The United States Of Leland Review
by Mark R Leeper (leeper AT mtgbcs DOT mt DOT lucent DOT com)October 12th, 1998
GOD SAID "HA!" (United States)
A review by Mark R. Leeper in bullet-list form
from the Toronto Internation Film Festival
CAPSULE: This is a one-woman show. Julia Sweeney (who played the androgynous Pat on Saturday Night Live) relives the humor and horror of having her brother and parents move in with her just before her brother was diagnosed with lymph cancer. Not all of the humor works and some of the telling style seems a little artificial. But most seems sincere and is frequently moving. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), 1 (-4 to +4)
- Sweeney got a divorce and a house by herself when her brother was diagnosed to be in the last phase of lymph cancer. He moves in with her and so do her parents. This would have been a trying time in anybody's life. Her humor concerns jokes made about her parents, her brother, her attempts to date, and generally how her life was going. Some moments are very funny, some touching, some not quite on the mark.
- Performance in the style of Spaulding Gray's SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA and MONSTER IN A BOX.
- The show seems sort of artificial in some ways. After a particularly trying moment the lights change and she turns her back to the audience and gets a glass of water. It is as if the emotion has all been orchestrated. Of course this is really a performance of a stage play that she had enacted hundreds of times before this version was filmed. It has to have a different emotional impact once it has been performed on the stage for years. Still parts do still pack a wallop.
- One wonders how much the stories have been embellished.
- Balancing her love life and her parents living in while taking care of her brother.
- Certainly some of the hardest moments she will face in her life. - Sweeney does have a nice self-assured style.
Mark R. Leeper
[email protected]
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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