This Is My Life (1992 film)

This Is My Life (1992 film)
This Is My Life is a 1992 American comedy-drama film that marked the directorial debut of screenwriter Nora Ephron, with a screenplay written by her and her sister, Delia Ephron.
Featuring Julie Kavner as a working class single mother trying to break into stand-up comedy—who struggles to juggle fame with her responsibilities as a parent of two young daughters—it was adapted from the 1988 novel This Is Your Life by Meg Wolitzer.
Plot
Dottie Ingels is a single mother in Queens who works on a Macy's cosmetics counter but aspires to be a stand-up comedian. She and her two daughters, teenage tomboy Erica and pre-teen Opal, live with Dottie's aunt Harriet, who took them in after Dottie left their father, Norm. Dottie dreams of stardom but keeps bumping up against the reality of living paycheck to paycheck, and the only way she can practice her material is while selling cosmetics.
When Harriet dies suddenly, Dottie inherits the house. She decides to sell it and use the money to rent an apartment in Manhattan, betting that she can finally break into comedy before going broke. Dressing in polka-dots to make herself more memorable, her first gigs go well. She also makes friends with other struggling comics on the local club circuit, who are shocked and impressed when she lands a meeting with eccentric mega-agent Arnold Moss via his assistant Claudia Curtis.
Moss watches and enjoys Dottie's set and immediately lands her a slot at the Comedy Shop on Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, one of the West Coast's biggest comedy showcases. Erica and Opal, who saw Moss eating a napkin during the show, are skeptical of the agent but supportive of their mother. Dottie flies to LA, leaving the kids to be babysat by her NYC comedy friends, and her sets go so well that she stays an extra two weeks to appear on The Tonight Show. Erica and Opal are initially excited about Dottie's rapid rise, but are left frustrated when she gets home and chooses to return to LA immediately for more shows instead of spending time with them. After Dottie books an embarrassing, but well-paid, part as a talking chicken in a commercial, Erica tells Opal that Dottie is "disgusting" for not being a "regular mom" who prioritizes parenting over work.
Erica starts dating Jordan, a boy from her school, but is left mortified when his mother, an endocrinologist, walks in on them having sex for the first time and uses it as an opportunity to deliver a lecture on safe sex using a life-size model of the female reproductive system. Soon after, Dottie is on a chat show promoting her upcoming residency at the Tropicana casino in Las Vegas and she retells the incident as a funny anecdote, leaving Erica enraged and embarrassed. Even worse, after the opening show of the residency the girls overhear Dottie coming back to their shared hotel suite with a man. She admits the next morning that she and Moss have been secretly dating for some time, and the girls—who by this point have started derisively referring to him as "The Moss"—are disturbed at the thought of him becoming their step-father.
Erica and Opal hire a private detective to find their father, Norm, living upstate in Albany. They debate whether to visit him despite Erica barely remembering him, and Opal having no memories of him at all. One night Dottie and Moss return home from a date and walk in on Erica delivering her own furious "stand-up" monologue to Opal and the babysitters about how Dottie chose work over them, and how they'll soon never see their mother at all except on TV. Dottie calls the girls ungrateful for not appreciating her sacrifices. Having had enough, the girls sneak out overnight to catch a train to Albany to see Norm.
Erica and Opal arrive in Albany and meet Norm's new wife, Martha, while they wait for their father to get home from his job at a fruit-packing warehouse. When he arrives he shows no interest in the girls, and laughs derisively when they tell him that Dottie is now a successful comedian. They instinctively defend Dottie's achievements. Norm drives them back to the train station, and as they awkwardly say goodbye he tells them they'll "probably turn out frigid" like Dottie. Thoroughly disillusioned, they realize why Aunt Harriet always told them that marrying Norm was the worst decision Dottie ever made.
Returning home, they reconcile with Dottie. As all three snuggle up together on the couch, they discuss co-writing a sitcom about a single mother who works on a cosmetics counter in a department store, and her two daughters.
Cast
Production
The film was at Columbia Pictures but was put into turnaround in 1990. Ephron allegedly asked Jon Peters if he had read the script, to which he answered, "I've made over 60 movies. I don't have to read a script to know whether it works or not."
The character portrayed by Aykroyd, Arnold Moss, is based on the famous New York talent agent Sam Cohn, and has some of the eccentricities for which Cohn was known, such as a habit of eating paper.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was performed by Carly Simon and released on Qwest Records. Although the album failed to chart, the single "Love of My Life" reached No. 16 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
Reception
This Is My Life was met with lukewarm critical responses. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval of 36% rating based on reviews from 14 critics, with an average rating of 5.5/10.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 3 out of 4.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a C+.
In 2020, David Sims of The Atlantic called it "the forgotten gem in Ephron’s filmmaking career".
Home media
20th Century Fox released the film on DVD-R in 2012 as part of its Fox Cinema Archives line.
Sources
LeVasseur, Andrea "This Is My Life". Allmovie.
References
External links
1992 films
1992 comedy-drama films
1992 directorial debut films
1990s American films
1990s English-language films
20th Century Fox films
American comedy-drama films
Films about comedians
Films about mother–daughter relationships
Films about parenting
Films about sisters
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Nora Ephron
Films produced by Lynda Obst
Films with screenplays by Nora Ephron
Films set in Albany, New York
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Manhattan
Films set in Queens, New York