death. Mackey informs them that the will is eight years old, which nearly convinces Selena that her mother is guilty. After a fierce argument, Selena storms out, leaving her mother to fend for herself.
Dolores finally decides that it is time to reveal the truth to Selena: she did in fact kill Joe, and it was actually Vera who suggested the plan to her.
In a flashback to a scene some 20 years before, Vera engages in her regular ritual of taunting Dolores, who breaks down crying and confesses her troubled home life, including Joe's abuse of Selena. An uncharacteristically sympathetic Vera implies that she killed her recently deceased husband Jack, and engineered it to look like an accident, a fact validated in an earlier scene that illustrates the distance between the Donovans. Vera's confession forms a bond between the two women and allows Dolores take control of her own situation and future.
As a total solar eclipse approaches, Dolores sends Selena away for the week to work at a hotel to raise money from the high number of tourists. Joe soon returns from a holiday, and as a "treat", Dolores buys him a bottle of whiskey. After Joe consumes most of the whiskey, Dolores reveals that she knows about Joe's theft from Selena's bank account, as well as his molestation of her. Dolores lures Joe into falling down an old well, who then dies after hitting the stone bottom, a trap Dolores had set earlier.
Selena hears the story on a tape left for her by Dolores, who had foreseen her departure. While on the ferry, Selena remembers her father molesting her. Realizing that her mother was innocent the whole time and was only protecting her from Joe, Selena rushes back to her mother, who is attending the coroner's inquest, in which Mackey is making the case she be sent to the Grand Jury for murder. Selena tells the police they have no evidence and that despite an often-stormy relationship, the women loved each other.
Selena illustrates this point further by stating that Dolores could have made much more money working as a hotel maid or for another rich family of "summer people". She points out that, if Dolores had known about the will, she had eight years to kill Vera instead of caring for her thanklessly. Knowing that he has no admissible evidence and a very weak case, Mackey begrudgingly lets Dolores go free.
Dolores and Selena make amends to one another on a wharf before Selena returns to New York. The film ends with Dolores preparing to start a new life with the fortune she has inherited from Vera.
