PASSED AWAY
US, 1992, 92 minutes, Colour.
Bob Hoskins, Blair Brown, Tim Currie, Frances Mc Dormand, William Petersen, Pamela Reed, Peter Reigert, Maureen Stapleton, Nancy Travis, Jack Warden, Teri Polo, Deborah Rush, Dan Futterman.
Directed by Charlie Peters.
Passed Away is an entertaining, if broad, comedy about death. Bob Hoskins plays the older son of Jack Warden who, smoking heavily after a heart operation, collapses at the beginning of a surprise party put on by his rather dim second son William Peterson. The film portrays the family gathering, the wake, the interrelationships within the family, the Catholic tradition of Chicago, the mix-ups and the funeral. Bob Hoskins is good as the bewildered older son, becoming even more bewildered when he suspects that the young woman, Nancy Travis, who comes to the wake, is his father's mistress. It emerges that she is not, but not until after he has made something of a fool of himself. Blair Brown is his patient and easygoing, understanding wife. William Peterson is good as the dim brother. Pamela Reed is enjoyably strident as the daughter who has not been able to reveal her divorce from Tim Currie for four years to the family, even though her mother, Maureen Stapleton, knows. Frances Mc Dormand plays a nun who has spent three years in El Salvador, has smuggled in an illegal and is being investigated by the police - much to the delight of Pamela Reed who has always found that she was too much of a goody-goody.
There are a lot of expected situations, but the strength of the cast and their performances move the film along, giving an enjoyable insight into this extended family with its skeletons in the closet, its hopes and ambitions, its capacity for love - and the leadership of Bob Hoskins as he takes his father's place and accepts his role within the family.
1. Enjoyable comedy, family and death American style?
2. The realism of the city, the offices, homes, the beauty salons, funeral parlours, cemeteries?
3. The title, comedy of death, the reality of death and its impact? Wake and celebration? The patriarch, his past, women, love, the unions? Cassie, the good that he did for her and her family? The discussions with Johnnie at the opening, planning to tell him about how he relaxed? Entering into the office, the surprise party, Frank speaking, his dropping dead?
4. Johnnie, his age, the long marriage, his pleasant wife, pregnant daughter, the son with the earring, the details of family life, the discussions in the kitchen? His work felling the trees? Talking to his father, his wanting a change of life, organising Frank, telling his mother, going to the parlour and the discussions about the coffin, digging the grave, falling into it? The body in state, Norah and her wanting to substitute the illegal migrant, working with Peter and Frank? Cassie? The aunts? His pregnant niece, Teri and her divorce? His infatuation with Cassie, following her, going to visit the beauty parlour, the discussions, her pulling him out of the grave, her being insulted? His arrangement for the motel and the older woman turning up? Norah and the illegal, the body? The funeral, his speech in the church? The changes of everybody in the cars on the way to the cemetery? The niece giving birth, his finding his place within the family, speaking strongly to the aunts, organising?
5. His wife, pleasant, knowing what was happening in him, her direct way of speaking, the sense of realism? The kids?
6. Frank, everybody thinking him thick, a good sportsman? At the office, the party, his father's dying? His father's tradition with the unions, Frank and his work, ineffective, the union leader and the confrontation, the threats, his being a figurehead? The coffin and his wanting a better one? His daughter's pregnancy and his worry about appearances? His wife, predatory, having had to marry him, putting stickers on the possessions in the house? His reputation? The funeral, the reality of the birth, his apology to his daughter? His daughter, her pregnancy, her grandmother knowing? The father of the baby, the clash, his coming to the funeral, the reconciliation, his presence at the birth?
7. Teri and her dancing, her past, her ex-husband, offering him the use of the space so that he would come and pose as her husband? His style, manner? Their fights, concealing the truth? Her mother knowing? With Peter, memories of the past, Peter and his love for her, making the waitress jealous - and Teri conniving with her while she danced with Peter? The sexual encounter in the room, her reaction to Norah, always thinking her perfect, finding her against the law and her satisfaction, unable to betray her? The moving of the body? Her future with Peter?
8. Norah, the new kind of nun, her listening to the Sermon on the Mount, going to work in El Salvador, justice, with the illegal, concealing him, her father's body?
9. Cassie, her presence, people's assumptions about her, talking to Johnnie, the truth, helping him out of the grave? Her not going to the funeral, having thanked the father for all that he had done for her?
10. Peter, his chequered history, drugs and prison, in love with Teri? Trying to make the waitress jealous? The sexual encounter, helping to conceal the body and the illegal? His future with Teri?
11. The Irish Catholicism, the priest and his friendliness, the bishop at the funeral, the young priest, the wake, his drinking, his exuberant singing, his collapse?
12. The cumulative effect of the portrait of a family, functional and dysfunctional, the bonds, the mistakes, the spirit, the Catholicism?
