This movie once again proves that Jane Fonda is simply the best actress alive today. She will always be remembered in the same way Bette Davis or Katherine Hepburn is remembered. Her performance here is stunning, and there is no doubt that she is the best thing about this film. I don't think Jane Fonda is capable of giving a bad performance, although her choices of film roles is sometimes questionable. Fonda plays a down-at-the-heels actress who used-to-almost-be a star, but wound up playing to a bottle of Thunderbird. Now a hopeless boozer, one step away from homelessness, she blacks out and wakes up in bed next to a stiff with serious heart-trouble: A butcher knife in his chest. Enough to give anyone the DTs... Jeff Bridges is a disabled marginally-functional ex-cop who takes in stray lushes; the perfect foil for Fonda's neurotically manic but sympathetic character.
The suspense is fairly well placed, if at times heavy-handed, the plot thickening when a sympathetic former cop, Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges) comes onto the scene who may or may not be trustworthy. Fonda's scene with Bridges over an impromptu dinner is simply superb where she says, "I used to be an actress," her biting sarcasm mixed with self-pitying pathos and bile. The interior sets are perfectly designed and decorated. An apartment all in Mauve with matching furniture and a glowing turquoise pool beyond a balcony. Buildings in Yellow and Red. Everything designed to draw you in. There are times when the dialogue seems a bit cheesy and dated but it is so much fun watching Jane here I don't care. I dig this out once a year to watch and I think most Fonda fans will love it.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
The suspense is fairly well placed, if at times heavy-handed, the plot thickening when a sympathetic former cop, Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges) comes onto the scene who may or may not be trustworthy. Fonda's scene with Bridges over an impromptu dinner is simply superb where she says, "I used to be an actress," her biting sarcasm mixed with self-pitying pathos and bile. The interior sets are perfectly designed and decorated. An apartment all in Mauve with matching furniture and a glowing turquoise pool beyond a balcony. Buildings in Yellow and Red. Everything designed to draw you in. There are times when the dialogue seems a bit cheesy and dated but it is so much fun watching Jane here I don't care. I dig this out once a year to watch and I think most Fonda fans will love it.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10.