Passion Fish (1992)

Fantastic!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Passion Fish, showcases its 2 principal characters' (May-Alice and Chantelle) hopefulness and hopelessness in a light which I had never realized previously. Where May-Alice relapses into a daze of misery and alcohol-induced mist of self-centeredness, Chantelle struggles alone towards her self-rehabilitation - two unlikely individuals who are connected at a very obvious level, by the conflict of their motivations for existence but at a deeper plane, related not by conflict but by identification of a shared identity.Named after a Cajun superstition about finding love, the movie opens with a close-up of May-Alice's eyes as she lays on a hospital bed, victim of a freak accident and now, very mean-tempered inheritor of a crippled body. Her soap acting rendered futile and raging at the seeming dithering uselessness of all hospice personnel in uniform (nurses, physical therapists, doctors, psychiatrists), May-Alice moves back to the family home by a Louisiana bayou in a clear attempt at drinking herself into oblivion. Bound to a wheelchair and perennially in front of the television with a wine bottle as an unshakeable appendage, she has an attendant nurse in the form of a feisty black nurse (Chantelle – who takes up this work for far more substantial reasons than what initially appear.May-Alice's curmudgeonly self-indulgence in wine and TV collide with the blunt denials and admonitions of Chantelle, with decidedly un-"nursey" approaches. This conflict of wills between two strong and set women lies at the heart of this film; a conflict which does not get manifested in typical conventionally hoarse and piquant scenes. What interested me immensely are the numerous tiny battles which emerge in the course of this war of wills – a tug here, a pull there followed by a push. Several times in the movie, I expected the dam of unresolved and unsatisfied emotions to burst into a torrent of screams and the inevitable firing of the nurse. It never came.Passion Fish intensely resists the easy transition of such a story into a likely tale of maudlin sentimentalism and spiritual upliftment. When I think of it, the movie is less of a motif for human tragedy or that of people who have suffered mentally or physically coming out of the ordeal as veritable angels. Then there is the Louisiana landscape and the comic portraits of an assortment of Alice-May's visitors, and a repressed but tender romance which materializes with an old acquaintance. To the back of the house, there are verdant and soothing wetlands teeming with herons, alligators and snakes while towards the front, the track which leads to it is dusty and decidedly un-photogenic with what I can only presume to be factories, pumping affluents into this seemingly serene lake. This two-tinged sepia is present everywhere in the movie. This many-layered portrayal of a story of two women is marked by engaging performances all-round and a screenplay which does not veer into the realm of the tear-jerker. One more thing, I love the "I didn't ask for the anal probe" monologue for its intensity and the sheer range of emotions it seeks to explore – from thrill to determination to anticipation to frustration to dismay and finally, resignation.

Passion Fish (1992)I wish I could like John Sayles films more. They want to be so important and serious, about exceptional people in normal working America. Characters are dying to be felt for and understood, and the turns of events are poignant in simple ways we can relate to.So it is with Passion Fish, with a couple changes. For the first long part of the movie the main character, an ex-soap opera star recently made paraplegic, is completely unlikable. But eventually we come to appreciate her attitude, and other characters arrive, namely a nurse who can stick it out with her.So if all this sounds good, it is. But the writing is a little off, a little wrong, all the way through. Occasionally it's just a strain (I laughed out loud a couple times at it, not with it). There's not problem with the subjects and what they do, but what they say, a hair off key from what such real people would say. Or that's the sense you get. And the filming is adequate without being magical, or emphatic, or whatever it is that great movies pull off. The camera-work, the editing, the clunky addition of sounds, it's all a little crude, as if it didn't matter that it was just functional and used a few cheap devices (like a little montage sequence with snippets dissolving one into another like a sentimental ad). In fact, it has a television quality even though Sayles has never done t.v. as far as I know.If you are really into content, though, and real people with real problems, none of this will matter as much. And the compensations include gritty acting, which makes the most of the dialog. If this lack of style is your style, you'll like it. If you want formal intentions of any kind you might think it's slow and unartful.

It's regularly noted that director John Sayles is a master at creating detailed characters; this film (like especially his earlier MATEWAN) proves his genius at capturing the oft-overlooked variety of American life: dialects, and the smallest (but most meaningful) moments of work, anger, tragedy, or sweetness. This skill was surely refined during his earlier years as a novelist, and - in maturity - makes his work (and this film in particular) far more human and gimmick-free than Amer-indie contemporaries like David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch.I first saw this when it was released, and was very impressed (it was the first Sayles film I'd seen), and after a much-belated second viewing, I'd say it's one of the great American films of the 90s. Sayles' feel for detail shows continually - the small, but continual bits of personal history revealed about all of the characters throughout; the intricacy of even incidental encounters (an afternoon of zydeco music, or the COOLEY HIGH reference that slips quickly between Angela Bassett and Alfre Woodard) is stunning. Evoking Robert Flaherty's LOUISIANA STORY, the boat-trip-to-Misere scene is particularly memorable, with well-deployed Cajun lore blending with very memorable cinematography (courtesy Roger Deakins, cinematographer for FARGO, KUNDUN, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION & SID AND NANCY, among other recent classics) to create one of the most unforgettable moments of Sayles' career.As most of the primary characters are either outsiders, or are returning after long absences, the common problem of show-biz fake accents is avoided nicely - Sayles (and Deakins) manage to capture an image of rural Louisiana that is enveloping and authentic, while never forgetting the reality that accents will vary widely even in local areas. Thus the fact that many characters refuse to lay on the drawl - even as many others in the film nail the sound of rural Louisiana perfectly - only makes PASSION FISH stronger.Overall this is a tale of growth and friendship that moves with the speed and emotions of life - none of it feels fake or forced, and though slow-to-start (another strength, though only seen as one by the film's end), PASSION FISH quietly develops into something unique and great. At every moment where this could've degenerated into movie-of-the-week sap, Sayles instead elegantly and confidently steers the film into DeSica (or Woody Guthrie and Steinbeck) territory: there's not a sour note to be seen here.

Writer/Director John Sayles' 1992 outing tells the tale of a soap opera star (Mary McDonell), who's been in a car accident, and is now wheelchair bound, and her unlikely friendship with her live-in nurse (Alfre Woodard). Excellent supporting roles from the great David Strathairn (A Sayles fave, star of Limbo), Vondie Curtis-Hall (who went on to direct Gridlock'd), and Angela Bassett. I gotta say this. Sayles always writes believable characters, and his dialogue is amongst the best in filmdom. I knew my wife would like this, which was my main motivation for renting it. I'd seen it before, but had forgotten just how good it is. McDonell garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her role in this largely overlooked gem. 4 (of 5) stars on this one.