"Obsessive Love"
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What You Need To Know:
Critically praised, this is a disturbing yet sometimes comic drama in which the characters break moral taboos such as wife kidnapping. With due respect for the great acting, so good in part because of good writing, the movie will not attract moral Americans. Eddie and Mo are desperate, frantic souls that don’t care about their health, or the health of anybody else. Many obscenities and profanities are voiced in this movie. Finally, the movie suggests that it is all right to steal a married woman away from her husband if you are in love with her. These characters, with no idea of right and wrong, blatantly shock the audience member with atrocious behavior. SHE’S SO LOVELY may gain attention for months to come, but its appeal is limited.
Content:
(Ro, Pa, LLL, VV, S, A, D, M) Romantic worldview with pagan elements; 82 obscenities & 16 profanities; moderate violence including attempted rape, biting, men fist fight, man slaps woman, beating, man crashes through window, man shoots man& threats with gun; no depicted sex but extensive kissing & sexual advances; no nudity but woman in underwear; alcohol use, abuse & child drinks beer while parents allow it; smoking; and miscellaneous immorality & disturbing scenes including man kisses man in a non-sexual way, scenes of man going insane & man steals a married woman away from her lawfully wedded husband
More Detail:
Sean Penn garnered a Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role as insane Eddie in the movie SHE’S SO LOVELY (originally called SHE’S DE LOVELY), a hyperkinetic, dialogue-rich story of obsessive love taken to the extreme. Critically praised, it is a disturbing yet sometimes comic drama in which the characters break moral taboos such as wife kidnapping. Written by the late John Cassavetes (ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE DIRTY DOZEN) and directed by his son, Nick Cassavetes (UNHOOK THE STARS), this movie serves as a forum for intense acting by the leads Sean Penn and his wife, Robin Wright Penn. Their acting is the only merit-worthy aspect of this otherwise unwholesome and difficult movie.
The story is simple. Robin Wright Penn, who starred in THE PRINCESS BRIDE and FORREST GUMP, stars as Maureen, a seemingly poor, uneducated and pregnant woman who spends her days whiling away hours in a dank urban bar with her low-life friends. Her husband, Eddie (Sean Penn), has been away for a few days to a location unknown to Maureen, or Mo, as she is called. During Eddie’s absence, an overweight slovenly neighbor makes a pass at Mo. It is more like an attempted rape. She resists, so the neighbor strikes her.
When Eddie returns, he asks her where she got the bruises. She tells him that she fell in the rain. Eddie doesn’t believe her. Since he is insanely jealous of his wife and her affections, he goes on a rampage, trying to find the neighbor because Eddie is convinced that the neighbor is the perpetrator. Mo calls a social rescue unit to intervene, but Eddie shoots one of the uniformed men and is brought to an insane asylum for evaluation. Saddened but encouraged that volatile Eddie is now getting help, Mo visits him and tells him that it may take 3 months for him to get better. They kiss through the fence, their mutual love for each other clearly evident.
Jump ahead 10 years. Mo has divorced Eddie and has married a new man named Joey (John Travolta). Though impatient and obnoxious like Eddie, Joey has been able to provide Mo with a nice home and has fathered two children with her, in addition to the child, now 9-years-old, fathered by Eddie. The insane asylum determines that Eddie is fit to return to society, but he still thinks it is only 3 months later. Eddie gets a hair-cut and decides that he is going to find Mo and take her away. The remainder of the movie involves Eddie visiting the home of Joey and Mo and their inevitable confrontation.
There can be no doubt about the fierce and impassioned performances by the two leads and the rest of the cast. It is as if they were making an extra effort to give homage to John Cassavetes. There are moments of sheer brilliance particularly by Penn when he is his most insane. Sean and Robin are a high-energy Archie and Edith Bunker, without the racial epitaphs but with all the insecurity and pathos.
With due respect to the acting, so good in part because of the good writing, the movie will not attract moral Americans. Eddie and Mo are desperate, frantic souls who don’t care about their health or the health of anybody else. Mo drinks a lot of alcohol even though she is pregnant. The resulting daughter is in fine health, suggesting that alcohol use is O.K. for pregnant women. The two hang out with losers and live in an apartment with un-neighborly neighbors, and they voice many obscenities and profanities in this movie. Though Joey is able to give Mo a better home, he is not able to give her better leadership. He is as insecure and frantic as Eddie. He swears a lot, even around the children and gives his oldest daughter, the nine-year-old, a beer when she asks for one. At one point he yells, “Shut up and drink your beer.” Finally, the movie suggests that it is OK to steal a married woman away from her husband if you are in love with her. The bounds of matrimony are not honored. Mo walks willingly from Joey. These characters, with no idea of right and wrong, blatantly shock the audience member with atrocious behavior.
All of this depravity is similar to the Academy Award-winning LEAVING LAS VEGAS. It is a character study of those who are desperately lost. SHE’S SO LOVELY may gain attention for months to come, but its appeal is limited.
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