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A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

this is what I appreciate of john Sayles. Friendship is as tough as the limitations of not even being able to live without legs, let alone living with legs, let alone living without addiction. Let alone living through addiction. Friendship is rawly beautiful. Friendship is enduring ugliness until the endurance becomes beautiful. Friendship is enduring theater. "I didn't ask for the anal probe." It's the one thing I did well (which I can no longer do). So, the thing is, I appreciate mason daring's music; but it always (actually, simply too oftenly) seems so disjointed from the story; and not the good kind of disjointed (like the genius of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia"). But, then again, all in all, a sweet story: "a two foot mud snake in his mouth"). But, then again, acting in this story is a part of the art, as in: the actor is my friend. The actors are my friends: Mary, Alfre, and David. And I want Mary's beautiful dream to be true. And I'm not afraid to repeat myself for emphasis: the acting is beautifully moving.

John Sayles directs "Passion Fish". The plot? Soap star May Alice (played by Mary McDonnell) is rendered a paraplegic after a freak automobile accident. She soon finds herself housebound and cared for by Chantelle, a live in nurse played by Alfre Woodard.Like most films in this genre – "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Driving Miss Daisy", "The Waterdance", "My Left Foot", "The Whales of August", "Persona", "Cries and Whispers", "The Defiant Ones" etc – "Passion Fish" revolves around shifting power relationships. Here, May is a wealthy but crippled white woman and Chantelle is (or seems to be) an impoverished black woman who nevertheless has the full use of her body. Each depends on the other. What Sayles does is trick us into making parallels between privilege, race and servitude – even though the film's power dynamics work perfectly well as a literal, social comment – only to then later reveal that Chantelle is herself a wealthy woman, with a father who is a doctor.Our double take, our need to reassess our typecasting, is mirrored to the very reappraisals our stars are forced to make throughout the film. And so May reverses her snobbish attitude toward her home town, blacks, her art and locals, whilst striking up a relationship with a man called Rennie (played by Sayles regular David Strathairn). In a similar fashion, Chantelle reassess her role as an assistant, a woman of servitude, and her own racial prejudices.Late in the film it is revealed that Chantelle is struggling to overcome a drug addiction. The film then draws broad parallels between both women's debilitations, the point being that struggles cross all divides and that recovery is made easier in a world in which we all hold hands. This aspect of the film – and Sayles' ending – is very hokey, very maudlin. But most films which deal with racial issues in such a manner risk a condescending, trite, self congratulatory tone. Sayles' filmography is littered with such naive, on-the-nose preaching. Better to tackle similar issues indirectly, invisibly, and at off kilter angles. Still, the film is packed with good stuff. On the outskirts of the film's worn-out melodrama are numerous beautifully subtle or unconventional scenes. Mary McDonnell's performance is itself interesting – watch how she lets her accent reassert itself at several key points – and the film's Louisiana's backdrops are suitably moody (Sayles aesthetic is amateurish, but his scripting makes up for this).The film's title is conjured up best during one scene in which an actress invests considerable time and energy into elevating a trashy movie scene about aliens administering anal probes. The point: don't violate yourself by seeking fulfilment in hollow, vile pursuits and don't turn your back to genuine passions. Case in point May, who eschews small town life in favour for what she now realises is a grubby movie world populated by ditsy idiots, and Chantelle, who likewise turns her back to the people she loved and grew up amidst. But doesn't Sayles' somewhat patronising view of "them big city folk" undermine the very message of his film?7.9/10 – Like most of Sayles' best films, the actual narrative framework is more intelligent than the film's content (see Sayles' "Limbo). The way the act of watching the film is interwoven with the way the character's themselves watch and transform is genius. The film's actual content, though, is pure Hollywood "big issue" cheese, typical of a Paul Haggis, Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kramer.

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.

I have only caught up with two of Sayles' directorial works "Limbo" and "Passion Fish". Though the subjects of the two films are quite dissimilar, Sayles penchant for building interesting character profiles is unmistakable in both. Both films have an interesting screenplay, developing anecdotes that seem to be strung together like beads on a necklace. In "Passion Fish", a somewhat successful actress watches TV soaps and makes comments. Zoom out of the situation and you realize that situation itself is close to a TV soap opera. Now directors like Robert Altman and Paul Mazursky have done similar themes with considerable success. European cinema (Claude Sautet for one) has numerous examples of what Sayles did in the US a decade before in Europe. Yet Sayles like Mazursky ("An Unmarried Woman","Harry and Tonto", etc.) is able to instill humor and pathos into his celluloid essays with considerable felicity.What makes "Passion Fish" tick? At a very obvious level there is a remarkable performance by Mary MacDonnell. You need to be a stage actress to have done justice to the demanding role of a paraplegic--perhaps Billie Whitelaw or Anne Bancroft or Joanne Woodward would have fared as well as Mary. Much of Mary's acting is limited to voice modulation and restricted body movements.Two other performers stand out: Alfre Woodard and David Strathairn. I have watched Strathairn perform in other movies but he is just superb when working for Sayles."Passion Fish" like "Limbo" has a strong musical selection. Sayles, like Michael Mann and Peter Weir, has a good ear for music and sound editing. Yet "Limbo" outclasses "Passion Fish" by a mile in this department, thanks mainly to the song sung by lead actress herself. Finally the film "Passion Fish" survives on a strong screenplay and above average direction. The screenplay is loaded with social comments expressed in a documentary style: comments on a "business manager" who never appears, race relationships, religion ("she took to it after the second child.."), etc. The film expects us to follow the obvious childhood sweethearts-meet-again route but interestingly does not. This is the stamp of Sayles--a filmmaker who makes a sudden twist towards the end that makes all what preceded look better than it did. He did this in "Limbo" with aplomb, but "Passion fish" seems to anticipate the more accomplished storytelling of "Limbo"--the dark swamp metaphor of "Passion Fish" seems to be heralding the cloudy sky of "Limbo". One thing is certain--Sayles is an important screenplay writer comparable to David Mamet and Terrence Malick. As a director one could argue that his work is not new in style ("Limbo" harks back to "The Oxbow Incident") yet he cannot be dismissed--his work stands out amongst contemporary American movies, especially independent cinema.