National Post (National Edition)
Certain death by cliché
SHIRLEY MacLAINE’S EVENTUAL OBIT NOT LIKELY TO INCLUDE THIS PIECE
When Shirley MacLaine passes away — and let’s not rush things; the 82-year-old is going strong — obituaries will note that she won an Oscar in 1984 for her role in Terms of Endearment, her sixth nomination to date. They will mention early roles in such films as The Apartment, and her occasionally extreme New Age beliefs.
They will probably not remark on The Last Word, a thoroughly forgettable film about a cranky old soand-so in small-town Virginia who hires a journalist to pre-write her obituary.
MacLaine plays Harriet Lawlor, a former advertising executive who wants to control the message that will be put out after her death.
Control has always been a big deal for Harriet — she regularly takes over chores from her servants, and did so much of the work at her OB/GYN that the doctor was forced to pay her. She also acted the part of a sommelier, which isn’t a sin unless you do it the way she did — during Communion.
Now she approaches Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried), the obituary writer at the local paper, and demands what those in the trade call an “advance.”
In making this request, she reminds the editor (Tom Everett Scott) of all the advertising dollars she’s spent there over the years, a tactic that rankled this critic. But I won’t take it out on the film, especially since it has problems enough of its own.
When Anne can’t find a single person to say something nice about her subject (the nearest she comes is a woman who says it would be nice if she were dead), Harriet switches tactics and decides to become an obituary-worthy person, preferably within a week or two.
The tricks she performs to reach this status are meant to be seen as cynical, except that in presenting them, the film becomes guilty of the same crimes.
To wit: Harriet takes an at-risk child under her wing; director Mark Pellington casts newcomer AnnJewel Lee Dixon as Brenda, an impossibly wise and potty-mouthed nineyear-old.
Or: Harriet encourages Anne to date the cute programmer at the local radio station; Thomas Sadowski steps in as a cookie-cutter love interest in the screenplay by Stuart Ross Fink.
In fact, given the formulaic path Harriet travels, from curmudgeon through revelations of hidden depths and toward life-affirming virtuosity, plus the lazy rom-com subplot, I’m not even sure this can be called a screenplay. It’s more of a bucket script.
Even when it does something right, The Last Word has a tendency to undermine its own success. Take the soundtrack — owing to Harriet’s love of music, it includes a great mix of old and new rock, from The Jiants through the Kinks and up to Arum Rae and Diane Coffee. Yet the score is a moody melodic mush that feels as though it went through the same focus-group process Harriet claims she hated in her work.
Oh, and where is it written that a journalist character must prove she’s down-to-earth by driving an older-model Volvo?
By an odd coincidence, The Last Word comes to screens three weeks before Obit opens in Toronto. This fascinating documentary features obituary writers at The New York Times discussing what goes into crafting someone’s newspaper legacy.
One of them notes that they have to turn down “requests” from relatives of nice-but-not-famousenough people or lifelong Times readers. I’m guessing that if Harriet burst in wanting their services, they’d show her the door. ∂½ The Last Word opens March 10 in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and wider on March 17.