Saints And Soldiers Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)November 3rd, 2003
DIE MOMMIE DIE!
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When Edith (Natasha Lyonne, "Party Monster") discovers her mother is having an affair with washed up television actor Tony Parker (Jason Priestley, TV's "Beverly Hills 90210"), daddy's girl is enraged. After Sol Sussman's (Philip Baker Hall, "Bruce Almighty") sudden death, Edith turns around mommy's boy Lance (Stark Sands) by convincing him that their mother was responsible for dad's death. Former singing sensation Angela Arden (writer Charles Busch, "Psycho Beach Party") is trapped amidst cries of "Die Mommie Die!"
Charles Busch delivers another campy homage to a film genre, this time paying loving tribute to the women's pictures usually starring Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. "Die Mommie Die!" is like "Far From Heaven" as imagined by John Waters, but although the film is often clever it runs out of steam and becomes a real drag. Busch is simply fabulous, though, in the lead he has created for himself and he does pull out all the stops to regain interest at film's conclusion.
Busch's screenplay is an intersection of Davis's "Dead Ringer" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" peppered with over the top dialogue ('You slipped into my life like vermouth into a glass of gin'), poisoned suppositories, LSD trips and a duplicitous maid . The film's plotting eventually overpowers it in its midsection. Some judicious editing would have raised "Die Mommie Die!" up a notch.
Busch, however, gets every line reading just right, traipsing his voice up and down the scale, alternately purring and growling. He can pull a laugh with an exaggerated eye movement and expresses Angela's emotion with his physical carriage. Busch is so convincing as Angela that we forget we're watching a man. Priestly is amusing, acting badly as a bad actor who romances not only Angela but her two children and Baker Hall adds weight as Angela's desperate but unyielding husband. Lyonne and Sands, however, play to the rafters as Angela's kids, too obviously camping it up to let "Die Mommie Die!" play as camp.
Technically, "Die Mommie Die!" gets the look and feel of the genre it plays with, particularly Dennis McCarthy's spot on score. As would be expected, costume design is integral and Michael Bottari, Ronald Case and Thomas G. Marquez have created many memorable numbers, emphasizing Lyonne's baby fat in a white flowered shift and framing Angela's face with a necklace that would have done Cleopatra proud. Philip Harrison milks more laughs with his editing, juxtaposing Angela's open mouthed kiss with Tony against Edith's overly enthusiastic embrace of her dad. Kelly Evans achieves the look of 1960's productions which showed up the fakery of props and back screen projection. Busch's entry in and out of Evans' eye lighting is another example of finding entertainment value by exposing technique.
"Die Mommie Die!" does run out of gas, but Busch's valiant performance and a finale that combines the excesses of "Mommie Dearest," "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" and "Sunset Boulevard" make it a marginal recommendation.
B-
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