Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Considering that the one Robert Altman movie that Alan Rudolph wrote was the disappointing adaptation of Arthur Kopit  outstanding play (1970) "Indians" (as "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" (1976) with the appropriately blue-eyed Paul Name as William Cody), my expectations should not have been as high as they were for "The Moderns" (1988)  and "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994). Both are "Altmanesque" in having many characters and being character-driven, but despite working on "Nashville" and "The Long Goodbye," Rudolph does not seem to have learned how to keep a movie going.

Rudolph's Dorothy Paker never has a moment of happiness. Her wit is very cold, twisting the knife of her disappointment in herself and in both those who bedded her (her first husband, Eddie (Andrew McCarthy) who came back from WWI a morphine addict, and writer ("The Front Page") Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) and the frequent companion who refused to, comic writer turned comic performer Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott).

As the excellent A&E documentary included on the DVD of "Mrs. Parker" notes, all the major American writers from the years between the world wars hit the bottle heavily and often (Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and many others). Robert Benchley was late to take up drink but went from teetotaler to cirrhosis of the liver in a short time.  As Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Parker, her lines are all slurred and uttered slowly. Such sex as she has (except with McCarthy, the philandering love of her life) also seems joyless (OK, the only other partner shown is Stephen Baldwin, which could account for this).

"The tears of a clown" is a cliché, and there is generally an edge in Parker's short stories and light verse, but someone who never takes any pleasure in her talents or her "fabulous" life as the star of the Algonquin Round Table makes for a tedious movie even with a lot of acting talent. (Leigh has a lot of acting talent and Scott is excellent at keeping his distant; and in addition to Matthew Broderick, there is a topless Gwyneth Paltrow, Nick Cassavetes, Keith Carradine, Stanley Tucci, Wallace Shawn, Lili Taylor, and more.)

The art deco backdrops and costumes look right and Montréal passes for Manhattan (and LA?), though Rudolph says all the scenes with larger outdoor vistas were cut. Except for a late-in-life interview late in the closing credits, Parker's social activism is MIA from the movie.

The story of Parker's second and third marriage to Alan Campbell (Peter Gallagher), a short story writer with whom Parker coauthored Hollywood scripts (Wellman's "Nothing Sacred" and  "A Star Is Born, "Hitchcock's "Saboteur") barely registers. Mostly, it's Benchley holding up and holding off the drunkard he always addresses as "Mrs. Parker."

As usual, this movie about writers does not show them doing their work (writing). In that Parker was so good at avoiding writing, this is perhaps more appropriate than in other biopics about writers. Molly Haskell and  Gloria Steinem (two women with deep voices, like Parker's without the smokiness and gin-slurring),  Fran Lebowitz and Parker biographer Marion Meade have insightful things to say about Parker's writing as well as about her frustrations and her political engagements in "'Would You Kindly Direct Me to Hell?': The Infamous Dorothy Parker." Parker's own voice is also liberally sampled along with some clips of the film that make it look like it would be more interesting than it is.

There's also a 13-minute interview with composer Mark Isham only partly about his work on "Mrs. Parker."

I only sampled Rudolph's commentary track. It made me shudder to hear that there is a four-hour version of the movie! There's also a theatrical trailer and a tv ad for the movie. I'd rate the DVD 4-star, but the movie barely 3-star and that mostly for the performances of Scott and Leigh.

Having begun by expressing my disappointment at Rudolph trying to juggle multiple characters in historical settings, I'll close by mentioning that I think his movies with fewer characters and present-day settings are better:
  Welcome to L.A. (1976)
  Afterglow (1997)
  The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002, also starring Campbell Scott)

There must be some Canadian actors in the cast, but it is that the movie was filmed in Montréal that leads me to aim it at Elvisdo's 2009 Canadian writeoff.

©2009, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age