八个梦

Once in a blue moon, straight-faced female-centered drama is green-lit from Hollywood land, Sidney Lumet’s THE GROUP is the case in point, adapted from Mary McCarthy’s semi-biographical novel, the titular group comprises eight young educated women, starting out from their college graduation in 1933, and closing in 1940, the story spans those seven formative years when they each plough through the Depression era with disparate results, the unrelieved topos is their sororal rapport, despite that each woman is sedulously infused with their respective individualities.

Among them, Kay (Pettet) and Polly (Knight) are allotted the most munificent screen-time and character arcs, the former is the first to get hitched, with playwright Harald (Hagman), but her marriage becomes a nightmare when Harald turns out to be a wanton abuser and two-timer; the latter, whose more modest temperament means that she must be patient enough to pay her dues in the marriage department, hence they represent two very different views on matrimony itself, one fateful, one rewarding, but both poignantly topical even today. Knight, already a two-time Oscar nominee, is such a fine actress who can acutely modulate the precision of every wording and expression, practically shoulders on as the backbone of the group two-thirds into this 2.5-hour saga, while Pettet’s Kay incontrovertibly gets bogged down by the horrendous blows as a delusional victim of domestic abuse.

Taking the short end of the stick among the group are Helena (Widdoes), whose poor-rich-gal frustration is never fully developed; Pokey (Redd), who barely has her own lines to deliver and is apparently shoehorned in a typical angel-in-the-house role, and most exceptionally, Lakey (Bergen, in her screen debut), who supposes to be a leader figure of the group, but after venturing to Europe right after graduation, she only returns halfway through with a sapphic lover, a Baroness nonetheless, that knocks down everyone else with a feather, but lesbianism is far too controversial to merit a stronger representation, still Bergen is a total knockout in her meager scenes, barely 20 years old, she is the youngest but with such a penetrating gaze, it gives us some sort of gratification, even in short measure, when Lakey refutes Harald’s vicious homophobic remarks with her icy response to the connoted relationship between her and Kay, progress in baby steps.

Elsewhere, THE GROUP pluckily tackles many an underrepresented subject matter, such as the breast-feeding or bottle-feeding dilemma befalls a fragile Priss (Hartman), also saddled with a callous, paternalistic husband; the psychotherapy that obfuscates Polly’s married lover Gus (Holbrook, masterfully conceals his ordinary-Joe selfishness with an urbane flair, also his film debut here); and an unconventional head case in the person of Polly’s father Henry (Emhardt), plus a gelid lesson for Dottie (Hackett, another future Oscar-nominee makes the entrance on the celluloid, and who adeptly shows how a girl’s minutely comported poise can crack quietly and inwardly), falling prey to the despicable Dick, the faux-artist type (Mulligan, a sly and cavalier pick-up artist), who charmingly entices her as a throwaway low hanging fruit.

Lastly, the gossipy, career-advancing and vainglorious Libby (Walter), is the most unlikable one among the distaff side, but clearly her bark is worse than her bite, her cattiness cannot justify the sexist treatment she comes in for when she is not in the mood to put out, and I do hope the film doesn’t send a mixed message here, that’s the issue with most films which try to shed a light on the less beaten paths, simply pointing out the situation is merely enough, sometimes, a filmmaker’s own stance is also direly needed, and in THE GROUP, Lumet, as tactful as always, is overall evasive (perhaps hampered by the fidelity to the source novel), on top of a meaty, compelling representation of the trials and tribulations facing a white and nubile American woman.

referential entries: Lumet’s EQUUS (1977, 8.2/10); Lawrence Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL (1983, 7.4/10).