The eccentric Magrath sisters—Lenny, Meg, and Rebecca "Babe"—reunite at their family home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi on Lenny's birthday, after Babe shoots and seriously injures her abusive husband, Zackery Botrelle. The three sisters were raised by Old Granddaddy after their mother committed suicide by hanging herself and the family's cat. Lenny is a wallflower who bemoans her shriveled ovary and has lived largely a life of solitude in the familial home caring for Grandddaddy, while Babe married and moved in with the wealthy Zackery. The egocentric Meg is the only of the siblings to have left Hazlehurst, having ended her relationship with Doc Porter and relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a singer, though she has kept her lack of success and a subsequent nervous breakdown a secret from her sisters.
Lenny fears that Babe will be convicted for shooting Zackery and suspects she may be mentally ill, while Meg presumes Babe must have had a valid reason for committing the crime. After Lenny learns that Old Granddaddy has just suffered a stroke in the hospital, Babe is released to her sisters from the county jail. Meg confides in Babe that she believes that Lenny is a virgin spinster, but Babe reveals to her that Lenny briefly had a boyfriend who left her upon finding out about her missing ovary.
Barnette Lloyd, an attorney hired to represent Babe, visits the house and speaks with Meg while Babe listens from a roof tower. Barnette suggests that Babe claim self-defense or temporary insanity, and shows Meg photographs from the hospital showing Babe seeking treatment for Zackery's physical abuse. Later, Babe admits to Meg that, due to her unfulfilling marriage to Zackery, Babe had carried on a romantic affair with a Willie Jay, a teenage African American boy. Upon Zackery's confrontation, Babe shot him with the pistol before preparing herself lemonade.
Meg visits Old Granddaddy at the hospital and regales him with stories about her career in Hollywood, but Lenny is skeptical. Lenny, who feels Meg has always received preferential treatment, vents to Babe, who reminds her that Meg was the one who found their mother's dead body. Meg later admits to Lenny that her stories to Old Granddaddy were fabricated. Lenny becomes increasingly angry with Meg after finding that she carelessly took a bite out of every chocolate in a box of Lenny's birthday candy. When Lenny criticizes her, Meg insinuates she is jealous of her romantic life.
Doc Porter arrives at the house and he and Meg spend the evening together on a lakeshore, drinking bourbon and reminiscing about their last date. Meg eventually admits to Doc Porter that her career in Hollywood has been a failure. Simultaneously, Barnette visits the house and shocks Babe with sexual photographs of her and Willie together which Zachery's sister, Lucille, has procured from a private detective she hired to stalk Babe. Lenny is awoken by Babe's vocal reaction, but her attention is diverted by a phone call from the hospital notifying her that Old Granddaddy has slipped into a coma. Babe and Lenny keep vigil at Granddaddy's hospital bed overnight.
In the morning, a chipper Meg returns home to find the dejected Babe and Lenny seated over breakfast. Meg assures her sisters that she plans on telling Granddaddy the truth about her life in Hollywood, even if it "sends him into a coma". Lenny and Babe burst into laughter before informing Meg that Granddaddy actually is comatose. Later, Babe shows Meg the incriminating photographs of her with Willie. Barnette arrives shortly after, having negotiated with Zackery to drop charges against Babe out of fear that the public will perceive the affair as a poor reflection of Zachery's manhood.
Shortly after, Lenny summons the courage to call her ex-boyfriend and arrange a reunion. Meanwhile, Babe receives a surprise call from Zachery who threatens to have her institutionalized, and feels her only recourse is to commit suicide like her mother. She unsuccessfully attempts to hang herself from a chandelier upstairs. Dragging the ceiling fixture behind her, she considering stabbing herself in the kitchen before putting her head in the oven. She is narrowly saved by Meg, who stumbles upon the scene. As Meg revives her, Babe realizes why their mother also hanged the family cat: She did not want to die alone. Later that morning, Meg and Babe surprise Lenny with a birthday cake.
The film opened on 246 screens in the US and earned $1,402,921 on its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $22,905,522 in the United States and Canada.[3]
Crimes Of The Heart received positive reviews among critics, with Spacek's performance being widely highlighted and lauded. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "that most delicate of undertakings: a comedy about serious matters. It exists somewhere between parody and melodrama, between the tragic and the goofy. There are moments when the movie doesn't seem to know where it's going, but for once that's a good thing because the uncertainty almost always ends with some kind of a delightful, weird surprise. The underlying tone ... is a deep, abiding comic affection, a love for these characters who survive in the middle of a thicket of Southern Gothic clichés and archetypes."[4]
Rita Kempley of The Washington Post described it as "Hannah and Her Sisters with a southern accent, a lilting gingerbread gothic with Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek and Jessica Lange ding-a-linging harmoniously as Dixieland belles" and added, "Playwright Beth Henley has no dire message for us, but her adaptation is nicely restructured, glib as all get-out and character-wise ... The powerhouse performances are directed by Bruce Beresford, who maintains balance among the actresses and keeps a lovely tone and smooth pace. As with his critically acclaimed Tender Mercies, the Australian director again looks at American types with a fresh eye."[5]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times disliked the film, though he conceded "it's not really the fault of the actresses. The casting sounds ideal until you see them together. Their strong, highly individualized presences simply cannot disappear into the texture of the play, which is as spare as a George Price cartoon, and as packed with eccentric details. Under Mr. Beresford's direction, these details aren't seen out of the corner of the eye but in the same, larger-than-life close-ups that destroy any sense of an ensemble performance by the actresses."[6]
Crimes of the Heart currently holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews.[7]
Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four BAFTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. Spacek was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.
Badlands is a 1973 American neo-noir period crime drama film written, produced and directed by Terrence Malick, in his directorial debut. The film stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and follows Holly Sargis (Spacek), a 15-year old who goes on a killing spree with her partner, Kit Carruthers (Sheen). The film also stars Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri. While the story is fictional, it is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.
'night, Mother is a play by American playwright Marsha Norman. The play won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.
Diane Keaton is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. She was honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 2007 and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.
Crimes of the Heart is a play by American playwright Beth Henley. It is set in Hazlehurst, Mississippi in the mid-20th century. The play won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. In 1986, the play was novelized and released as a book, written by Claudia Reilly.
The River is a 1984 American drama film directed by Mark Rydell, written by Robert Dillon and Julian Barry, and starring Sissy Spacek, Mel Gibson, and Scott Glenn. The film tells the story of a struggling farm family in a Tennessee river valley trying to keep its farm from going under in the face of bank foreclosures and floods. The father faces the dilemma of having to work as a strikebreaker in a steel mill to keep his family farm from foreclosure. It was based on the true story of farmers who unknowingly took jobs as strikebreakers at a steel mill after their crops had been destroyed by rain.
Keiko Han is a Japanese actress and voice actress. She sang the theme songs in productions such as Story of the Alps: My Annette and Kazoku Robinson Hyōryūki Fushigi na Shima no Furōne. Han is a fortune teller of western horoscopes. She wrote books on the subject. She is employed by talent agency Never Land Arts, and was previously affiliated with Aoni Production & 81 Produce.
Schuyler Elizabeth Fisk is an American actress and singer-songwriter.
This is a list of notable events in country music that took place in the year 1980.
3 Women is a 1977 American psychological drama film written, produced and directed by Robert Altman and starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule. Set in a dusty California desert town, it depicts the increasingly bizarre relationship between an adult woman (Duvall), her teenage roommate and co-worker (Spacek) and a middle-aged pregnant woman (Rule).
Pamela Jayne Soles is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1976 as Norma Watson in Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) before portraying Lynda van der Klok in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Riff Randell in Allan Arkush's Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979).
Jack Fisk is an American production designer and director.
Tessie Jean Harper is an American actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her first film role in 1983's Tender Mercies, and for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1986 film Crimes of the Heart. Her other film appearances include Flashpoint (1984), Ishtar (1987), Far North (1988), and No Country for Old Men (2007). She also had a recurring role on the first three seasons of Breaking Bad (2008–2010).
"Don't Fence Me In" is a popular American song written in 1934, with music by Cole Porter and lyrics by Robert Fletcher and Cole Porter. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
'night, Mother is a 1986 American drama film starring Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft. It was directed by Tom Moore and written by Marsha Norman, based on Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. The film was entered into the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. Tom Moore had also directed the play on Broadway.
The 52nd New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1986. The winners were announced on 15 December 1986 and the awards were given on 25 January 1987.
Marjorie Dean Dunfee was an American Broadway and film actress and acting coach.
Tina Romero is a U.S-Mexican actress. A native of New York City, Romero moved to Mexico in her youth, and later established a career there as an actress. Her early film roles included The Divine Caste (1973) and the title character in the horror film Alucarda (1977). She has also appeared in U.S. films, including Missing (1982), opposite Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon.
Trading Mom is a 1994 American fantasy comedy film written and directed by Tia Brelis, based on her mother Nancy Brelis' 1966 book The Mummy Market. It stars Sissy Spacek, Anna Chlumsky, Aaron Michael Metchik, Maureen Stapleton, and André the Giant in his final film appearance. It grossed $319,123 at the box office and received mostly negative reviews from critics.
Andrew "Andy" Cohen is a three-time Emmy nominated independent filmmaker and journalist whose film To Kill a Tiger was nominated for a 2024 Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.
References
↑ Friendly, David T. (November 16, 1985). "De Laurentiis Rejoins the Ranks--At Embassy: De Laurentiis: Embassy". Los Angeles Times. p.E1.
↑ Knoedelseder, William K. Jr. (August 30, 1987). "De Laurentiis Producer's Picture Darkens". Los Angeles Times. p.1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
