Main Cast: Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe, Ving Rhames, Frances Fisher, Jodi Long
Release Year: 1988
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A newspaper heiress is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to join a group of terrorist bank robbers in this docudrama, based on the saga of Patricia Hearst. In 1974, Hearst (Natasha Richardson), the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a student at the University of California. On February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical political group, broke into the Berkeley home she shared with her boyfriend and kidnapped her. Hearst then allegedly spent 57 days locked in a closet as she was indoctrinated into the group's revolutionary beliefs by their charismatic leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames). Eventually, Hearst joined (or at least pretended to join) the SLA, adopted the name Tania and participated in a number of high-profile bank robberies. After several SLA members died in a police fire storm, Hearst and fellow members Bill and Emily Harris (William Forsythe and Frances Fisher) went on the lam and were later arrested. Although she claimed her participation in the group was a ruse carried out to protect herself from further rape, torture, and mind control, Hearst eventually served several years in prison after her 1976 conviction for bank robbery. Based on the novel Every Secret Thing, Hearst's own account of the events, Paul Schrader's film tells the story from the heiress' own viewpoint, with little in the way of conflicting evidence. After President Carter ordered her release from prison in 1979, Hearst went on to act in several films, including Cecil B. Demented, a John Waters spoof whose plot bears some resemblance to her own life story. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
Neither a cold-eyed, objective survey of the evidence nor a straightforward, sob sister puff piece, this biopic uses Patty Hearst's own account of her kidnapping and stint in the Symbionese Liberation Army as a springboard for ambiguous and at times curiously inert storytelling. Continuing the stream of fact-based screenplays that would culminate in the Oscar-winning Reversal of Fortune two years later, writer Nicholas Kazan tries to take the audience inside Hearst's world as she's brainwashed in a closet for two months and then inculcated into the SLA's cultish lifestyle. Unfortunately, Hearst's response to these events -- glassy-eyed pretend acquiescence -- isn't exactly easy to portray visually. Natasha Richardson tries hard to explicate the turmoil Hearst suffered, but the character's inner life can't exactly leap off the screen. The strongest scenes are therefore the ones that depict her actual participation in the group, including sexual liaisons with the males; here, the conflict between self-respect and self-preservation proves compelling. Elsewhere, director Paul Schrader does an excellent job exploring the middle-class guilt and leftover '60s rebellion that fuelled the actions of the SLA's lower echelons. At the opposite extreme, Ving Rhames gives an early display of his star-worthy intensity. His compelling performance as Cinque, the group's principled but misguided leader, is the most dynamic piece of acting in the entire film. As a gritty exploration of countercultural excess, Patty Hearst is never less than gripping. But it sheds no more light inside its protagonist's head than the last 25 years of impotent media glare. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Olivia Barash - Fahizah; Dana Delany - Celina; Marek Johnson - Zoya; Kitty Swink - Gobi; Pete Kowanko - Cujo; Tom O'Rourke - Jim Browning; Scott Kraft - Steven Weed; Ermal Williamson - Randolph A. Hearst; John Achorn - Al Johnson; Jeff Allin - Assistant D.A.; Erich Anderson - 1st Male; Bradford Bancroft - 3rd Male; James Bershad - 2nd Male; Byron Clark - Psychiatrist #2; Robert Dickman - Doctor; Gerald Gordon - F. Lee Bailey; Hawthorne James - Tall Muslim; Marta Kober - 2nd Female; Thomas Wagner - Juror Wright; Jeff Imada - Neighbor; John Petievich - Policeman; Ron Boyd - FBI Man #2; Anne Marie Gillis - Juror Wentz; Mayah McCoy - Girl #3; Jeanne McGuire - Booking Officer; Nora Meerbaum - Psychiatrist #3; Moss Porter - FBI Man #1; Jack Slater - Psychiatrist #1; Pam Rack; Carey Fox - Hippie; Steven Anderson - Psychiatrist #5; Marc Siegler - Charles Gould; Maurice Hill - Judge Carter
Credit
Harold Thrasher - Art Director, Linda Reisman - Associate Producer, Pamela Rack - Casting, Richard Hornung - Costume Designer, Stephen P. Dunn - First Assistant Director, Paul Schrader - Director, Michael R. Miller - Editor, Michael Rosenblatt - Executive Producer, Thomas Coleman - Executive Producer, Scott Johnson - Composer (Music Score), Jane Musky - Production Designer, Gordon Wolf - Production Designer, Mark Allan - Production Designer, Bojan Bazelli - Cinematographer, Marvin Worth - Producer, Michael Rosenblatt - Producer, Thomas Coleman - Producer, James D. Brubaker - Producer, Jerie Kaelter - Set Designer, Ed White - Sound/Sound Designer, Greg Walker - Stunts, Nicholas Kazan - Screenwriter, Paul Schrader - Screenwriter, Patricia Hearst - Book Author, Alvin Moscow - Book Author
Schrader has said that he made Patty Hearst on a low budget and for a small salary to recover from the commercial and artistic failure of Light of Day. The film has a very distinctive visual style, not least because it is made almost entirely from Patty Hearst's point of view and therefore the first part is set largely in a dark closet with occasional blinding shafts of light when the kidnappers open the door.
The ending, like those of Schrader's American Gigolo and Light Sleeper, echoes that of Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, showing the central character physically imprisoned but beginning to think hopefully about a new phase in her life.
The film grossed $601,680 in its opening weekend in the US, and made a total domestic gross of $1,223,326.[2]
The film garnered a generally mixed critical response, although Richardson's performance was applauded by most critics. Amongst credited critics, the film has a rating of 50% positive reactions on rotten tomatoes, with 8 reviews counted.[3]. Writing in the New York Times, Vincent Canby praised the film "Patty Hearst is a beautifully produced movie, seen entirely from Patty's limited point of view. It is stylized at times, utterly direct and both shocking and grimly funny."[4]Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times praised Richardson's performance; "The entire film centers on the remarkable performance by Natasha Richardson as Hearst." but concluded that "This whole story seemed so much more exciting from the outside."[5]
