MERMAIDS
US, 1990, 110 minutes, Colour.
Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Christina Ritchie, Michael Schoeffling, Jan Miner, Carolyn Mc Williams.
Directed by Richard Benjamin.
Mermaids was a very popular film for Cher. She had won an Oscar three years earlier for her role in Moonstruck. During the 1980s she had developed an acting career along with her singing career (after her teaming with Sonny Bono in the 1960s), with such films as Silkwood, Mask, The Witches of Eastwick and Suspect. She continues to do some acting as well as pursuing her singing career. Bob Hoskins shows that he is at home in films on both sides of the Atlantic.
The film offered early roles for both Winona Ryder and Christina Ritchie and both received awards for supporting actress as well as for young talent.
The film is set during the era of the Kennedy assassination and focuses on a mother who finds it difficult to manage her two children (from different fathers who abandoned her) and moves from town to town whenever there is a problem. However, it is time for mother and daughters to settle down – and to bring some order into their lives, especially for Winona Ryder as Charlotte, the older daughter who at one stage wants to be a nun and then falls in love with a man who works at the church. Cher also finds romance with Bob Hoskins in the town. It is a pleasing comedy-drama.
The film was directed by Richard Benjamin. Benjamin had achieved some success in the 60s and 70s as an actor with offbeat Jewish roles, especially in Diary of a Mad Housewife and Portnoy’s Complaint and The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker. He had good roles in Catch-22, Goodbye Columbus, Westworld and along with George Burns and Walter Matthau as their nephew in The Sunshine Boys. He then moved to directing in the early 1980s with My Favourite Year starring Peter O’ Toole. His films are varied in style with the romantic Racing with the Moon, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood in City Heat, Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix in the thriller, Little Nikita, as well as comedies like Made in America with Whoopi Goldberg. He also made two television versions of Neil Simon plays, Laughter on the 23rd Floor and The Goodbye Girl remake.
1.The 1960s setting? The background of the Kennedy era? The trauma of the assassination? The average American family of the 1960s? Family values?
2.The background of Massachusetts, the small town in which the family settles? The musical score?
3.The comedy, the seriousness? The title and the images? In relationship to Kate?
4.The family’s past, Rachel and the men in her life, the two fathers, the two daughters? The break with the men? The oddities of the family? Rachel and the girls coping? Yet their needs and longings? Love and understanding? The problems arising, Rachel and her decision to move?
5.The re-creation of the 60s, the ethos? The music?
6.Cher’s portrait of Rachel, her relationship with her daughters? The memory of the men in her life? Oklahoma, her being a wife, problems, her leaving and running away?
7.Settling in Massachusetts, getting the house, settling in? The difficulties? Her job? Relating to her daughters? Their discussions? The convent and the discussion with the mother superior? The shops? Her meeting Lou – and the attraction, falling in love?
8.Rachel in herself, age and experience, the girls, the men in her life, her capacity for work, the shop, cooking? Exasperation? Parents? The meeting with Lou, wanting to run away, Lou’s anger with her? Kate, the swimming, the danger of drowning? The talk, the resolution at the end?
9.Charlotte and the focus on her, the voice-over, her perspective on the characters? Her religious attitudes, her fears, her sense of guilt, wanting to become a nun? God, prayer, signs? Her relationship with her mother? With Kate? Torment, the house, school, going to the convent? The meeting with Joe, her infatuation with him, kissing, fearing she was pregnant, the talk with the doctor and her innocence? Angst at home, running away? The importance of her family, returning? Sex and angst? Anger and reconciliation?
10.The portrait of Kate, her swimming abilities, her age? At home? The shoes? Her relationship with Lou? The accident?
11.Lou as a nice man, his work, relating with his staff? His place in the town? Breakfasts? The important day, his anger? The fancy dress? Resolution at the end?
12.Joe, his age, experience, his story? Truths and untruths? The convent? The fishing? His kissing Charlotte? The bell? The sexual relationship?
13.The Catholic background, the nuns? Charlotte thinking she wanted to be a nun? Discussions? Joe and his working in the church?
14.The family difficulties, the resolution? The affirmation of traditional family values? In a comic way?
