| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | Harvey Karten |
| review follows |
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| 2. |
| Steve Rhodes |
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Review by Harvey Karten
3 stars out of 4
Every so often an article appears listing the major sources of
stress on a scale of 1 to 100. Losing your job, serious illness,
divorce, all rank in the 90's. Top of the list? Death of your
spouse. That's 100. When you wife or husband dies suddenly,
unexpectedly, the stress is probably greatest. Todd Louiso deals
with the reaction of two people near and dear to a young woman
who has committed suicide apparently without warning. In a
screenplay written by Gordy Hoffman expressly for his brother,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Love Liza" takes us into the minds of
the victim's mother, Mary Ann Bankhead (Kathy Bates) and, far
more important, the film explores the reaction of the woman's
husband, Wilson (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who has a vision
only once in flashback of his beloved.
Since the film has been written by the protagonist's own brother
and since Philip Seymour Hoffman is in virtually every frame, you
could not be faulted for thinking this is a vanity production. To an
extent, you'd be right given the dimensions of the work, something
that could turn up on cable TV and does not need the big screen
to reinforce its effect. But since director Todd Louiso is dealing
with the man's deterioration from within, made clear from the
wonderful actor's facial expressions and reversion to childhood
behavior, we can see why the movie took the Waldo Salt Screen
writing award at Sundance early this year and why Hoffman could
conceivably be considered an Oscar candidate if enough
Academy members ever get to see the work.
Hoffman is shown almost throughout the hour and a half in his
signature disheveled appearance, often with a two- or three-day
growth of hair on his face and a who-cares attitude about his
clothing-which is fine since he works with a bunch of young
computer nerds as a web designer. Showing up at work
surprisingly soon after his wife's death, he seem unable fully to
accept the tragedy, particularly since he refuses to open a sealed
envelope containing a final letter written to Wilson by the woman.
Given time off from his job, he becomes addicted to sniffing
gasoline, which he buys repeatedly in 2-gallon cans from a
suspicious proprietor in his town of Prescott, Arkansas.
Announcing to a visitor, who smells gas, that he is building
remote-control model planes, he makes good on his lie by buying
a model and winds up at a model boat competition with a rube-like
friend, Denny (Jack Kehler).
Peopple have many methods for coping with tragedy, and "Love
Liza" explores the extreme way one man from Middle America
operates, or more accurately fails to deal within normal
boundaries with his loss. Hoffman performs in the role of a person
who despite his off-the-wall reaction is never less than believable,
while Kathy Bates, as the mother of the dead woman who on the
surface appears to comfort her bereaved son-in-law, is going
through no small crisis herself. Anyone who has loved and lost
can understand how irritating well-wishers can be with their
insincere "I'm here for you" sympathies, but really, nobody can
put together the pieces of a psychologically fragmented person
but the man himself. Jim O'Rourke's almost ubiquitous sound
track seems to mimic the silliness of the bereaved who like a little
kid takes to sleeping on the floor, grooving on model boats and
planes, and in a couple of instances even helping to corrupt a
couple of pre-teens by giving them rags soaked in gasoline for
them to sniff. By avoiding commercial glitz, Todd Louiso
succeeds in getting under the skin of an individual in crisis.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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out of 4
