In the Spirit
by Sandra Seacat
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Product details
Actor: Elaine May, Jeannie Berlin, Marlo Thomas, Olympia Dukakis, Peter FalkDirector: Sandra Seacat
Writer: Jeannie Berlin
Producer: Phillip Schopper
Writer: Laurie Jones
Cinematographer: Richard Quinlan
Editor: Brad Fuller
Producer: Beverly Irby
Producer: Julian Schlossberg
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 94 minutes
Release Date: 1998-03-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
VHS Movie Reviews of In the Spirit
Movie Review: In The Spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Fresh,quirky, funny, clever-why is it not on DVD? Don't know, but this vhs is still borrowed by my friends to watch every now and again cause everyone likes it. Movie Review: Getting in the spirit
Summary: 4 Stars
Granted, the film is nearly swamped in the early going by an annoying, mysterioso narrator, called in to mutter darkly about the "Fate" of its characters. He's not on hand to guide us into a complex plot; there isn't one. Rather, he represents an awkward attempt to justify the film's occultite title. The film itself has one or two other irons in the fire besides ribbing tofu, reincarnation, and healing crystals. In any case, the narrator slips away about 25 minutes into the picture, without goodbyes, never to return. The notion of sustaining a "New Age Satire" soon follows him out the door, with no loss to anyone.
Like me, you may require several viewings to see through the shortcomings of "In The Spirit" and appreciate the good comedy at the heart of it: namely the clever interplay of Marlo Thomas (as Reva, a well-meaning jinx) and Elaine May (Rosemary, her latest victim):
Rosemary, her condo (not to mention her life) in shambles thanks to Reva's tender loving ineptitude, exclaims: "Why didn't you just hire a ghost to do the redecorating?! It couldn't have looked any worse and it might have been a lot cheaper! I hear Laura Ashley's dead! You could go straight to the top!"
"Who's out to get you?" she demands. "Who have you HELPED lately?"
"In The Spirit" is an overlooked gem just on the near side of existing at all. What a shame.
FYI: Blink twice and you will miss the estimable Louise Lasser lurking in the background of an early shot. Would we have O.D.'d on Funny Women if she hadn't been left on the cutting room floor???
Movie Review: Spirit of Laughter
Summary: 5 Stars
Take a funny trip to the "other side" as a scatterbrained health food store owner and a grumpy abandoned housewife join together to solve a strange crime (which involves a homicidal waterbed mattress, a cryptic journal and a dead hooker!) This is a dark, dry comedy that takes three very different women and braids their strange destinies together. Marlo Thomas is the dingy, metaphysical, interior decorater and store owner named Reva who tries to help everyone she can in her Manhatten neighborhood. Her generousity is challenged by her crude, ex-porn star, next door neighbor named Crystal (Jeannie Berlin). Reva first saves Crystal from a beating at the hands of her pimp. This strange circle of friends is completed when Reva meets an L.A. housewife Mary (a hilarious Elaine May) who has just moved to New York to secure a home for her and her recently unemployed husband (Peter Falk). Their wierd stories and odd paths cross into a murder mystery that is sometimes slapstick. This is a sophisticated, sometimes slow-moving comedy, but it's an interesting story - filled with different crimes and various forms of mid-life crisis. It's a great "N.Y." movie, and has a great supporting cast including Olympia Dukakis and Melanie Griffith. Elaine May steals the show as the desperate, bedraggled housewife who tries to solve the mystery logically. Marlo Thomas plays up the "Shirley MacClaine" in her character by trying to solve the case spiritually. This one kept me laughing... and pondering my "destiny" as well.Movie Review: murderous
Summary: 1 Stars
In The Heartbreak Kid director Elaine May presented her daughter Jeannie Berlin as her mother's surrogate - the sad clutz, who is so addled that she becomes a touching pathetic figure. Here Berlin has cowritten with Brad Fuller a starring role for May, but unfortunately the material reads paper thin and the director Sandra Seacat lacks May's own gift for comedy. Is there anything more tragic than seeing a great comedienne wasted? (This has been the continuing outcry regarding people like Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin, whose filmed live performances showcase them better than any movie has). Ironically Berlin is the only one to come off well, in spite of being styled like a drag queen, since she doesn't play her role as the most boring hooker in the world, in a boring way. The setup is a classic matching of opposites on the run, with Marlo Thomas as a new age health shop owner and May as an acquaintance who are holding the hooker's datebook, which is sort after by the mafia. Thomas exists for May to react to, and whilst it's good to see May in a role similar to her appearance in California Suite, where she plays a more sophisticated character, the only thing she can offer is anger. It's clear that the writers wish to make a joke of the Thomas character, and the friction might have worked better if a actress was cast who had a natural kookiness, or otherwise took the role to a pathological level. Thomas is lit to look lovely which presumably is also evidence of her health food eating, but she doesn't invest the character any lunacy. This therefore limits her to just being annoying, and hence limits May. At one point May asks Thomas "what kind of herb she is on" as if it is a drug, and one is more aware of the line as clever than appropriate. However since May's film appearances are so few, we treasure her silent looks of disbelief, her softly spoken insults, when she pushes Thomas up against a wall with "Don't hand me that sh*t!", her attempt to sleep as Thomas rambles, and the accent she uses on the phone to disguise her voice. One realises how misguided Seacat is from the use of a voice-over (done by the producer) with trailer-like footage (ugh!), and when May and Thomas are dressed as cartoon hookers and it's not even funny. However there are 2 good visual gags - a reborn Christopher Columbus joke wih a physical payoff, and May in a tree. Peter Falk is around for a short time as May's husband - he is important to the Columbus gag. When he disappears it's as if the actor was no longer available, and in small parts are Olympia Dukakis and Melanie Griffith.Movie Review: Subtle and hilarious!
Summary: 5 Stars
Although probably classfied as an "oddball" comedy, this one of the most quietly hilarious movies I've ever seen. You'll have to listen carefully to catch the depth of each characters' humor, but it is well worth seeing again and again.
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