Customer Reviews

Passion Fish [VHS]

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this current era of moviemaking, it's rare than an idea as soft, as pure as Passion Fish, will be given an opportunity to be made. Thankfully John Sayles has the ability to circumvent the `by-committee' filmmaking which would have ultimately turned this wonderful little film into God know's what.

Mary McDonnell will never be better-she is brilliant, than in her portrayal of May-Alice Culhane (for which she was Oscar-nominated), the once-on-top Soap Opera star to whom tragedy has taken the use of her legs, and forced a re-evaluation of her life.

Alfre Woodard, as the hired home-care worker/nurse Chantelle provides the perfect complement as both these women find more of themselves through each other, then they might ever have found otherwise. Again, Ms. Woodard has rarely disappointed.

The early montage of health-care applicants is clever and funny. And John Sayles always is able to find brilliance in his supporting cast: notably Vondie Curtis-Hall, Leo Burmester, and David Strathairn, as well as a small role early in the career of Angela Bassett.

Sayles' script was also nominated for an Academy Award.

I borrowed this movie along with four or five others from the local library and I kept putting it off and eventually considered simply returning it without even watching it, thinking that it looked kind of sappy and would be a bore to watch. I decided to give it a try the night--very late in the night, I should say--before it was due, and boy was I ever wrong. This is one of the most moving and evocative movies that I've watched in a while, and could not help but watch it through to the end despite the late hour. This is one of the few times when I can say that I feel that a movie was perfectly cast. The acting, the character development is superb, and a nice tight story and excellent script. I most enjoyed the scene on the Bayou to the song Le Danse de Mardi Gras, it was just so beautifully done and the song really evokes the "fecund"--as one minor whimsically puts it when trying to decribe Louisiana--of the region. This alone makes the movie worth watching.

I love this film. The acting is as good as it can be. The simultaneous journeys of the characters blend and combust on each other and enrich each other. There are many delicious moments that themselves are worth re-watching. Completely delicious - all this despite the content itself being relatively challenging.

I'm just really going to have to check out all Sayles movies I guess - I keep finding out a favorite is by him. And Alfre Woodard of course never disappoints.

Completely worth it!

I am a native New Yorker and I have been following Sayles, who is a New Jersey boy, since Baby It's You. About 12 years ago, I moved to New Orleans. Imagine my shock when Sayles, Jersey boy, managed to capture the unique, evocative atmosphere of Western Louisiana to perfection. There has been enough said about the plot (read a few other reviews), but the true genius of Sayles is the way he observes all the subtle elements of the culture he is filming about and uses them, sparingly, to give the viewer an absolute non-cliched portrait of, in this case, Louisiana. And, of course, since Sayles approaches film like a writer approaches the short story, the film is full of tropes and visual metaphor (May Alice, bound in a wheel chair is always wearing stripes that look like jail house clothing; the deeply moving and beautiful night journey through the bayou, where May Alica takes a spiritual passage of sorts, from darkness to light...). This is a perfect little film and it grieves me terribly that the film establishment hands out awards to movie "stars" versus "actors" and more or less ignores Sayles's beautiful work. His films work on so many levels: artistically, emotionally, intellectually, that I would say he is our best American director and script writer still living. If you view this movie, or any of Sayles stuff (Limbo and Mew with Guns are two astounding films) you will enriched beyond measure.

There has not been a John Sayles movie made that I did not think superb, and this one is no exception. It was a wonderful film. Alfre Woodward (now of "Desperate Housewives") had much the better part, more stretch than Mary McDonnell ("Dances With Wolves"). Good Louisiana, creole, bayou, photography. Smaller characters were very well drawn too. And the dialogue - sharp.

This was a memorable and poignant sleeper of a movie - and a very smart one too. It is a hopeful film about taking chances and getting on with life, a subtle message that permeates the movie.

The chemistry between Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodruff is incredible. Both play women trying to deal with their pasts and the difficulties of going forward; women who are dependent on each other and do not want to be. But life has forced both of them into this circumstance in the bayou country of Louisiana, an area not of either's choosing.

The entire movie was well-acted and filmed...it was just a great viewing experience.I especially liked the way that May Alice was depicted interacting with all of the people in her past life.

The scenery in Louisiana was gorgeous and the music was an extra-added treat.

Worth viewing--several times!

Passion Fish makes one sit up and take notice. Not through the razzle dazzle style of film-making favored by so many of modern Hollywood's young guns but, rather, through the combined subtle power of the spoken word, quietly affecting editing, and carefully modulated performances. Unfortunately, for these very reasons, John Sayles' masterwork has always been conspicuously absent from those attempts to catelogue the best films of the 90s.

From what I have read, the most persistent criticism of Passion Fish appears to be that it is maudlin and predictable. (It is worthwhile to note that this two-prong attack is commonly used to belittle films where the mechanisms of the plot are female driven.) Here, at least, that criticism is without merit. Indeed, what is most striking about Sayles' film is how each of his "damaged" women, around whose stormy friendship his film circles, still have, at film's end, miles to go in her attempt to return to the life she seemingly covets. Plainly said, John Sayles has written too good a script (completely justifying its Oscar nomination) to cheat his viewer with an all too pat ending.

He is helped along, in no small part, by the performances of Mary McDonnell, also justly nominated, and Alfre Woodard who -- inexplicably -- was left off Oscar's short list. The range of emotion these two women register through their eyes and beautifully modulated voices is mesmerizing. There is no stronger indictment of the current folly that is Hollywood than the fact that these two actresses have all but fallen off its radar screen.

Finally, a word about the DVD. While it offers no scintillating extras such as a director's commentary or an alternative cut, this is not a movie that unduly suffers for it.

I can think of no greater compliment than my fervent hope that Passion Fish finds a place in your DVD library.

It's nice to see two lead characters in a movie that are flawed and talk, act, and react like normal people. Even though the movie clocks in more than 2 hours, it didn't feel long. As a viewer I looked forward to the next scene not because I was anticipating a big revelation in the plot but because I was so taken by the story I want to know why they act the way they did.

The movie opens with Mary Mcdonell, who played a soap opera diva, in a hospital oblivious to the fact that she had a surgery due to a car accident that would make her unable to walk. She was assisted by numerous nurses but all of them quit because of her not so pleasant attitude. Then came Alfre Woodard, a spunky nurse who has a problem of her own. She was the only one who was able to handle Mary Mcdonnel. The relationship between the two women, who were living lives they never imagined to be living, is the heart and soul of the movie.

What I like about the movie is that it didn't resort to melodrama in order to tell the story in full punch. The ending did not resort to a quick resolution where both of the ladies' problems go away and the two leads suddenly become the best of friends. They would probably still face the same problems and they would still probably fight occasionally, but now they have a better perspective in looking at things and more important, they now acknowledge how each affect and help each other in the obvious ways and the not so obvious ways. It's a low key but beautiful ending as the movie ended with the two ladies in the boat facing each other in the sunset.

Grade: A-

Wonderful story situated in the bayou and great acting.

I wonder why good movies that are slow-paced and tell a good story don't reach the majority of the public who goes to the movies. Damn pity that many a gem goes therefore unrecognized.

Another finely crafted character study from writer/director John Sayles. Soap opera actress, May-Alice Culhane (Mary McDonnell), is paralyzed as the result of an auto accident and returns from NY to the family homestead in Louisiana. There she struggles with her affliction and quickly runs through a succession of nameless personal assistants until Chantelle (Alfre Woodard) arrives, trouble in her past and hope in her heart. The bond of friendship that grows between the women transforms each of them. Thoughtful, well acted, poignant. Great Cajun soundtrack, too!