Marvin's Room


3/4

Starring: Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro

Rated PG-13 for Thematic Elements and Brief Language

“Marvin’s Room” is a family drama about three dysfunctional people who, after being forced together after a long absence, find ways to heal.  No, this isn’t Lifetime.  Far from it, in fact.  With three of the best actors around, you can bet that this is not just a sappy melodrama.

Lee (Streep) and Bessie (Keaton) are sisters who haven’t spoken to each other in 20 years.  After their father (Hume Cronyn) had a stroke, Bessie stayed behind to care for him and her aunt (Gwen Verdon) while Lee left to have her own life.  Now Bessie has leukemia, and needs Lee and her two sons, Hank (DiCaprio) and Charlie (Hal Scardino) to drive down to Florida to see if they are viable donors for a bone marrow transplant.

As depressing as this movie sounds, it’s actually a feel-good movie.  The joy in the movie is about seeing these characters that we sympathize with finally beginning to heal.  It’s an uplifting, and at times funny, film.

Being based on a play, it goes without saying that this is an actor’s show.  Fortunately, the producers attracted three of the best performers in Hollywood to the project: Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio.  Robert DeNiro is also on hand, but he’s not that important (although he gives a great performance as Dr. Wally).

Diane Keaton has called her co-star, Meryl Streep “my generation’s genius,” and there’s a whole element of truth to that.  Streep is one of the hardest working, and subsequently most talented, actresses alive today, and easily one of the best screen stars who’s ever lived.  In any movie starring Streep, you can always count on her being in top form, and “Marvin’s Room” is no exception.  As Lee, Streep gets the chance to be the “villain” of the film, if you can call her that.  She’s not a particularly likable person, but we understand her.  Lee is selfish, refusing to take responsibility for just about anything or put her life on hold for anyone else.  To her credit, she’s got two kids she has to raise all by herself, one of whom, Hank, is an out of control menace who is in and out of mental institutions.

Bessie, on the other hand, is anything but selfish.  In fact, “selfless” is a more apt description.  She did put her life on hold to care for her father and aunt, but she has also gotten more out of life than Lee.  “I have so much love,” she says.  Surprisingly, she is much happier than Lee.  Bessie could have been a saintly Miss Sunshine character in the hands of a lesser actress, but Keaton plays her with vulnerability and passion, and that’s why it works.

It’s a testament to his talent that Hank is so different from Leonardo DiCaprio’s next role, Jack Dawson in “Titanic.”  Jack was a heroic stud who made many girls’ hearts go aflutter; Hank would do no such thing to anyone.  Hank is about as stable as a loaded gun in the hands of someone super jacked up on caffeine.  Much of that has to do with the resentment he feels towards his mother, who really doesn’t even try to help him.  But through his interactions with Bessie, he begins to open up, and his relationship with Lee begins to heal.

The film isn’t flawless.  While the screenplay opens up the story so that it doesn’t feel like a filmed version of a play, it does feel episodic.  We see the characters begin to repair their relationships, but just as the healing is almost finished, the film cuts to the next scene where they are as close as ever.  The film also doesn’t have a real ending.  Some movies do well with an open ending, this isn’t one of them.

Still, I don’t hesitate to recommend the film.

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