Cher, Eric Stoltz, Sam Elliott, Laura Dern. Dir. Peter Bogdonovich, Universal, 1985
As I've noted, my movie addiction starts with my parents taking me to see Disney's Bedknobs&Broomsticks when I was four years old. I spent the '70s seeing any movie I could, mostly Disney and other kid-friendly fare, peppered by notable exceptions like The Sting, Jaws, and The Outlaw Josey Wales. In the '80s, my teenage and young adult years, I began to see more adult-themed movies and started watching with a somewhat more critical eye. I have since compiled a list of every '80s movie I've seen.
It's a long list. All the usual suspects are on it. The classic '80s fare, the Purple Rains and Red Dawns and Top Guns and so forth predominate. Whenever I go out scavenging, I always keep an eye out for '80s titles I have not seen or have but do not own. I regard the unseen ones as pieces of a picture puzzle I've been filling in for 40 years. Last night, I fitted in Peter Bogdonovich's 1985 drama, Mask.
Mask marked something of a comeback for Bogdonovich, who made his name as director of '70s classics The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon. Most of his films in the second half of the 1970s tanked commercially and critically, reducing his standing in Hollywood. Mask, the biopic of Rocky Dennis, a young boy with a cranial deformity known colloquolly as "lionitis," because sufferers' faces take on a leonine quality as their bones grow out of control, found critical favor and commercial success, grossing almost $50M against a $7M budget.
I remember the attention paid Mask at the time. It introduced the American moviegoer to a young Laura Dern, to Eric Stoltz as a leading man, and to Cher as a leading lady. An avid reader of reviews and Hollywood-insider news, I knew more about the movie than some of my friends who saw it, but I never did. I always counted Mask as an unfortunate omission, so I was excited when I brought it home from Walmart the other day. Would that I were as excited after seeing it last night.
Mask is not a terrible film, not even a bad one. It's good, but in the way a double cheeseburger is still good when it cools off some, just not as good as anticipated. For an inherently emotional tale of a teenager coming to grips not simply with the changes all teenagers endure but with his disfiguring condition, Mask feels flat, a counterintuitive quality, and a disappointing one.
Mask solved one '80s mystery for me:why didn't Stoltz ever catch on as a movie star. I always enjoyed his supporting roles, particularly in Cameron Crowe's first four films and as Lance, Vincent Vega's heroin dealer in Pulp Fiction, but he's the weakest link in the movie and, since it centers on his character, that's a problem.
Fortunately, Bogdonovich, who is fond of saying good casting does 90% of a director's job, surrounds Stoltz with much stronger and more colorful actors, like Dennis Burkley, Joe Piazza (the "how much for your wife" guy from Blues Brothers), Andy Robinson (the psychopath Scorpio from Dirty Harry) as a stiff-necked physician, John Ford-alum Harry Carey, Jr., as the aging leader of the motorcycle club with whom Cher hangs around (Bogdonovich directed the first John Ford doc, Directed by John Ford), and Sam Elliott as Cher's on&off biker boyfriend. Golden Girl Estelle Getty and LA Law's Richard Dysart put in appearances as Cher's estranged parents, who dote on Rocky but can barely talk civilly to their daughter.
The women give the strongest performances. Laura Dern, as a blind girl who falls in love with Rocky, responding to his kindness, is all adolescent ache and heart. Her scenes with Stoltz are the most emotionally affecting in the picture. Cher, as Rusty Dennis, had not headlined a major motion picture yet after doing solid support work in Silkwood and Come Back to the Five&Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Her Rusty previews the Oscar-winning work she would do in Moonstruck just a couple years later. Bogdonovich had to fight for her inclusion as the studio wanted Jane Fonda. Thank goodness he prevailed - Fonda is a great actress, but no one would believe her as a drug abusing biker mama.
The best thing I can say for Mask is that Bogdonovich avoids both the "Rocky's-outward-deformity-mirrors-teenagers'-sense-of-inner-freakishness" and the "don't-we-all-feel-like-Rocky-looks" tropes on which this kind of story often premises. Bogdonovich and screenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan also avoid the deadly noble-crippled-person cliche. Rocky's a teenager. He's moody, heartsick, worried, relaxed, and occasionally enraged, states known to all teenagers, regardless of their appearance. Bogdonovich offers no editorials, no judgments, particularly of Rusty's growing drug addiction and frequently changing bedmates.
On the other hand, that refusal to inject big drama may be part of what renders Mask so unaffecting. We come to movies like this expecting some emotional manipulation, some tear-jerking. Outside of Stoltz's exchanges with Dern, especially their first kiss, Mask gives us none of that. Not even Rocky's death sparked much feeling in me. The moment and the other characters' reaction to it have been telegraphed a few miles out.
All of which is NOT to say "avoid this movie." Don't. See it, it's a decent picture with some good things going for it. Don't approach it with much in the way of expectation, however. It will not reward them. Which might make it a better film than I've described, but not one I'll soon revisit.
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