Rating: C-
Dir: Joseph Losey
Star: Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum, Peggy Ashcroft
Well, this is a weird ‘un. Based on a short story by Argentinian author Marco Denevi, it’s difficult to imagine anything like this being made in mainstream cinema nowadays. Taylor was obviously a star, having already won an Oscar; Farrow, less so. She was known more at the time for her role in soap opera Peyton Place, and her marriage to Frank Sinatra, almost three decades older. This was filmed between the shooting of Rosemary’s Baby in late 1967 and its release the following June. Losey had been forced out of Hollywood due to his previous membership in the American Communist party. He had kept working in Europe, though with mixed results, including the misfire of Modesty Blaise, and Hammer’s SF/horror film, The Damned.
The central conflict is between two women, both mentally disturbed as a result of loss. Yet their shortcomings on the sanity front allow them to mesh together in a supportive (to a certain extent) way. Leonora (Taylor) had her young daughter drown, and has subsequently fallen apart, including a failed suicide attempt. Some years later, she meets Cenci (Farrow), heiress whose mother has died, and her stepfather – who may or may not have sexually abused her – has run off to America. She now lives alone in a gigantic house, depicted by Debenham House in London. In her distressed state, she believes Leonora is her mother, a belief the older woman is prepared to… tolerate and, to a certain extent, encourage for her own benefit.
You could argue you are watching the interaction of two barking mad characters, and I would not disagree. It always seems to be teetering on the edge of full-blown, feminine hysteria, with faux mother and faux daughter gazing into each other’s psychological abysses. Which my spell-checker wants to change to “abuses”, and I am almost tempted to agree with it. Perhaps the closest to sane characters present are Cenci’s predatory aunts (Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Brown), who pop around for tea and whatever knick-knacks they can purloin. The only male present, the prodigal husband, Albert (Mitchum), has his own issues. Not the least of which is, some spectacularly bad facial hair, making him look like an Amish pedophile. Nobody here comes out with much credit.
While I won’t deny it’s well-acted, I found the drama all very wearing. The script seems reluctant to tell the viewer much, throwing you in at the deep end and leaving you to figure shit out. Just one example. I didn’t realize Leonora was supposed to be a prostitute, until I read the Wikipedia synopsis. Kinda seems relevant. Or maybe not. I do respect it for being the kind of serious and weird product you don’t see much these days, from big names like Taylor. On the other hand, I couldn’t tell you what it was trying to say, beyond “Bitches be crayzee.” On that basis, the contemporary absence of this sort of movie, doesn’t exactly feel like much of a loss.