The Last Word
I’ll admit to being a fan of director Mark Pellington, who’s probably best known for his music video work ( which includes “Shut It Down” by Public Enemy and “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam).
I liked his 2011 feature I Melt With You, which was basically an experimental film about a bunch of privileged white guys indulging in some toxic male bonding in Big Sur. That film was universally panned, but I sought it out anyway. And while I don’t recommend that you bother hunting it down, I think a lot of the reviews missed the point. Pellington wasn’t celebrating those guys or that particular worldview so much as he was acknowledging its existence. And the visuals were effective — you felt like you were careening off the
end of the world with those whining middle- age party animals.
I Melt With You was a brave film and I hated that it seemed to derail Pellington’s career in features, so it’s good to see him back, albeit with a project that’s as safe and predictable as I Melt With You was a punk operatic mess. But The Last Word provides 82- year- old Shirley MacLaine with her best role since 2011’ s Bernie, allowing her the opportunity to scowl and disapprove of a world that’s not of her class. While it might have been a one- note performance in lesser hands, MacLaine supplies a delicious edge that isn’t completely blunted by her inevitable humanizing comeuppance.
MacLaine is Harriet Lauler, a retired, divorced advertising executive who, after a remarkably successful career, finds herself rattling around a great and expensive house in a made- up Southern California town, with no one to talk to other than the help she imperiously instructs. Harriet is one of those vain controlling perfectionists who also happens to be right most of the time. Her off- putting self- confidence is well- earned. She can even cut her own hair better than the stylist.
There’s something very satisfying about watching MacLaine move through empty, exquisitely calibrated rooms, even when we know we’re supposed to sense something lonely in the sight. ( Early on she mixes red wine and Clonazepam, an event her doctor senses wasn’t quite an accident.) But she seems so in her element, an exotic prowling beast.
But movies have to go somewhere, and this one has Harriet notice that newspapers run obituaries, which causes her to realize that someone else might be in control of how her passing will be reported. So she marches down to the local newspaper office where she reminds the editor ( Tom Everett Scott) that her advertising agency contributed mightily to the ongoing viability of the publication,
which ought to entitle her to some consideration. So she’s introduced to staff obit writer Anne Sherman ( Amanda Seyfried), to whom she presents a list of 100 names to contact for research purposes.
Anne sets to work on drafting a piece, but unsurprisingly she finds that Harriet’s character witnesses, to a person, detest her. While Harriet’s ex- husband Edward ( Philip Baker Hall) admits to admiring her steel and business acumen, he’s glad to have gotten clear of her. Even a priest testifies to Harriet’s “hatefulness.”
When Anne presents her first draft to Harriet, she’s unfazed. Instead of being dismayed by her unpopularity, Harriet sets out to correct if not her life, the way she’ll be publicly remembered. Having made a study of obit columns, she believes that by ticking a few boxes — the subject should be loved by family, admired by co- workers, have performed a few good works and managed some quirky achievement — she might ensure her legacy. So, with Anne’s help, she sets out to rehabilitate her image.
The first step is the mentoring of an at- risk 9- yearold from the projects, Brenda ( Ann’Jewel Lee), whose capacity for profane sassiness complements Harriet’s cool snippishness. Then she bullies her way onto the airwaves as a morning drivetime radio DJ. ( That’s her flair!) Inevitably she turns to the more difficult task of reconnecting with her estranged daughter Elizabeth ( Anne Heche).
While Pellington’s touch with music hasn’t diminished — he makes great use of the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” — aside from the precise calibration of the early scenes, all this is photographed and presented in as straightforward, competent and polite a way as possible, which reads as Pellington’s penance for having pushed the boundaries with I Melt With You and the depressive ( underrated) Henry Poole Was Here. While it’s tempting to dismiss the project as a cutesy cookie- cutter showcase designed to capitalize on the good will of a grand star, MacLaine is brilliant, even when the material isn’t quite worthy of her. Or her director.