The Morning After (1986)

"The Morning After" is a murder mystery that features romance, blackmail and suspense but it's the relationship between the story's two leading characters that provides the main focus of the action and also most of the humour and interest that make this movie so enjoyable to watch. Its opening scene is really intriguing and sets the story up brilliantly. What follows is loosely based on "The Blue Gardenia" (1953) and like its predecessor, this movie features a woman who was with a murder victim on the night he died, awakens the next morning unable to remember what happened and then has to put her trust in someone of whom she's not certain.Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda) is an alcoholic ex-actress who wakes up in a strange bed next to the corpse of a man she doesn't know and has no memory of how she got there. She's immediately convinced that the police won't believe her story because she has a history of becoming violent and suffering blackouts after her drinking binges and had even stabbed her first husband with a paring knife during one of her blackouts. In her panic, Alex heads to the airport but can't get out of L.A. because it's the Thanksgiving holiday and all the flights are booked. Feeling desperate and anxious, she gets involved in a car accident and races away from the scene into a nearby parking lot where she meets Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges).In her efforts to escape the other irate drivers involved in the car accident, Alex gets into Turner's car and together they drive away from her pursuers. Turner's an easy-going, bigoted, ex-cop who says "I like to repair stuff, whatever people are through with" and works mainly on small appliances like toasters. Turner and Alex gradually get to know each other and fall in love. She doesn't know whether or not she was responsible for the dead man's murder and he tries to help her to solve the mystery. The problem is she isn't sure whether or not she can trust him, especially as her estranged husband Joaquin "Jacky" Manero (Raul Julia), who's a very successful hairdresser in Beverly Hills, warns her that Turner is actually trying to frame her. Alex and Turner stick together and eventually discover who the murderer is and also the extent to which blackmail was involved in the crime."The Morning After" makes a strong impression visually with good use being made of interesting locations and a colour palette that uses a range of pastels quite effectively. The scene in which Alex escapes from the apartment where the killing had taken place is particularly memorable because at a time when she's feeling desperate and scared, being situated in a highly lit, deserted-looking street in which she's dwarfed by the structures around her, really emphasises her plight and reinforces the impression that, in these very open surroundings, there really is no hiding place.Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges are both exceptional in this movie and the chemistry between them is the icing on the cake. Fonda (in an Oscar nominated role) makes Alex's combination of toughness, vulnerability and self-doubt totally believable and Bridges is wonderfully subtle in a performance that creates a lot of distrust about how sincere he is in his concern for Alex's predicament. The dialogue they share is also superb and some of Alex's cutting remarks really sting.There's a great deal to enjoy in "The Morning After" and the whole experience of watching it is extremely entertaining. Its only disappointment, however, is the resolution to the mystery which, unfortunately, isn't up to the standard of everything else that precedes it.

The script is as scatter-brained and uncertain as its lead character. It's the first and last script to date by James Hicks aka James Cresson. A comedy thriller romance mystery character study, it contains gaping wholes in logic, red herrings, inconsistencies in characterizations, lengthy expositions, and a preposterous plot to frame Fonda's character. Nonetheless, the talents involved particularly Fonda and Bridges make it consistently watchable and involving starting with the opening scene. It's inoffensive and low key with funny dialog and good interaction between the two leads. An entertaining and pleasant way to kill time. Sidney Lumet's direction lacks the necessary urgency and tension to make the suspense aspects work and the viewer assumes from the start that Alex Sternberg aka Viveca Van Loren is not the murderer. The film captures LA well enough and provided Fonda with her last good film role and Oscar nomination to date.

This has to be one of the worst films ever made. As I sat through it I kept asking myself why am I watching it? Maybe I wanted to know for sure that it was actually as bad as I thought it was. And it was. I was a big fan of Jeff Bridges but not really for any of his films and certainly not this one - I just always liked him probably because I liked his dad so much. But I actually thought that Jane Fonda's role was absolutely laughable. She was completely unbelievable as was Raul Julia. Casting against type never works and it definitely does not work here. And the fact that Sidney Lumet directed this mish-mash is the biggest shock of all. One wonders how so much talent could be utterly wasted in so much tripe. Actually, the most interesting performance, I thought, was by Diane Salinger who I remember most vividly from the film whereas everyone else sort of washes out. I looked up Salinger and learned that she has an acting academy in Los Angeles which makes perfect sense since she really shines in this catastrophe.

"The Morning After" is a tepid thriller about an alcoholic has-been actress (Jane Fonda, whose performance was inexplicably nominated for an Academy Award) who wakes up one morning with a dead man at her side and no recollection of what occurred the night before. She later happens upon an occasionally racist ex-cop (Jeff Bridges) who decides to help her. Of course by the time Bridges and Fonda are sucking face the viewer has already pieced everything together. Director Sidney Lumet, who helmed the successful adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," should know that if you're going to make a whodunit, there should be more than one possible suspect.