Ironweed

Cold, desolate in the surface and an uncomfortable warmth in the inside. Meryl Streep leads in a way that is difficult to explain. She provides a truly magic movie moment when she sings "He's My Pal" for her supper. For a moment we live her fantasy. Her moment is our moment, that's why as the song and the fantasy ends something inside me cracked. I felt tears running down my face and, I swear, I wasn't ready for that. The humanity of Meryl Streep, the actress, filters through the devastating circumstances of her character. Circumstances that, by the time we meet her, are already a way of life. At the beginning of the film, when somebody asks her how is she, her reply is "Delightful". Trying to adjust to this character I listen to her stained, tired voice, trying to be heard and I did, heard her. I love Meryl Streep.

I had seen this movie when it first came out, and just seemed hopelessly depressing. Good acting and sets, but a story with little hope for anyone. Recently I re-watched it and have an appreciation for its accurate depiction of alcoholism. I think this story could take place in any decade and have the same outcome. But the fact its in the depression era drives it all home that much harder. Francis (Nicholson) plays a down trodden bum all too familiar with the alleys and soup kitchens of 1938 Albany NY. He has a casual relationship with Helen (Streep) who seems very down on her luck too. If Francis can stay sober for a few days, the kind priest at the mission finds him odd jobs for pay. But soon as Francis works, he drinks again. Helen also is quite a drinker, and the two try to take care of each other finding places to sleep and getting food to eat. Paying attention to the dialog and flashbacks, the viewer learns Francis and Helen had fairly illustrious and gruesome pasts. Francis is prone to seeing many 'ghosts' haunt him still. In a way to confront his past, he returns to his wife and family he had abandoned after a tragedy a few decades earlier. He makes amends as best he can, but redemption seems to get more elusive for him. Not that the film takes any hard stance on alcoholism, but I'd say shows that it's truly an incurable disease that can torture a person to utter hopelessness and still continue. Past accomplishments, future dreams, true love and devotion and loss are all meaningless when there's another drink to be had. So the movie I don't think will either sober a true alcoholic up by watching it - but may help? Nor do I think it will encourage anyone to take up the profession seriously - unless they already have the infliction? But to the good christian that is naive to the vices many of us get addicted to, I think this movie realistically shows the destructive torment and survival alcohol can cause, regardless of success, tragedy, or current blight. Beautifully ugly.

I found this movie on DVD at my public library, I watched it at home.

The Great Depression in the USA lasted from 1929 to 1939. This movie is set in 1938 Albany, New York, near the end of the Depression but with most communities in a depressed economic state.

Jack Nicholson is Francis Phelan, a drifter who has been away from home for some years. He returns right at Halloween, he meekly looks up his wife and two young adult children, but he calmly states that he doesn't plan to stay.

His friend with benefits for some years is Meryl Streep as Helen, former singer and entertainer who now was a shell of her former self.

In a non-glamorous role Carroll Baker is Francis' faithful wife Annie Phelan, she is surprised when he shows up but treats him with compassion.

This is just a slice of life story, bums and drifters doing what they can to sometimes find a little work, maybe get a sandwich here or visit the soup kitchen there, find an abandoned car to sleep in for the night without freezing.

I didn't find the story itself very enjoyable, it is a tragic story, but I found it worthwhile for Nicholson and Streep.

_Ironweed_ haunts for a long time after viewing, so be prepared. I also suggest that you be employed while you view this one.

William Kennedy's novel was an extreme work of beauty, and as much as I enjoyed and respected the novel, I never dreamed a film version could surpass it. In some ways at least, I believe this film does. Streep is luminous, no small feat while playing a drunk (they weren't called "homeless people" back then). And although he's proved it again since, this was the first time most of us saw Nicholson act. Tom Waits is terrific and gritty, Carroll Baker comes out of semi-retirement as though this was the one role she had left in her to play, and mixes pain and determination in just the right quantities.

Babenco clearly had a vision, and displays a maturity I hadn't expected from him. Even the score, a couple of tunes used over the opening and closing credits will make your heart ache.

It's all pathos, and it's all good. Grab it while you can -- I had to go to Canada and get a used copy online to find it at all. It was worth it.

There are many reasons why this film is a masterpiece, but the most significant element is surely Streep's portrayal of a homeless alcoholic in 1930's Albany. Her appearance, about half an hour into the film, is quite frankly, astonishing. She walks into a soup kitchen and sits down next to Nicholson and your jaw drops at the transformation. Beyond the technical virtuosity, you marvel at the choices that Streep makes that express the character so movingly, from the vocal production which is almost like a groan of pain, to the body language including her constantly averted glance and shuffling walk which express the woman's lost self esteem, to her bursts of rage when we see the glimmer of the spirit she once posessed. There's a scene in a bar in which she sings for the patrons that you will never forget.

Every other element of the film succeeds: the other performances (Nicholson, Tom Waits and Carol Baker stand out), the production design recreating a vanished era flawlessly without resorting to the phony perfection of say a Merchant Ivory film, the sound design which is surprisingly complex for such an intimate film, the screenplay, the cinematography, the direction. How is it that Hector Babenco has only made two films since this one?