Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)

I didn't like ANY of the actors in this film. All of them do their jobs pretty badly. The fault for this probably lies with the director. Essentially, they told a, possibly interesting story, but they did so very incompetently. I was totally incapable to forget that the lead actress was acting. She was absolutely false from start to finish and I found myself strongly disliking her. The movie is full of scenes with Parker facing the camera in a kind of Shakesperean aside which enabled us to hear her poetry. The poetry is OK I guess but was murdered by the wooden acting and the funny voice that Parker was forcing out without a pause. The rest of the movie is just boring and I couldn't bring myself to finish the thing. I wonder if those people were really as tedious and pretentiously awful as they were portrayed as being. I guess I will never know. If you are interested in Parker, read her original work. This film will do nothing at all to endear her to you.

There must lie an interesting story somewhere in the lives of some of these famous writers but this utterly depressing, anecdotal bore doesn't seem to find any.I think I get what the director Alan Rudolph is trying to show us here, that everybody thinks it must have been a laugh-riot to live in the swinging 20s, especially if you were a member of this group of despicable people, but that the reality was quite different. Come on, there must have been somebody who gave a damn about another one in the group. All what is shown, is that these people were trying to be so aloof that they all died unhappy.I like the point, given by another comment on this page, that you really have to research deeper than watching what there is here. Get some insight from other sources than this debacle. Some have praised the performances here. I say, that there aren't any, it's just plain mannerisms. It's just people trying to look the part and trying to feel like the character they are playing. Learn how to transcend your character. This is especially true about Jennifer Jason Leigh and I think she is horrible here. She obviously wanted to take the extreme method actor's approach but for that very reason, the performance seem forced. If you want to see much better acting of a real giant in the same field, watch Cary Elwes in Cradle Will Rock as John Houseman.

---Who was the target audience of this film? People who were really interested in Parker would have to find this disappointing.----- so...We spend a lot of time indoors/While Leigh suffers from lockjaw/With boozy loud insufferable boors /That self-indulgent Parker sawThe costumes great, production high,/ But what is that she is saying?/ Parker did drone, but diction, sigh,/ Is needed above the other's braying.Paltrow, so often wan and fey/ Shows marvelous character actress prospect /She towers above this teeny fray /But her humor and tartness are not lost yet.Leigh is lovely, dewy and luminous /Her vocal imitation comes and goes/ Will someone unclench her jaw for us /So we can decipher her character's woes?Leigh's smaller than a umbrella stand/ Matthew Broderick is a lovely pairing /The story only starts when he enters, grand /And sexy and strong and stirring.Cambell Scott is the backbone of this /Screeching brood, he doesn't contest a fraction. /He calmly settles back in bliss/ And steals every scene, every action.Parker fans, I think, would largely not/ Feel compelled to this trendy casting spread. / With this posey art, we can bet on spot/ That she's now even more happy that she's dead.

Jennifer Jason Leigh does an amazing job as she shows her true acting ability in Mrs. Parker. However, the movie in which she had an amazing performance was far from an amazing movie. While the cast of actors in the movie are terrific and the production value with the costumes are great, where was the story? Call mew crazy, but I am one of 99% of the world who does not know who Mrs. Parker was. Therefore, I was left in the dark with everyone else who still did not know who they heck she was by the end of the movie. OK, she was a great writer and poet, but why couldn't the story better portray that and tells the audience more about her accomplishments. Watching a table full of fast talking "know it alls" was far from enjoyable. Jennifer Jason Leigh built and built on her character but eventually tipped over when the audience stopped caring what the movie was about. If this is about her and her failed attempt at love, this was a slow melodrama that left the audience wanting more of a plot. If this was the true story of a woman that was before her time, the move was far from completion as the movie only scratched the surface at what her life was about. The ending credits did nothing for Mrs. Parker's legacy. It's nice that the movie didn't show one African American, but Mrs. Parker leaves her estate to Martin Luther King Jr.. Was that just thrown in there to give Mrs. Parker some credit for spending most of her life depressed and writing about it? Don't get me wrong, Jennifer Jason Leigh did a great job, but she received little credit for her role because the movie itself sunk with or without her performance.