Reviews, I write reviews of movies, music, theatre, events, whatever strikes my fancy.

This used to be homework! Hopefully you won't feel that way reading my commentary.

Starring Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis and Gena Rowland, Hysterical Blindness is a story about 3 women and their desperate, often lonely and difficult lives. Gena plays Uma's mother, she's a coffee shop waitress who has a knack for getting involved with men who promise much and leave abruptly. Uma is a desperately clingy and compulsive young adult who can't quite get the flow of common interactions right. She is sweet, bitter, wounded, sometimes smart and often out of step emotionally with those she deals with at work, at home and at the bar she frequents with Juliette Lewis. Juliette's character is a fairly inattentive, but well meaning single mom.

These three go through the basic stages of dating hell over the course of the movie. Nervous introductions, moments of threshold crossing, relationship establishment, abandonment and loss are all laid bare, uncomfortably, intimately. The film is set in the mid-1980's, during an era that many found profitable and pleasurable. This is not the world these women live in. The work hard, long hours, they drink and dance in plain, little neighborhood taverns and cry at their inexpensive kitchen dinette sets when things go wrong.

As painful as their stories are, the telling is compelling and keeps you engaged even as you cringe for their pains. I kept waiting for the "Hallmark moment" the point where "it is all better". The script is smarter than that and I am glad that it is. The ending is as pointed and painful as the rest of the film, not dropping the tension, for any pat ending, quick solution, would ruin the tone set beforehand. Thankfully the writer and director were smart enough and able to hold on to a much more satisfying, strong finish.

I recommend that you catch this film, with a box of tissues by your side. The soundtrack, by the way, is quite nice, some not often referenced songs pop up. I also must mention the costuming, whew, its some of the worst/best/most extreme/most typical of the 80's "tear and tassle" chic. Well done!

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