This is a fine movie about a sad writer. It is filmatically fine and above average. Jennifer Jason Leigh is a fine fricken actress.Jennifer's dad, Vic Morrow, of course was killed by a helicopter.Not a helicopter accident. A helicopter killed Vic Morrow by impacting his head with a helicopter blade. This may have cast a sad shadow on her life and intellect. Just my opinion. This is more a movie about Jennifer Jason Leigh's acting than Dorothy Parker.You should watch it as a tutorial on fine acting by a female. You should just breathe in the lovely technique of JJLeigh.She just manifests ordinary sadness amidst Parker's brightness. This movie inserts sepia-like poems *by Dorothy* into this biography and does so, well. The movie tracks the life and times of a certain Dorothy, who doesn't find the rainbow, or Oz.This Dorothy,Parker, ain't quite a poet but her movie is a thrilling and saddening biography. Dorothy Parker wasn't quite a poet I feel because she didn't 'make/write the grand sweep of poetry'. Who am I too judge you ask? Well, Parker writes clever doggerel not poetry. I suspect she may have had the anti-poetry affliction. Kinda like ripping off the derailleurs on your ten-speed bike old girl.Just my opinion. If Dorothy wanted to be a poet, p'raps she coulda opened up the full throttle engine of language of pentameter and hexameter and tetrameter--of glorious Shakespearian good stuff-which English provides. I suspect Dorothy thought she had to be cute or post-modern or whatever in order to be considered a 'real poet'. Just a guess on my part. A poet writes the f**k out of the language in order to discover the true truth of a language. Language, at least in Western culture, has all kinds of meter in it-naturally occurring. Parker was a reductionist- or what I call 'cheap with words'. When can a writer be cheap with words? Answer: Never. Jack Kerouac rolled a giant roll of paper into his remington-rand to complete his major work of writing. Moving along. Campbell Scott is pretty fine here as Robert Benchley. Jennifer Beals is wasted as the Forlorn Wife. This is a fine movie about empty people of great promise. Did I really just write that?
Review of Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
