Rich in Love (1992)

`Rich in Love' is one of those unfortunate middling films. If not for Kathryn Erbe, there would be little worth writing about--unless of course one loves to see the south in film. Perhaps an expansion and toughening up of Erbe's role and that of Jill Clayburgh's would make this a much better film. As it is there is too much stereotype in every character, and too much soap to support it. It's the plot's very few dark moments that most awaken the viewer. As does, of course, the very original, likeable and snappy acting of Kathryn Erbe. It is a flaw in the film, I think, that her independent life can be questioned, with effect, by the packaged entities around her. Her conforming to them makes her role less convincing--and takes something away from her superior acting.

This wonderful film explores matters of the heart neither in a sentimental way nor in a cynical way--rather honestly, giving respect to the feelings, hopes and thoughts of the characters. Set in present-day South Carolina, Albert Finney portrays a retired contractor, who appears to have retired from life before he retired from his job. His performance is so spot-on as to be transparent, allowing the viewer to enter completely into his character and almost "be him." The story opens with his wife leaving him, and the core of the film focusses on how he and his younger daughter, played by Kathryn Erbe, deal with this unexpected event. Miss Erbe is as good as Mr. Finney and surpasses him in delineating a "real" Southern human being, not the typical stereotype or the northerner in disguise (see: Susan Sarandon in The Client or Charles Mitchell in Cookie's Fortune--good performances but about as southern as Sherlock Holmes). This is very much an ensemble film, with good performances also coming from Suzy Amis, Piper Laurie, Alfre Woodard, and Ethan Hawke. I particularly liked Miss Amis who has a difficult partto create, sustain and evolve in a plausible fashion. She walks the actor's proverbial "tightrope" beautifully. The plot has several strands, including Miss Erbe's dealing with budding sexuality (she plays a graduating high school senior), the older sister's arrival on the scene, and others you MUST see for yourself. This movie was directed by Bruce Beresford and should have received a much wider audience when released in theatres. But its subtlety, lack of sex and violence, and its refusal to sacrifice quality for the chance of a wider audience. I strongly recommend this film.

After all the relentlessly hyped bad movies, it's a treat to stumble on a gem that was shelved or underpublicized a few years ago, this one on the Romance Channel. (This channel turns out to be, surprisingly, a source for some excellent modest movies in addition to the occasional bodice-ripper). "Rich in Love" is a 1992 movie that manages to be heart-warming without sentimentality. The focus is on a high-school girl (Kathryn Erbe) whose mother, with great deliberation, has walked out on the likeable slob of a father (Albert Finney) and her. The girl, Lucy, misses her high-school graduation in order to stabilize her stunned father, to try to understand the action of her mother (Jill Clayburgh), to head off her dad's new girlfriend (Tuesday Weld), and to cope with her neurotic older sister when she makes a surprise appearance with a new husband and an unwanted pregnancy. Finney, whom I find insufferably mannered in most of his recent roles, is marvelously believable as a cheerful but bewildered southern good-ol' boy. Weld and Clayburgh are both equally good as very different and very real women. Still, the acting honors, which the whole cast earns, go especially to Erbe who plays the youngest daughter with a kind of low-key truth and strength that is a pleasure to watch. One of the chief charms of the direction is a sense of reality in the place. Almost every scene evokes small-town South Carolina, and even the interiors of three houses seem far more like actual places than Hollywood usually manages. This movie is the antithesis of "sensational," but when your last megamonster movie leaves a crater in your memory, you will

As her family begins to unravel, young Lucille Odom (Kathryn Erbe) enburdens herself with the job of holding the whole deal together, including a casual father (Albert Finney) and a wild older sister (Suzi Amis).Erbe, a Chicagoan who does far too much work on stage and too little on film (What About Bob?), is wonderful, Finney, brilliant. The story does tend to wander, and each of the new characters that crosses our path (including Piper Laurie and Alfre Woodard) tend to show us as many weaknesses as strengths. Such is the honesty of the tale.The Southern (Charleston?) setting is wonderfully comfortable-we ride the visual images as much as the heartfelt characters. The whole thing has a Hallmark Hall of Fame feeling---with not the perfunctory payoff in the endI like this film very much.