# Living Out Loud (1998)

### reviewed by
Dennis Schwartz

LIVING OUT LOUD (director/writer:Richard LaGravenese; cinematographer: John Bailey; cast: Holly Hunter (Judith), Danny DeVito (Pat), Queen Latifah (Liz Bailey), Martin Donovan (Bob Nelson), Elias Koteas (the Kisser), Richard Schiff (Philly), Eddie Cibrian (The Masseur), 1998)

    Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A tepid comedy/drama, involving a wealthy nurse, Judith (Holly Hunter), who is miserable, even talking aloud to herself in public, you know, like crazy people do. She was dumped for a younger woman after sixteen years of marriage by her cardiologist husband, Dr. Bob Nelson (Donovan). In her Fifth Avenue luxury co-op where she lives, we will regularly see her entering the lobby dressed-up in evening clothes after a night out on the town. She will regularly come across the also divorced doorman-elevator man, Pat (DeVito), but never notice him until this one night when she feels talkative and there is no one for her to talk to but him. He is feeling blue because his wife has kicked him out some time ago, after 25 years of marriage, something he has never gotten over; and, recently his beloved daughter passed away. He also has some heavy gambling debts, but doesn't have the money to settle up with the gangsters he owes the money to. The lonely Judith starts a conversation on the elevator with him and this starts their unlikely friendship. Admittedly, Pat is attracted to her, having more than a friendship in mind with the comely woman. Loneliness seems to be her only reason for making contact with someone she has nothing in common with. Into the mix of this new friendship, you can add the busty nightclub singer at Judith's favorite nightspot, Liz Bailey (Queen Latifah). She becomes her provider of wisdom. Though, she is also divorced and admittedly is no crackerjack in dealing with relationships, yet she seems to be handling her divorce in a more worldly manner than her new friends.

As you might surmise from a mainstream film like this, it wants to pull you along with all the heartaches it can muster from these lonely souls, and it does so, by making use of semi flashbacks and scenes that have a mixture of fantasy and reality to it. We continually hear Judith's bitter thoughts pour out from her, as she tries to get another life for herself. To a lesser degree, this style of filmmaking also works for the less complicated Pat, as his mental grief comes pouring out in spurts. His thoughts are geared to getting all he can out of life, as he tries desperately to just be himself, needing only a little help from family to secure a business and get over his gambling debts.

The film's title, Living Out Loud, is deliberately misleading, as it should really be retitled as "Fantasizing Out Loud." The problem for these two, is that they never found out who they were in their marriage, so when their marriages fell apart, so did they. In other words, they are not living out loud from what is on their mind; they are merely fantasizing what is on their mind.

This therefore becomes a film more intrigued with self-awareness than with relationships and loses its edge as a romantic film. Its brightest hope is how the viewer relates to the film's stars. I didn't, so the film just seemed to drag for me at times and it seemed manipulative, to the bargain. My problem is that I didn't really care what happened to them. Why they were sad and lonely, is a sympathetic enough story, but there was just nothing served up that made me feel that this predictable story had anywhere important to go. The only innovative feature of the film, which did save it from the doldrums, was that we were able to go inside their heads and hear their thinking process at work. The filmmaker has borrowed this guise of introspection from the pages of Chekhov, which works out reasonably well on film, though it is still better served as a device for the reader of books.

At least the film never turns to mush, as its static atmosphere is enhanced mostly by some of the lively nightclub scenes, such as when Liz is belting out her sultry jazz numbers and offering good cheer for advice (trust me, it wasn't on a par to the Biblical Solomon's advice). She mops up the screen with her bosomy and glittering presence and dwarfs the other co-stars when onscreen together.

Fortunately, the story itself was somewhat believable, of the need for the two loners to use each other in a nice way, to find a path in their life to take them out of their doldrums, and to find out who they are. But I couldn't picture them falling in love for even a second and certainly not for a minute, these two were just not compatable. She, being cultured and upper-class and aspiring to be a pediatrician, and Pat, who is unappealing to her physically, and is a coarse, uneducated man, and he is a dullard. But come to think of it, she's pretty dull herself.

On a positive note, the self-pity of the two is handled deftly by the director; and, the releases the two find for their tension are very human vices to have: his being gambling and hers drinking too many dry martinis and talking aloud to herself (fantasizing).

The pathetic nature of how their lives have turned out and of how far down they have sunk, comes across in moments such as when Judith mistakes the wrong door for the bathroom in a nightclub and is suddenly pounced on by a man kissing her passionately (Elias Koteas). That he turns out to have made a mistake, expecting a married woman at the bar to join him for the kiss, doesn't deter her from not only forgiving him for the mistake but becoming attracted to him, especially when she finds him to be harmless and civil. Needless to say, her fantasies sustain her while she is trying to get a grip on her life, but one can't live by fantasy alone. Or can they? The fantasy she has of making it with the hunk masseur (Cibrian), who gives her the sex massage she dreams of, are the kind of private thoughts that perhaps more people have than what is commonly thought, but this is certainly not a way to self-discovery and a way out of her situation, though it seems to help her in someway, but the film has really not made it clear how she was helped. Her other big self-discovery about herself, comes when she acts out a fantasy at a lesbian after-hours nightclub. This becomes another bridge taken between reality and fantasy, and it was the most spirited moment of the film, as she lived out her white woman fantasy to become a black queen for the night, dancing away as if she had been a lesbian all her life. She will even fantasize for a moment about loving Pat, but the filmmaker has the good sense to keep this part of the romantic story level-headed, as her liking for him is driven only by her desperate situation and not because they are really meant for each other. Their relationship should turn out to be a limited and probably a temporary one, like many such Manhattan relationships that singles and divorcees go through when living alone in a big city.

This bittersweet romance turns out to be too dry for my taste; but, it is, nevertheless, faultlessly told and seems to be sincere in its presentation, and what the heck, they seem to be ok people, and probably merit a tad of sympathy for their plight.

This is the first feature directed by the screenwriter LaGravenese, whose previous work is a mixture of some good ones, some flops and some so-so works (The Fisher King,Unstrung Heroes, A Little Princess,The Bridges of Madison County,The Mirror Has Two Faces, Beloved). His attempt here to make a combination fantasy and a straight romance film, has worked with mixed results. I think the major fault for the film's dullness lies with the co-stars; I couldn't get aroused by Holly Hunter's performance, as intelligent as it was, it was still too plain and too staid. While Danny De Vito, who is a natural comic and is best at being featured as a second-banana, wasn't funny enough here and couldn't be taken seriously enough as a romantic suitor for Holly. I'm not saying that he was completely miscast, he did bring some depth to his character's anguished situation and believability to his role. But someone else, a more romantic leading man, might have given the film a romantic tension to it that it desperately needed. Though I realize the point of the story was that these two weren't really suited for each other in the first place and that this was the odd twist to their non-romance. But my point is, that they could have been not suited for each other all right, but not by such a wide margin as these two were. It made the ending seem logical, that their real need is not to fall in love with each other, but to get their life in order and get an identity of their own. But that was also too predictable an ending, limiting the scope of the film.

    REVIEWED ON 10/21/99          GRADE: C

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

    http://www.sover.net/~ozus

    ozus@sover.net

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