1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 18: Manny & Lo

Watching this story unfold, I was reminded of two others:

(1) Marilynn Robinson’s celebrated novel, Housekeeping (1980), in which two orphaned sisters are cared for by an eccentric aunt. I’ve not read it, but it seems all my friends have, and so I’ve absorbed it through osmosis (no doubt inadequately). Behold this trailer of the 1987 cinematic version.

(2) The Night of the Hunter (1955), in which an orphaned brother and sister take refuge with a not-quite-elderly spinster (Lillian Gish). At night, the spinster sits on her porch, singing hymns, grasping a shotgun, guarding the children against their pursuer in one of the all-time greatest scenes.

In Manny & Lo, it’s the children – two sisters – who wield the shotgun. They use it to force an eccentric spinster to fulfill their mother’s role.

Sixteen-year-old Laurel (Aleksa Palladino) is the instigator, the more desperate sister. She’s pregnant.

Eleven-year-old Amanda (Scarlett Johansson) is the movie’s narrator. She’s willing to go along with whatever Laurel does, apparently for the sheer pleasure of experiencing and contemplating it.

The sisters have illegally removed themselves from the fostering system and are out on the lam. The movie begins with them driving around in an old station wagon. (No, it’s nothing like Thelma & Louise.) They sleep in forests and model homes. They prefer not to stay long in the same place. As Laurel’s baby grows inside her, however, they realize they must choose a different survival tactic.

After Laurel decides not to have an abortion, she and Amanda kidnap Elaine (Mary Kay Place), a knowledgeable maternity shop clerk. They conscript Elaine to serve as a midwife for Laurel. They chain Elaine’s ankles together and imprison her in an empty vacation house in the woods.

Most of the movie takes place while Elaine and the two girls await the birth of the child in this hideout.

At first, Elaine is none too pleased, as shown in this still photo. (No, she hasn’t been decapitated. The girls are force-feeding cereal to her: she’s been hunger-striking.)

“I do not give in to criminals,” Elaine says.

She reiterates: “I don’t care what type of drugs are involved, or so-called religious rituals, or what have you. I do not give in to criminals.”

There has been no suggestion of drug use or religious ritual. This is just how Elaine talks: with unceasing, severe moralism.

Later, however, she cooks casseroles for the household.

Again, she underscores that she is not giving in to criminals. “I believe kidnap victims have just as much right to a balanced meal as anyone else,” she tells Laurel and Amanda. “And, if I am not mistaken, the same holds true for innocent babies.”

She adds: “If you two benefit in the process, well, that can’t be helped.”

In deed, then, if not in word, Elaine exhibits increasing sympathy toward her captors. (Does it count as Stockholm syndrome if she was rather cuckoo to begin with?)

Over all this hang various possibilities that the trio will be caught:

• The owner of the vacation house might show up.
• The neighbors might show up. (Rather foolishly, or perhaps daringly, Amanda has made friends with a little boy she has found in the woods.)
• The fostering agency might show up.
• Elaine’s friends and relations might show up.

What in fact happens is perhaps the most interesting thing that could happen. It leads the three women to understand their position in the world, and what they mean to each other.

At certain points, I thought I knew how the movie would turn out, and I was wrong (at least about the details). What does occur, and how, is immensely satisfying – and amusing. And a little sad.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 2: Love serenade

In Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade – as in the similarly bleak M*A*S*H – a loudspeaker emits a steady stream of blather for the benefit of the few inhabitants of a remote outpost. This town is Sunray, small and dusty, one thousand kilometers from the ocean. Its notable features include train tracks, two giant silos, and the River Murray.

The blather from the loudspeaker consists of music by Barry White and other lusty 1970s’ R&B singers, as well as spoken metaphysical commentary. The commentator is Ken Sherry (George Shetsov), a disk jockey from Brisbane who’s taken charge of Sunray’s radio station.

Why has he moved to Sunray? Is he in disgrace? Probably: he’s a sleazebag. What he tells his listeners is that he wishes to escape “the hustle and bustle of the big city.” He exudes a weary urbanity.

One of the locals mistakes this for sophistication. “Fascinating man!” she exclaims.

Her name is Vicki-Ann, and she’s played by Rebecca Frith. She decides that Ken Sherry will be her husband. (Never mind that he’s already been divorced three times.)

Vicki-Ann’s younger sister, Dimity (Miranda Otto), is less enthused about Ken Sherry. But soon she too is seduced by his sublime indifference. She’s so lonely, and he’s so detached, so insolent, that she interprets his slightest notice of her as a gesture of romance.

And, to do Ken Sherry justice, his manner does command attention. His body is tall and gangly, like a scarecrow’s. His hair is a mop. These features contrast with the quiet precision of his movement and speech. Ken Sherry is a sad sack and a dominating presence. He’s as watchable as Steve McQueen. If he’s not exactly a fascinating man, he’s a fascinating … something.

Love Serenade shakes together these elements – the desolate town and its silos, the river, the attractive/repellent sleazebag, and the two maladjusted sisters – as if they were so many weird dice. Seeing the outcome, you don’t say, “Of course!”; you say, “Well, why the hell not”; denouement isn’t the point.

It’s the elements themselves that are interesting. The silos are ordinary-looking – and ominous. Somehow, they seem too large. (Also, why is their color a sickly green?)

The River Murray, calm on the surface, evokes anxious depths, like the river in The Night of the Hunter. Dried out tree trunks stand in it like ruined pillars. The river is agreed to be treacherous, although the nature of that treachery is disputed by Dimity and Vicki-Ann. (Was their dog swallowed up by a hole in the river, as Vicki-Ann claims, or by a giant carp, which is Dimity’s account? “I’m with you, Vicki-Ann,” says Ken Sherry. “Why would a fish eat a dog?” But Vicki-Ann’s “hole” theory is no more plausible.)

These three oddball protagonists, jostled together by the plot, actually spend most of their respective minutes alone, like atoms traveling through empty space. If the movie is “about” anything, it’s the deformities that people acquire when they’re too much alone, and how those deformities prevent them from truly connecting to each other.

Look at the photo: the hearts are upside-down.