'night, Mother (1986)

It takes guts to adapt a stage play to the screen without "opening it up;" most of the time such efforts either feel confining or, if opened up, the power of the original gets lost in the screenplay."'night, Mother", adapted to the screen by the original playwright Marsha Norman, is a courageous, nearly heroic effort: Norman does not allow the action to move outside the small house shared by Thelma Cates (Anne Bancroft) and her daughter Jessie (Sissy Spacek) and the result is a harrowing look at two unhappy women and the different solutions they find for their unhappiness.Jessie, a middle-aged epileptic who can neither hold down a job or even drive a car, whose husband has left her and whose son is a petty criminal, has decided on her "final solution:" suicide, with her late father's pistol.The film opens with Jessie puttering around the house and we see that she has a list of things to do before taking her leave. The camera follows Spacek around the house as she does laundry, cleans out the refrigerator and some of the kitchen cabinets, occasionally glancing at her list and crossing an item off.Enter Thelma, home from some kind of shopping trip. The dialogue between them is completely ordinary until Thelma sees Jessie cleaning her father's pistol and, after some verbal fencing, Jessie tells Thelma of her plan to be dead by morning.Thus the stage is set for a tug-of-war for Jessie's soul, with Mama on one side and Jessie herself on the other. Thelma becomes increasingly desperate as she realizes her daughter has made up her mind, and the film builds to a shattering climax.The original Broadway cast was Kathy Bates as Jessie and Anne Pitoniak as Thelma. It's a little unfortunate that they didn't bring them to the screen: Spacek and Bancroft are both excellent but they don't always seem to be related. Spacek is real while Bancroft is theatrical and they don't always appear to be on the same page dramatically. But this is a small quibble about an otherwise superb film that ultimately breaks the heart.

It's six in the evening an introverted young lady names Jessie Cates (Sissy Spacek) asks her mother Thelma (Anne Bancroft) where her father's where her father left his gun. Not feeling threatened by this young lady's strange request, Thelma tells her. Jessie is middle-aged person whose life has been in utter turmoil. Her husband abandoned her and drug addicted son has vanished, Jessie is now living back at her mother's house and things have been very settling until that particular evening. Thelma catches on later that the reason Jessie asked her for his gun is to lock herself into her room and to end her life after the night has cleared. Thelma stays strong and does everything she can to persuade her daughter into not committing such an act.Based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning play by Marsha Norman, the theatrical integrity speaks volumes and due to being low budget, scenery and settings are frugally limited. Almost 90% of the film is situated in the small house but the scope of the film depends on dialogue and hopes that Jessie does not commit an act she might regret before it's too late, and to hope Thelma tries to help her from doing it. There are a few flaws in "'night Mother", but the performances are quite remarkable. Spacek is someone a person could relate to and her emotions are very real. Bancroft was just as wonderful as Thelma and her struggle to keep her daughter from suicide is purely heroic. The script by Miss Norman succeeds as she keeps her characters in fine tune and keeping it in their living quarters as the intensity manifests progresses when the mother and daughter move around. The body language is quite believable and very convincing. The cinematography by Stephen Katz can be a bit spontaneous at times that avoids making this film acceptable when really it should have been more restrained knowing as to what the social issues that is being dealt with. It may seem very frugal, but the meager score is actually very effective. The score is just a simple acoustic guitar demo from the beginning of the movie and when the film wraps up in the end. This is good because it does not overlap with the scintillating dialogue and the subliminal body language and it refrains itself from adding violins which would have ruined the atmosphere. It's actually very easy to follow as there are no confusing flashbacks or any jumping to scenes abruptly. It all happens in one period of time which is a distraction to the bad cinematography. The subject of suicide can be a really tough subject to handle and the controversy that goes with it can be quite overwhelming at times. This movie had a lot of things going for it, but the faults in this movie were very flabbergasting as well. The pacing was way too slow and I don't have a short attention span. The stage-to-screen formatting was poorly executed (could be because of limited budget). However, it is the acting from Spacek and Bancroft that is the real reason this movie does stand out.

I have seen many drama movies in my lifetime so far, and this one is excellent. "Sissy Spacek", and "Anne Bancroft" both played their roles extremely well from beginning to end. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone who wants to watch a very good drama. I'm sure that it was hard to do this movie because of the subject being so dramatic, and tragic. I would love to see more drama movies like this one, and it would be great to see "Sissy Spacek" again. It doesn't have to be the same type of movie dealing with suicide but, it would be great to see her in a drama again. Another movie that she's done that I really like her in, and enjoy watching is "Carrie". She was very good in that one too. I would recommend that one also to anyone.

It's gut wrenching, incredibly sad, funny in a few parts and completely shocking. I first saw this movie in my early 20's and it had a profound effect on me. I do not watch it much because it is very, very deep and extremely, depressing.Jessie Cates, played by Sissy Spacek, is a middle-aged, epileptic living with her mother. She has had a traumatic, divorce in her past and a wayward son headed for prison. Due to her illness, she can't drive or hold down a job and has no hopes that anything will get better for her. Jessie, has after years of contemplating suicide, finally picked the night to do it. She has organized her personal belongings and put everything in order. Now, all she has to do is tell her mother.Anne Bancroft, plays Jessie's mother, the blissfully ignorant, Thelma Cates. Who by her own description, is "a plain, old, country woman" who "just really doesn't think there's all that much to things". She is caught totally off guard when her daughter tells her, she is planning to kill herself that night. Momma Cates is so blatantly unaware that her daughter is unhappy that she even tells her where the gun is before asking why.The subject matter and the way it's presented is so thought provoking that one doesn't even take notice of the fact that almost this entire movie consists of basically only two actresses.I highly recommend this movie, just don't expect a happy ending.