WISHFUL DRINKING

US, 2010, 85 minutes. Colour.
Carrie Fisher.
Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.

Wishful Drinking is the title of an autobiographical book by Carrie Fisher. This is a filmed performance from South Orange, New Jersey in 2010.

The film introduces Carrie Fisher being made up for her performance, coming on stage – a rather contrived set with many props as well as a screen for a variety of photos and clips to illustrate her life.

She comes on stage, singing Happy Days, a rather buxom fifty-three-year-old, engaging with the audience most humorously – and eliciting immediate response.

The film focuses on her life, her parents. She is not particularly complimentary towards her father, Eddie Fisher, his career, his marriage to her mother, his consoling Elizabeth Taylor after the death of Mike Todd, the divorce from Elizabeth Taylor, his relationship with Connie Stevens and his children – and his further marriages, use of drugs, face lifts. (She mentions that he has seen the show – and a note adds that he died three months after the performance was filmed.)

She is rather more humorous on her mother, Debbie Reynolds, and is able to imitate her voice and intonations very well. She obviously admires her mother, is amazed at how her mother coped with her life, is puzzled at times by her mother’s naivety. She also has stories about her grandmother in Texas.

While she tells the story of her life, she mentions that her mother had taken her to perform in the chorus on Broadway, also took her to London and urged her to study drama there.

There is a lot of talk about Star Wars, continual jokes about Princess Leia (including wearing the typical wig). She also talks, very facetiously, about all the marketing gimmicks and how she has been represented over the decades. She has some humorous comments on George Lucas.

Carrie Fisher married Paul Simon and she talks about that experience, about their bonds, about the break-up – especially in the years when she was writing novels, wrote Postcards from the Edge, went to the filming of Postcards from the Edge in Hollywood. She then talks about her marriage to Brian Lourd and the birth of her daughter – and his leaving her for another man.

A lot of the performance is taken up with her reflections on her depression, bipolar situation, the treatment, her alcoholism, her drug-taking. She also talks about being turned into a celebrity for depression, about her being in institutions.

While this is a Hollywood story, with all the glamour and all the heartbreak and dark side behind the scenes, it is also a performance by a survivor who might well have had a failed life after such initial success.

The film is often very funny, Carrie Fisher certainly has a way with words and with timing – sometimes clever, sometimes crass (especially about her father) but a frequently entertaining, frequently interesting autobiographical performance.