Customer Reviews

Up the Sandbox

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's a film about choices. Choose jealousy, choose controvery, choose adventure, choose abortion? A lonely NYC housewife in the early 70's with 2 children, an ambitious husband and a meddling mother loses herself in dreams and fantasies after learning she is pregnant again. I agree it's the only Streisand film that ever made me forget it was Barbra up there. She was truly captivating as Margaret Reynolds. Great scenes of the Upper West Side of New York at a not particularly attractive time. It was a slice of a young woman's life from a very new, challenging, confusing time in our history, especially for women. The story line certainly seems dated and tame now, but at that time it was truly a provocative and contraversial film.

Margaret Reynolds has an overactive imagination. She imagines confronting her husband's female coworker; her mother. Margaret imagines blowing up the Statue of Liberty with a dream radical-black-boyfriend. She imagines discovering an African Tribe's secret for painless childbirth. And she imagines speaking out for all women at a press conference, and then discovering Fidel Castro's feminine secret!

Margaret Reynolds is not crazy. She's just pregnant again - her third child. And she's very uncertain about this moment in her life and who she has become and what society values from her. So her brain tends to take some flights of fancy.
That is the setup for UP THE SANDBOX, a 1972 film that is directed by Irvin Kershner (LOVING and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) and written by the late Paul Zindel. The film is obviously meant to address the women's movement that was burgeoning at that time. Although some of its themes don't translate well 31 years later, most of the film is still relative and challenging today.

Barbra Streisand's performance as Margaret is incredible. It's one of her best film roles. Barbra strips down, and plays it very natural here. There are only traces of fast-talking-Brooklyn-Barbra; only one or two FUNNY GIRL line readings. The rest is a different Barbra than we've seen. It makes one wonder what other sort of small film roles she could have done -- she's that remarkable in SANDBOX.

SANDBOX won't be for everyone's tastes. When I first saw it in the 1980's I didn't like it. I was confused. The fantasy sequences are not obvious. There are no clichéd Hollywood transitions - no WAYNE'S WORLD "dream sequence" dissolves! The dreams can be confusing. However, if you're a fan of smaller, non-Hollywood or foreign films, one can appreciate UP THE SANDBOX for its subtle accomplishments. In fact, Kershner achieves a dangerous atmosphere by keeping the line between reality and fantasy so close. The audience is disoriented sometimes. Think what it must be like to be Margaret, though!
Gordon Willis' cinematography contributes to the realistic and documentary feel of UP THE SANDBOX. Willis, by using natural lighting and subtle shading, creates a warm but realistic image. Streisand (in her commentary) points out several scenes where Willis' cinematography impresses.

"The Moviemakers" documentary is a welcomed addition to the DVD. Streisand fans can see some additional footage shot for the African sequence, as well as a lot of behind the scenes shots.

Streisand's commentary is enlightening, as is Irvin Kershner's. Kershner, so far, is the one director Barbra speaks the most about in all of the DVD commentary she's provided for this Warner Brother's set. Barbra makes sure to point out son Jason Gould's cameo appearance in the film. It's also interesting to hear Barbra's recollection of her own mother's unannounced visits, which mirrors the scene in the film.

I've grown close to several new mothers in my life recently. I don't have children myself, but I have watched and learned about parenthood from them. I couldn't help but think about this while watching UP THE SANDBOX last night. Have things really changed that much in thirty years? Don't women, when pregnant, still question whether to work, how much to work, when to go back to work? And as a woman's life becomes centered around her children and husband, she is still confused about what to do with her own life. Even exercising and eating become difficult when the little ones need her attention.

Toward SANDBOX's end, Kershner films a wonderfully surreal fantasy sequence where Margaret considers an abortion after contemplating all of the issues just mentioned. Kershner, Zindel, and Streisand present us with Margaret's decision. UP THE SANDBOX tells us that women don't need to become more like men ... they need to become more like themselves.

More info on Barbra Streisand can be found at my fan website "The Barbra Archives".

Barbra Streisand is very good(very un-Streisandy)in this comedic drama about the exploration of an ordinary housewife and mother of two in N.Y.C. whose inner-fantasies explode after finding out she's pregnant for the third time. With a brilliant but busy husband, a harping mother, and a gaggle of girlfriends who mostly worship their men, Streisand's Margaret is confused and conflicted, but not hapless. She's a clever thinker, and the segues into fantasy are slyly done, with many takes on the sexes and role-reversal(the bit with Fidel Castro, and an abortion doctor who could be a man or a woman). I think we're so used to bombastic responses and crazy camera-tricks(from music videos and TV sitcoms)that something quiet and arty like "Up the Sandbox" can go over a lot of viewers' heads(it did in 1972 too). As Streisand's commentary will attest, some of the scenes could have been shaped differently or had more interesting dialogue, but it's a highly original vision, intriguingly directed. And Streisand amazingly slips right into this non-showy role; she's terrific imagining unseen things about a man in an elevator or battling with her domineering mama. She also looks fabulous as photographed by the incomparable Gordon Willis.

This movie came as a total surprise to me. I've seen every Streisand movie and this one is the one that stands out the most. Not because it's the best but it's the most...strange? ...unique? Barbra fits the role perfectly. It shocks me how beautiful she was at that age. She looked amazing! She does such a broad range of acting in this movie. A tiny bit of action, some comedy, drama, romance. She can do it all. My favorite scene is the one where she fights with her mother. That scene is hilarious! This movie is all over the place and it probably would be better if it chose one path to follow but it still works. My biggest complaint is the editing. There's a lot of footage that should have been cut out like the family film scene. That was just boring.

This is probarly one of Barbra's most underrated films she ever made. The movie is about a young wife & mother, living in New York (where Barbra was born & raised), raising her two children while her husband (David Selby) works day & night as a professor at some college. After Barbra finds out that she is pregnant for the third time, she starts to slip into outrageous fantasies, everything from Fidel Castro being a woman, (which I totally understand now, thanks to Barbra's commentary for the movie) to thinking her husband is having a affair with one of his co-workers at the college. It seems that watching this film I like it more & more each time, for the funny part I knew what was & was not a fantasy, for the reality part I didn't get what was behind the little things that you don't really understand or notice, until you listen to the commentary with Barbra. I really liked this film & up to this point this was Barbra's most dramatic role yet and she is great in it!, so check it out!.

This is quite possibly the most unknown film of Ms. Streisands' career. It is a great film, and easily worth while to watch. The ideology of the era are represented well, and the direction by Irving Kershner is superb. This is one of her films that should be seen more than once,to fully appreciate and understand the sequences and events in it. I'd recommend it to only those individuals interested in BABS or film itself, it is not really for the once in a while movie watcher.

The dreams and hopes of neglected housewives is a subject that is not often addressed in many films. This film tells the story of an average New York wife and mother (Barbra Streisand) who, feeling worthless and uncertain after finding out she's once again pregnant, begins to carefully examine her life and retreats into a world of fantasy.

The fantasy sequences involve everything African tribe rituals to men with breasts to smashing a cake into your mother's face, but the interesting part of the story is the feminest issues that are raised.

This film is not for all tastes and sometimes uneven, but Streisand's passionate and believable performance makes her character easy to care about and, in the end, makes the film enjoyable.

One can only speculate what would have happened to Streisand the actress had the response to this film would have been different. Yes, she's acting an ordinary character (so to speak)! Letting go of the shtick, it is maybe the only role I recall that I forgot about Barbra - since she emerged herself into Margaret. But evidently most of the public and fans like when everything is S-P-E-L-L-ED-- O-U-T and not being subtle. The film is confusing at times, but the feel is so different from any Barbra movie that on the other hand I totally understand how "What's Up Doc?" fans were confused. Still Barbra should have been encouraged to continue that vein. With all its problems "Sandbox" was done with talent by Irwin Kershner, photographed greatly by Willis Gordon and remains one of the more interesting characters Barbra actually committed herself to (and sacrificed her own image).

By the time Barbra Streisand did "Up The Sandbox" in 1972 she really wanted to be a comedic actress, a turn for her as she wanted to be seen by Hollywood producers who could do both dramatic roles and funny parts.

"Up The Sandbox" would prove, however, to be one of the biggest bombs in Barbra's career although critics thought she excelled in the part as a bored New York City housewife who starts to imagine herself in different asinine situations to escape the dullness of her life.

The movie is mostly known for the impressive supporting cast that included Isabel Sanford, Conrad Bain, David Selby, and Stockard Channing in her first motion picture role.

It's a shame that this 1972 dramedy is not better remembered because it holds up quite well and probably contains Barbra Streisand's most impressive performance in a contemporary setting. She portrays Margaret Reynolds, an ordinary New York City housewife and mother of two, who finds out she is pregnant again. Beset with a workaholic academic husband and a suffocating mother, she undergoes a major identity crisis and gets lost in periodic fantasies that provide an outlet for her deepest feelings. While the film has an undeniable 1970's "I'm-OK-You're-OK" tone about it, the story is a mature character study of its proto-feminist heroine thanks to Paul Zindel's perceptive screenplay based on the best-selling novel by Anne Richardson Roiphe.

Moreover, director Irvin Kershner brings a great deal of humanity to the film even as the fantasies escalate in scope and incredulousness. These include a revealing tango with Fidel Castro; a bomb planted inside the Statue of Liberty (deeply ironic that the World Trade Center is still under construction in the background); a disastrous confrontation at her parents' 33rd anniversary party; the fatalistic rituals of a female-dominated Samburu tribe in Kenya; and a dream-like sequence at an abortion critic. Sometimes, the transitions between real-life and fantasy are too subtle to be completely effective (for example, using incidental characters as major figures in the fantasy sequences), but Kershner shows an intimate understanding of the heroine's evolution even if the final resolution seems rather pat.

For once, Streisand is naturally radiant and blessedly life-sized with little of her chutzpah-driven mannerisms. She plays it so low-key that you wish she would do more indie films to show her vulnerable side. Smaller roles are ably filled with David Selby nicely underplaying her preoccupied husband Paul. The 2003 DVD is quite a treat with Streisand and Kershner providing insightful commentary on separate tracks. Unlike her brief track for "What's Up, Doc?", Streisand speaks throughout the film and still seems very passionate about it, articulating the various themes and explaining what kind of movie they were trying to make. Along with the original theatrical trailer (which seems quite confused as to what it is marketing), there is also an interesting ten-minute vintage making-of featurette that focuses mainly on Streisand's travels to Kenya to film the tribal fantasy sequence.