MARVIN'S ROOM (1996)

[agate]

If you’re going to make a movie about a woman whose death from leukemia seems imminent, it ought to be better than this one. Diane Keaton turns in a beautiful performance as Bessie, the “good” sister who has stayed around to take care of an ailing father and aunt while sister Lee (Meryl Streep) has become estranged and embittered as a single mom raising two sons.

Bessie is told her only hope is a bone marrow transplant from an appropriate donor. The people who started out looking hopelessly troubled and self-absorbed early in the movie (Streep and her son Hank, played by Leonardo di Caprio) of course turn all mellow and obliging in the face of this challenge. With the movie set in sunny Florida, we’re headed for one of those happy-family endings, folks…

But not before a family outing to … Disney World, giving the film-makers a chance to show (and promote) this place, which proves not to be the best place to take a woman who is coming to terms with having a life-threatening illness, but that seems to be by the way as, aside from a bit of blood, we don’t see much of the bad side of Bessie’s leukemia.

At one point she takes her spiffy wig off but we get only the merest glimpse of her thinning hair–enough of a glimpse to put Streep into a very solemn frame of mind, though.

The rest of the time Bessie is all smiley and happy, cheering everyone else up and continuing to feed the ailing father and indulge the lovable if quirky aunt. Until of course the end, by which time the recalcitrant Lee (Streep) is stepping up to the plate–as we knew all along she would.

I dislike Leonardo Di Caprio, whom I’ve seen in some other movies, and maybe he’s part of my problem with this movie.

But in general there is too much going on here. In 96 minutes we watch Di Caprio set the family house ablaze, then get committed to a mental institution, we’re treated to a scene where he hops into a gas-guzzler of a car with Aunt Bessie and careens through the water–thrills for all–especially the good sport Bessie–and does the American movie-viewing audience love anything more than scenes where vehicles are being made to do dangerous-looking tricks?

And then there are the doctors. We get Robert De Niro as Bessie’s doctor, but he’s also encumbered by a brother Bob who seems to be assisting him–except that he’s no help at all. The scenes involving Dr. Wally (De Niro) and Bob are about as inane as they come. They don’t even begin to be funny.

Besides, what’s funny about a woman dying of leukemia, exactly?

Another case of a movie trying to do too much. It’s burdened with a soundtrack that must be meant to wring tears from the audience at just the right moments, but it made me wonder why I kept on sitting through this movie.

As so often happens, there’s a lot of smoking going on here. But at one point one of the characters waves a hand as if the smoke is bothering her. Could this be the beginning of a new mood in the land?

–Not so fast. Streep is told not to smoke when she enters her sister’s home because their father is using oxygen. She goes right ahead and smokes anyway.

Of course, once she’s reached her reconstructed, helpful phase we can assume she’ll stop smoking when in the vicinity of the oxygen. Though we don’t see this happening, we just know it will because–well, these people all turn out to be so cuddly and lovable by the end that you just know every problem they have is going to be smoothed out.