Reader suffers through “The Goodbye Girl.”
Dear Mick LaSalle: Just watched “The Goodbye Girl.” Ouch! Struggled through it. Martha Mason, cringeworthy. How do you explain this to someone who wasn’t there in 1977?
Patrick Fowler, San Francisco Dear Patrick Fowler: I can’t. I can’t even explain it to myself. I saw it with my girlfriend when I was in high school, and we liked it, and I was all ready to watch it again, now that it’s just out on Blu-ray, and I gave up after a half hour. Nothing dates like comedy, and among comedies, nothing dates like romantic comedy. Dear Mick: Would you ever recommend a film-loving non-critic to attend one of the major film festivals? If so, which one?
Tom Smegal, Piedmont Dear Tom: I would, but I’d only have you go to top festivals that take place in nice parts of the world at gorgeous times of the year, so that if a movie isn’t good, you can leave and do something else. That eliminates Sundance, which takes place in Utah in January; and Rotterdam, which takes place in Holland in January and February; and Berlin, one of the world’s great festivals, which takes place in February — that is, unless you like cold weather.
Instead I’d recommend Cannes, which takes place in May on the Riviera; San Sebastian (Spain) and Deauville (France), which take place in September; and Venice, which runs from the end of August through the first 10 days of September. With a cold-weather festival, you will often find yourself so glad to be warm — or so relieved not to be freezing — that you’ll end up sitting through a bad movie. With a warm-weather festival, in a great location, the movie has to be good to compete with whatever is going on outside. That’s how it should be.
The other nice thing is that, if you’re already planning to visit the South of France, or Basque country, or Normandy or Venice, it’s nice to have something to do while you’re there. A lot of times with travel, you’ll find that you want to penetrate the life of a great city, but you have nothing to do but walk around, talk to various waiters and go to museums. To go to a film festival is to participate in a big communal event. Dear Mr. LaSalle: You refer to “Elle” as a great character study. I was very disturbed by the main character. I am surprised Isabelle Huppert would agree to play such a despicable character.
Rosa Goldman, Berkeley Dear Ms. Goldman: Really? You’re surprised that Isabelle Huppert would play a creepy person? Are you also surprised when Al Pacino starts yelling and spewing saliva in all directions? When you turn on Turner Classic Movies, are you shocked, shocked to see James Cagney playing a gangster? This is what Isabelle Huppert does. This is the fun of watching this actress. It’s not the only fun — she does have a range — but playing disturbed, odd, amoral women is what she’s most known for; and this has been the case from the very beginning.
Check her out in “Going Places” (1973), where she plays a teenager laughing to herself as two thugs come along and start manhandling her parents. See her in “The Story of Women” (1988) as an abortionist in World War II, utterly revolted by her shell-shocked husband and completely unfazed when she finds out that she accidentally killed one of her clients. Definitely see her in “La Ceremonie” (1995), as a crazy postal worker who eventually goes postal, and in “The Piano Teacher” (2001), as a conservatory teacher who frequents peep shows and at one point tries to have sex with her own mother. (Huppert said that she was actually trying to crawl back into the womb.) A few years later, she topped that with “Ma Mere,” playing a woman who commits suicide while having sex with her son. This is a magnificent gallery of perversity, and I’m just getting started. Huppert is a workaholic, so we’re talking about scores of films over the past 40 years, and a lot of them are something like “Elle.”