Review: Grand Canyon
A bunch of often barely connected characters lament the crime-ridden,
frightening, and seemingly hopeless state of society in modern L.A., whilst
undergoing potentially life-changing events. Kevin Kline is an immigration
lawyer whose car breaks down in the last place in L.A. you want that to happen.
The appearance of African-American tow-truck driver Danny Glover saves him from
being another victim of gangland thugs, and Kline spends much of the rest of
the film trying to come to terms with this stranger having saved him from a
possible horrible fate. Meanwhile, he’s having an affair with his secretary, a
very lonely and unfulfilled Mary-Louise Parker. Kline’s wife Mary McDonnell is
failing to make sense of the violent times she’s living in, and also struggling
to deal with the fact that her teen son (Jeremy Sisto) is going away to summer
camp, and eventually will fly the coop indefinitely. A chance discovery of an
abandoned, crying baby in some bushes appears to fill some of the void, though
she rationalises it as more having a duty to take care of an abandoned child
than anything else. Steve Martin is a cynical producer of ultra-violent films,
whose up close and personal experience with real violence has him considering a
change of heart and career. Glover (who is missing his deaf daughter, who
doesn’t live near him), for his part, is struggling to get through to his
nephew (Patrick Malone), who is becoming increasingly involved in street gangs,
much to the anguish of his mother (Tina Lifford). Alfre Woodard plays a friend
of Parker’s whom Kline arranges a blind date with widowed Glover.
Although it also stands as a forerunner to multi-character societal
dramas like “Crash” and “Magnolia”, this 1991 film from Lawrence
Kasdan (“The Big Chill”) actually had me thinking of “Do the Right
Thing” and “Boyz ‘N the Hood” instead. In fact, watching this
interesting, but foolish and dated film, I couldn’t help but wonder what Spike
Lee and John Singleton might’ve made of this midlife crisis film masquerading
as an urban uneasiness social commentary. My guess (and it’s without any
knowledge whatsoever) is that they deride it for focussing on the wrong side of
the fence. I mean, who wants to see a film about white yuppies complaining
about how their lives are empty and that urban (i.e. Ethnic, in this film’s
worldview) gangs are turning everything to shit. I’m not suggesting that Kasdan
and his co-writer/wife Meg are telling any falsehoods here (though Martin’s
movie producer who momentarily sees the light is a tired and half-arsed point
to be making), nor that the film is dull, though it’s not especially good either. Indeed, the acting is far
too good for it to be unwatchable, with particularly fine work by Danny Glover,
Kevin Kline, and a mostly serious Steve Martin. Hell, even the usually annoying
Mary McDonnell and a surprisingly hot Mary-Louise Parker do some of their best
work. It’s just that the film’s POV (which Kasdan has every right to have, no
matter what) is an awfully hard sell, especially given the time in which the
film was released. Hell, it also brings up bad memories of “Bonfire of the
Vanities”, which started with a scene involving white yuppies having car
trouble in a predominantly African-American, crime-ridden neighbourhood. That
film, awful as it was (and it sure was!), at least attempted a humorous take on
the situation, no such luck with Kasdan. He genuinely seems to think he’s onto
something profound here about the need for connection, and he just isn’t. I
mean, the real story is in the gang violence, but that’s a subplot here in a
film where a mother attempting to compensate for the impending departure of her
teen son (and a stagnant marriage) by taking someone else’s baby as a surrogate
is seen as the bigger deal. Oh, I’m sooo sad because my son is away at summer
camp and soon he’ll be away for good...I’m sooo depressed. Yeah, whatever,
yuppie (The characters are probably more upper-middle class, with Glover closer
to working class, but Martin’s character is surely fairly affluent before his
injury). Try living a life that every day seems like it could be ended by
gunshots.
Things become especially absurd (and vaguely offensive) when McDonnell’s
decision to adopt the baby comes out of the possibly imagined ramblings of a
homeless person McDonnell jogs past one morning. I’m not effing kidding, folks.
In Kasdan’s world, hobos dispense sage advice to the affluent! And don’t even
get me started on the so-called office affair between Kline and Parker. It’s so
horribly and cowardly handled by Kasdan that there is only ever one discretion
and it occurs before the film even begins, so as not to make Kline out to be a
selfish bastard. A tacked-on happy ending for the Parker character is just
that, tacked-on. It’s handled with such a complete lack of balls (maybe Mrs.
Kasdan wrote it?) that it ends up being practically superfluous, despite
Kline’s fine effort (Even when playing a scoundrel, Kline is always likeable to
some extent). The Mary McDonnell character, meanwhile, is written in such a way
that makes her frankly self-absorbed and, on-paper unlikeable, despite
McDonnell actually giving a very likeable performance. I could also suggest the
subplot involving Martin’s character transformation ends up rather pointless,
but I’ll give Kasdan the benefit of the doubt there, because it was always
obvious that Martin was a somewhat soulless, cynical character unlikely to ever
truly change. I will give Kasdan
credit, though, for the scene where Kline sets up Glover on a blind date with
Parker’s co-worker Woodard, whom he doesn’t actually know. Parker and Woodard
exchange rather amused looks, and then in a scene later on, Woodard and Glover
remark that Kline set this up probably because they’re the only two black
people he knows. At least Kasdan’s honest enough to be critical (albeit gently)
of Kline’s rather silly, if well-meaning presumption (‘Hey, you two are black
and single, I bet you’d like each other!’). I’m not going to suggest that
Kasdan only knows two black people, but I have to admit that I’m chuckling at
the possible irony nonetheless. I also should point out that it’s the only
moment of dialogue in the entire film that felt natural and organic. Everything
else that the characters say in this film is all too clearly the words of the
screenwriters, and not said in any organic way possible. Even the gangbangers
are amateur philosophers for cryin’ out loud and it begins to feel like the
characters have no real flesh and blood to them.
Meanwhile, there’s so much going on in this film that it feels
over-stuffed and frankly a little too hyperbolic- traffic chaos, earthquakes
(at least “Magnolia” saved the apocalypse for the end), heart attacks, violent
car-jackings, even more violent drive-by’s, marital infidelity, missing babies,
and a last-minute trip to the Grand
Canyon. It’s too much, like Kasdan had put all this stuff in one film to make
it somehow all seem more important than it really is.
Look, this is Kasdan’s POV, and it’s not like he can really tell it from
an African-American POV with absolute certainty and insight, if this is really his POV. In fact, the character played
by Danny Glover, comes off as one of the most interesting in the entire film,
it’s only in his dealings with Kline that things feel pat, contrived, and a
little out of Kasdan’s depth. Kasdan actually makes a few decent points here
and there, including a memorable visit to Tina Lifford from an insurance
salesman, and a line from Malone about his mortality that is equally
disheartening (Although this whole subplot with Glover’s nephew and sister
feels like it belongs in its own, far more fleshed-out film. The title “Boyz
‘N the Hood” springs to mind for some reason...not sure why). But with all
the films that dealt with modern life and race relations, etc. in the late 80s
and early 90s, this one has become pretty much obsolete. Just ‘coz yuppies
probably have a thing or two to say about gang violence and modern society too,
doesn’t mean we get any benefit or enlightenment from a film about it.
Pretentious dialogue doesn’t help, but the performances are worthy. Terrible
ending, trying for happiness and tidiness where there isn’t really any call for
it, with Kline in particular getting off way
to easy.
Rating: C+
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