Product Details

• Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Hulce, Peter Friedman, Kim Cattrall, Eve Gordon
• Directors: Paul Bogart
• Writers: Wendy Wasserstein
• Producers: Leanne Moore, Michael Brandman, Steven J. Brandman
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: March 4, 1997
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303962246
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,067 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Jamie Lee Curtis stars in this adaptation of Wendy Wasserstein's hit play The Heidi Chronicles. A lecture about ignored female painters by art historian Heidi Holland (Curtis) frames the decade-by-decade story of her life, starting with a high school dance in the mid-'60s and working its way through political rallies, feminist consciousness raising, gay rights, AIDS, the excess of the 1980s--it's a bit like Forrest Gump, but with a smart, self-deprecating woman instead of a dumb cheerful guy. Wasserstein traces a well-intentioned (if glib) arc of female experience through this time period, articulating the costs of independence as well as the glories. The important personal realizations come fast and thick, but Curtis, Tom Hulce, Kim Cattrall (in a wealth of era-appropriate wigs), and Peter Friedman do their best to keep The Heidi Chronicles from being a baby-boomer pop-up book. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I don't have a life. I'm expendable.", December 21, 2004

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Heidi Chronicles [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Heidi Holland, with her degrees from Vassar and Yale and a Fulbright in England under her belt, opens this film lecturing on art history, showing fine portraits of women, painted by women artists who are virtually unknown, though their work is as good as that of the male painters who dominated their ages. Using the art history "hook" into the question of women and their roles--as they see their roles, as men see women's roles, and as women search for happiness within these roles--director Paul Bogart gives life to Wendy Wasserstein's teleplay, adapted from her Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play of the same name. Introducing each change of time period through the changing slides of the art history lecture, the film explores women trying to find meaning in their lives from the late 1960s through the 1990s.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Heidi Holland, Tom Hulce as her best friend Peter Patrone, and Peter Friedman as Scoop Rosenbaum, her sometime lover, take us from Heidi's high school and college days, as she grows in her thinking and view of her role in life, to her experiences with women's lib focus groups, the Eugene McCarthy campaign, the death of John Lennon, the campaign of Geraldine Ferraro, the rise of AIDS, the gay movement, and ultimately Heidi's realization of what is important to her, not just professionally and philosophically, but personally and emotionally.

High humor and absurdity are nicely balanced with sentiment and sorrowful revelation. Though the film treats significant social movements in a relatively brief time, it offers much food for thought without hitting the viewer over the head with polemics. Fine acting, much of it low key, note-perfect period details (the hairstyles for both men and women are priceless), and excellent pacing create a film that is simultaneously charming and enlightening. "Meatier" than most films created for the neighborhood theater, this teleplay represents one of the finest moments in television production, bringing to the home screen a production which both engages the mind and amuses the spirit. Mary Whipple

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully acted drama. Well worth watching for all., June 14, 1999

By 

P. Nailon "Screnwriter" (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Heidi Chronicles [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Jamie Lee Curtis proves her ability to truly carry a major work in "The Heidi Chronicles." Spanning three decades in the life of Curtis' Heidi, this film deals with the kind of real situations that people face with none of the unreal extraordinary circumstances that other films feel a need to drag in. Occasionally overly sappy or maudlin (can't we have at least ONE movie with a gay character who DOESN'T deal with a "close friend" dying of AIDS?

Hulce is terrific in the supporting role, and Nicki Vannice (of television's "Getting By" contributes a scene-stealing cameo as a teenager at a female support group. An overall winner of a film.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get the kleenex ready...., February 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Heidi Chronicles [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A heartfelt movie....chronicling the life a woman who has had her ups and downs, and manages to carry on with life and live it to its fullest. Jaime Lee Curtis ("True Lies") is terrific, as well as Tom Hulce ("Amadeus").