Product: Postcards from the Edge [VHS] (1990)
Rating: 5.0
I simply love Meryl Streep, perhaps the greatest living actress of our time.
Having just seen 'The Devil Wears Prada' for the umpteenth time in the last several months and not just to see Anne Hathaway...I have become transfixed with Meryl Streep's acting ability and the level of perfection and style that she brings to the screen.I know that everyone has written their review and given their spin on this being a 'Hollywood Insider' film and it may very well be one. I too can relate to Suzanne Vale's travails; her dependency on drugs, the struggle with her relationship with her mother and with her career.BUT, I do not think that this movie is so much about any of that or even about the obvious...what I do say the movie is about is the dialectic of 'Becoming vs. Being'.I'm not going to explain what I mean by that and I'm sure that the mature and savvy readers who ponder my humble words will know what I mean...but there is one line that everyone has overlooked...the 'Tell' (for me) so to speak and that is when Suzanne is embracing Gene Hackman in a nearly Father and Daughter dialog when she mutters...'I don't want life to imitate art...I want life to be art.' WOW!!!Perhaps it is the very high expectations that Suzanne places on herself and in the quest for full self expression within the dynamics of living in the Umbra of her mother that drives her to drug dependency and is the source of her deep rooted unhappiness...Having spoken those words which segue shortly to the last scene of the film as Suzanne delivers a rousing rendition of Heartbreak Hotel there is no line of distinction in her performance between her life as an actress and her passion for her life and her craft fully self expressed, becoming no more.At that moment I dropped a tear or two.