Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

A lot of fun.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) recalls the 20's at the Algonquin Round Table. She's a writer at Vanity Fair. Her husband Eddie (Andrew McCarthy) had returned from the war as a morphine addict. She loses her job and Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott) quits in sympathy. They and Robert Sherwood would lunch at the Algonquin Hotel gathering a circle of friends with endless drinking, sharp comments, and biting wits. Eddie turns into an abusive drunk. She has an affair with Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) which leads to an abortion. The group starts up The New Yorker. Later, she remarries to actor Alan Campbell (Peter Gallagher).I have nothing but praise for Jennifer Jason Leigh. I understand most of her words and all of her meanings. However, it is a lot of drunk talking. There are loads of biting comments but none of them really elicits a laugh. These are not those types of vicious lines. "I don't review rehearsals." Most of the movie lands flat with a knowing wink. She lived a full life but I'm not that excited by this movie.

Dorothy Parker's life is so complicated that it really needs a 10 part mini-series. Basically, this movie focuses in on the relationship between Robert Benchley and Dorothy. If the movie had just focused on that, I think it would have been a hit. As it is, it is not very satisfying for many people, because of the enormous cast and the twenty or so subplots that do not get developed enough.However the photography is beautiful, the costumes and sets are terrifically faithful to the period, and the acting is sterling. I really want to knock on the door of every member of the Motion Picture Academy and when they come to the door punch them in the stomach and as they fall back in surprise, say, "That's for not giving an academy award to Jennifer Jason Leigh," for "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle." Her performance is daring and dazzling. She did win best actress from the National Society of Film Critics.Alan Rudolph says on the director's commentary that he has a 4 hour actor's version of the film. I really hope he will release it.This is a film that needs to be watched several times to be fully appreciated. Be prepared to do lots of research to find out more about the characters in real life. Watching a few Benchley movie shorts, seeing "A Star is Born, and reading a few short stories and poems by Dorothy is a prerequisite for enjoying the film.This is the best movie we are going to get on Dorothy Parker, until someone gives me 20 million Dollars to do the mini-series.

For some reason the period around the 1920s and the early 1930s was this great flowering of artistic genius.In Mexico City you had Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and their circle of artist and intellectual friends, which you can watch in the great film by Salma Hayek "Frida" I actually went to Frida Kahlo's neighborhood in Mexico City because I wanted to see her house and the house where Trotsky was killed, but it was closed that day.In London you had the Bloomsbury Group with people like Aldous Huxley, mark Gertler, Virginia Woolf, Carrington, Lytton Strachey etc. Which you can watch in the great Emma Thompson film "Carrington".In New York you had Mrs. Parker and the Algonquin Roundtable. Most of these people above interacted in different ways often in Paris where Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dali, Piccaso, Somerset Maugham, Aleister Crowley, Cole Porter, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gertrude Stein, Anais Nin et al held forth in Monte Martre and the French Riviera.Everyone in this film is great and sometimes I think I was just born too late to hang with all these brilliant (and sometimes very unpleasant) people in so many countries.I've read a lot of Dorothy Parker's work and she has a great feminist voice that couldn't be suppressed. Many don't even know they are quoting her when they are. I just read a review of the Johnny Depp movie "Libertine" and someone stated that the actress showed an emotional range from A to B, which is a directly stolen Quote from Parker." Yes, she was drunken, cynical, disillusioned, suicidal etc. but she was and is also great.This movie is a whose who of actors. A lot of people don't even realize that Cyndi Lauper is in it. It was an early movie of both Gwenneth Paltrow and Heather Graham etc. etc.Watch it and love it.

Towards the end of her career, Dorothy Parker remembers the past days when she was part of the Algoquin Round Table, a group of friends who shared interests in the arts, drink and witty barbs at each others' expense. However behind the wit she has a lot of hurt and the story follows her through broken relationships and lost happiness.I have seen this film several times but am only writing a review of it now. It always strikes me as being a very worthy film that is `good' and should be appreciated. But, this doesn't make it an easy film to access or watch. On the surface the overlapping dialogue and quick wit makes for a film hat could be accepted several ways. I was stuck in the middle. At once I felt that these people were pompous and condescending but then also felt that they were witty people and clever! The same with Parker herself – at times she was a good character but then at others she was mysterious and very hard to understand.I suppose this is to the film's credit that it never paints it's subjects in one colour – there is room for interpretation. The one thing that struck me (me who uses a lot of sarcasm) is how much hurt was often put behind the barbs. As one character says, she never talks deeply with any of her friends and never gets beyond the next barbed remark. The fact that her life slides the way it does shows the danger in this. However the film does still allow the brighter side of her life to come out as well so that it isn't al gloom. This still doesn't make it easy watching – there is no one central narrative other than Parker herself. This made it feel a little free floating and aimless and it occasionally felt as hollow and pointless as the quick wit shared by unhappy people around the table.The cast is pretty good. Leigh does occasionally come over as a woman giving an impression rather than a performance but she does manage to seem more natural when talking rather than quoting. The support cast is made up of quite a few B-grade stars (of quality and some not) and they all give good account of themselves. Broderick, Gallagher, McCarthy, Taylor and Tucci are among the cast but really it is Leigh's film to win or lose.Overall this is a classy film. The direction and sets really get the period right and film feels good. However at times it seems aimless and much of the film is actually pretty depressing stuff. I took the warning from it of opening up rather than trying to be a smarta*se all the time, but I'm not sure if that was what it was saying. The cast do well and Leigh makes a good Mrs Parker despite just stopping short of out and out impersonation.