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Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786302030914 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC ISBN: 6302030919 Label: Sony Pictures Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Sony Pictures Release Date: June 24, 1994 Running Time: 101 minutes Sales Rank: 14412 Studio: Sony Pictures Theatrical Release Date: September 12, 1990
Amazon.com essential video: As its title might suggest, this movie based on Carrie Fisher's Hollywood struggle works better as a snapshot than as a complete film. Meryl Streep plays Suzanne Vale, a successful actress who is lost in her addictions. Her episodes are never as bombastic as Clean and Sober or other antidrug movies of the 1990s, however. Vale's a more lovable person, and as with all lovable people in Hollywood, other Hollywood people care for her: an understanding director (Gene Hackman), a philandering boyfriend (Dennis Quaid), and a bemused doctor (Richard Dreyfuss). But if you are going to talk about Fisher, you are going to mention her mom, Debbie Reynolds. And here Vale's mom is the die-hard Doris Mann, played with appropriate virtuosity by Shirley MacLaine. The love-hate mother-daughter relationship takes over the film in an entertaining way, with Fisher's sharp comic writing coming into play. You nearly forgive Vale's troubles for having to live under a hurricane like Mann (who goes into her nightclub act at the drop of a hat). The film's sweetest pleasure is seeing Streep loose and modern, nary a drab outfit or an accent in sight. Streep and director Mike Nichols make a risky--and rewarding--finale (fueled by the Oscar-nominated "I'm Checking Out" by Shel Silverstein) work effortlessly. --Doug Thomas
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - One great movie!
Streep and Maclaine are outstandingly hilarious as mother and daughter. Both these actresses also show off their vocal talents and Streep is obviously talented enough to have succeeded entirely on her singing.
Rating: - Mother-Daughter Tensions Overshadow the Drugs in Carrie Fisher's Sharp-Tongued Hollywood Tale
Carrie Fisher's bracingly candid and acerbically amusing commentary is definitely worth a listen when you watch this scabrous 1990 comedy, especially since she wrote the screenplay based on her first novel, which is turn, was based on her life as a drug-addicted movie actress who happens to be the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. With the self-assured Mike Nichols at the helm, the picture is glossy and often smug in its insider's look of Hollywood, but it also has an emotionally resonant quality thanks mainly to the shrewdly observant interplay between Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine ... Read More
Rating: - I simply love Meryl Streep, perhaps the greatest living actress of our time.
Having just seen 'The Devil Wears Prada' for the umpteenth time in the last several months and not just to see Anne Hathaway...I have become transfixed with Meryl Streep's acting ability and the level of perfection and style that she brings to the screen.
I know that everyone has written their review and given their spin on this being a 'Hollywood Insider' film and it may very well be one. I too can relate to Suzanne Vale's travails; her dependency on drugs, the struggle with her relationship with her mother and with her career.
BUT, I do not think that this movie is so much ... Read More
Rating: - Balancing act between comedy & drama mostly succeeds
An actress's (Meryl Streep) recovery from drug addiction is complicated by her difficult, competitive relationship with her mother (Shirley MacClaine), a maintenance alcoholic and former star who misses the limelight. Based on Carrie Fisher's autobiographical novel, this film attempts a careful balance between comedy and drama and mostly succeeds. Although it gives short shrift to the seriousness of drug dependence, the comedy is genuinely funny in the capable hands of Streep and (especially) MacClaine. The ending is too tidy for its own good, but this film remains a funny comedy with glimpses of what ... Read More
Rating: - Wow
It takes a pretty spectacular person to take a difficult childhood, drug addictions, and relationships gone wrong, and turn all that into a screenplay that is funny and witty. That's exactly what Carrie Fisher did in Postcards from the Edge, a must-see movie. And don't miss Fisher's comments in the DVD, in which she shows how witty and brutally honest she is.
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