Betty Buckley, Mary Louise Parker in "Vinegar Hill"

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/26/08 at 9:25am

Anyone else watch this movie-of-the-week Saturday, which CBS curiously buried on a low viewership night? It was based on an Oprah book, and the adaptation was both way over the top and underdramatized. Narrative problems aside -- and there were many -- I've never seen material on TV struggle so to find its tone. Quirky dialogue that veered from Anne Tyler to Sam Shepherd's BURIED CHILD, and lurid plot turns that veered from, well, BURIED CHILD to CHINATOWN.

Plopped in the middle of this American Gothic debacle was Betty Buckley, giving her all to a tortured mother character that allowed her to access her inner Margarate White and revisit her beautiful performance in TENDER MERCIES. It was revelatory, as always, to observe what a nuanced actor she is, even stuck in this morass of a potboiler. Poor Tim Guinee, so effective on stage, had to try to bring to life an entirely unsympathetic loser whose llth hour quasi redemption made no good sense. Mary Louise Parker, as the ostensible heroine, was alternatly a doormat to abuse, an indifferent mom to 2 kids going down the tubes, and a girl who just wanted to have fun, and no human being could stitch together the bipolar attributes of this unmemorable woman.

By the the last act, when the dead body and murderous secret-filled backstory came lurching into the series of confessions and revelations, the whole sorry mess became almost campy.

That said, I couldn't turn the damned thing off. We don't get to see Buckly act much anymore. Someone, let her remake CHRISTMAS MEMORY.

Updated On: 5/26/08 at 09:25 AM

[thatgirl712]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 8:17am

I think Betty Buckey would do a wonderful job in A Christmas Memory. Love that story.

Updated On: 5/27/08 at 08:17 AM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 8:45am

After the post, I read that CBS made the movie in 2005. Clearly, with the players involved, this was a top shelf project. The lackluster results are all the more startling and disappointing. Apparently, there's a new version of SYBIL with Jessica Lange and Tammy Blanchard from the same CBS regime, scheduled tentatively for a Saturday night in June. I guess we should be grateful that these adaptations don't just disappear into the ether (remember the film of FANTASTIKS with Joel Grey?)

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 9:43am

It was based on an Oprah book, and the adaptation was both way over the top and underdramatized.

Isn't the book by A. Manette Ansay?