Arliss Howard's "Big Bad Love"
Mike Jackson
Brown's books, probably my favorite is "On Fire". FMJ alum Arliss Howard has
adapted another into a movie. Anyone seen this film?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2002/02/22/big_bad_love/index.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"BIG BAD LOVE"
Arliss Howard makes his directing debut -- and Debra Winger returns to the
big screen -- with a ragged, affectionate tale of Southern life.
Editor's note: In "Beyond the Multiplex," Salon's critics focus on
noteworthy films created and distributed outside -- sometimes way outside --
the Hollywood production system.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Stephanie Zacharek
Feb. 22, 2002 | There's a ramshackle grace to Arliss Howard's "Big Bad
Love," and it's made with an accurate and loving, but also wary and
squinty-eyed, view of the South. If only the movie hung together better
overall. Based on a collection of short stories by Mississippi writer Larry
Brown, "Big Bad Love" starts out at a dozy, fly-buzzing pace that artfully
manages to hold you -- I felt lured into its spell in its first half-hour.
But before long the picture starts to feel raggedy and misshapen and
somewhat forced; bits of the story seem to break off and dangle before our
very eyes. It's the kind of messiness that makes you feel restless instead
of energized.
Yet there's enough meat on the bones of "Big Bad Love" -- which opens this
week in New York and should spread gradually to other cities -- to keep it
from being dismissable. Howard (perhaps best known to audiences from "Full
Metal Jacket," though he also played Mel Gibson's treacherous cousin in
"Tequila Sunrise") directed and stars in "Big Bad Love"; he also co-wrote
the script with James Howard, his brother. Arliss Howard plays Leon Barlow,
a down-and-out, alcoholic Vietnam vet and aspiring writer who may be an
extremely bright autodidact or a Southern prep-school kid who's just decided
to slum it. It's never quite clear which, considering that his nicely
preserved, bleached-blond mother (played with lots of crackle by Angie
Dickinson) looks like money, whether she actually has any or not.
Barlow is still desperately in love with his ex-wife Marilyn (Debra Winger,
Howard's wife in real life), who wants nothing to do with him. He tries to
do right by his two young kids, one of whom is rather sickly, but Marilyn
won't give him a chance. He has a loyal friend in his old buddy Monroe (Paul
Le Mat), and the happiest moments of his sozzled life seem to be the ones he
spends tooling around with Monroe and his shapely sweetie Velma (Rosanna
Arquette), stopping off for picnics in football fields and the like.
Oddly enough, "Big Bad Love" is best when there's not much happening and
you're free to simply enjoy the actors. You might find yourself wishing that
Barlow could find a way to change his circumstances without being struck by
a double tragedy, which is just what happens -- but then, that's the stuff
that fiction, the movies and, sometimes, real life are made of.
One problem is that one of the characters Barlow is supposed to care
desperately about is barely developed -- we can't feel the absence of
someone we never really get to know. It's a failure that may stem from
decency: My guess is that Howard didn't want to milk sympathy from his
audience, which is purely admirable. But more seasoned filmmakers (this is
Howard's directorial debut) would have found a way to make the character's
loss more resonant, instead of merely a plot device.
Some of Howard's more experimental touches fail, like his forays into magic
realism, Southern-style. (At one point, a torrential downpour falls on
Barlow, indoors, as a reflection of his mental state, and the metaphor is
just too heavy and obvious.) The dialogue feels stiff and expository at
times, but other times it's raw-boned and funny, as when Barlow receives an
encouraging rejection letter from a publishing house that reads in part,
"None of us knew what the title 'White Girls With Black Asses' really
meant."
Sometimes Howard's instincts are right on, as when, depressed and sodden
with alcohol, Barlow watches his wedding video backward: We start out seeing
a younger, happier Barlow and Marilyn kissing and cutting up in their
wedding clothes. Then we move forward (and thus backward) to see Barlow
waiting for his bride, alone, shuffling along in the graveyard near the
church.
And if nothing else, "Big Bad Love" does capture the lazy rush of the
South's pulse, unlike another recent picture about the region, Marc
Forster's "Monster's Ball." The terrific soundtrack (which includes music by
R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Tom Waits) doesn't hurt. And even more
important, all of the actors are able to ease into the rhythm of that pulse:
Howard wears the hair that's left on his balding pate swept back into a long
ponytail that's part doomed poet and part '60s rebel, but mostly just as
gone as the old South itself. His performance ticks along beautifully --
Howard lets us see the layers of mournfulness beneath the surface of
Barlow's gnarled anger.
Winger, who has of her own volition almost completely disappeared from the
movies, brings just the right level of rough-edged, no-nonsense
vulnerability to her character. Arquette plays a cutie-pie with depth: You
just know there's lots of good sense beneath her debutante crinolines. And
Le Mat, another actor who surfaces all too infrequently, has a raffish,
lackadaisical, gum-chewing charm -- he's wonderful to watch. The four of
them keep "Big Bad Love" rolling even over the bumpy patches. You might see
better performances this year -- but you're not likely to see many with so
much cranky love poured into them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Big Bad Love"
Directed by Arliss Howard
Starring Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, Paul Le Mat, Rosanna Arquette, Angie
Dickinson
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Stephanie Zacharek is a staff writer for Salon Arts & Entertainment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2002/02/22/big_bad_love/index.html
-----------------
Mike Jackson
Mental Pictures Photography & Graphic Design
http://guide.net/~mental/
(228) 696-2702 Phone/ Fax
(228) 918-4596 Cellular