Review: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

When her husband (Billy Green Bush) is killed in a car accident, aspiring singer Ellen Burstyn struggles to make ends meet for her and weirdo son Alfred Lutter. She ends up working as a waitress, and meeting a gruff farmer (Kris Kristofferson) who takes a liking to her. Diane Ladd is the trash-mouthed veteran waitress whom Burstyn butts heads with (for reasons completely unbeknownst to me, I thought Burstyn was just a grade-A bitch to her), Vic Tayback plays the cook, a role he later reprised for the TV series this film inspired, “Alice”. Harvey Keitel plays an obviously nasty charmer Burstyn gets involved with at one point, and a young, tomboyish Jodie Foster plays Lutter’s buddy in a totally superfluous role. Look for a young Laura Dern (AKA daughter of Diane Ladd) at the diner counter at one point.

 

Frankly overrated and dated 1974 Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver”, “Goodfellas”, “Mean Streets”) comedy-drama was apparently Scorsese’s attempt at a ‘studio picture’. It really should’ve been made by someone else. Scorsese’s over-stylised, hyper-realistic style just isn’t right here for the material. I didn’t believe anyone or anything in it. No one even seemed to like the dead husband, including the audience so why does Burstyn seem to care? Oscar-winner Burstyn (who amazingly beat out Faye Dunaway for her fantastic work in “Chinatown”) is fine enough in the title role, but also…irritating. I kinda wished she’d shut up and also wished her kid Lutter would stop acting so goddamn weird. I didn’t take to either of them, which probably made it hard for me to engage with the film as a whole. Meanwhile, Keitel (who was fine in “Taxi Driver”) hasn’t got a hope in his silly role as a deceptive Southern sleazebag. The way he’s filmed in some scenes is so over-the-top it’s almost unintentionally funny. And he’s definitely not meant to be funny. Diane Ladd (in an Oscar-nominated performance) meanwhile is saddled with the sassy veteran waitress cliché and the only thing missing is the chewing gum…and maybe it was there too. It was later turned into an apparently successful TV series that I hadn’t even heard of.

 

Show-off cinematography by Kent Wakeford (“Mean Streets”, and “Black Belt Jones”), combined with Scorsese’s directorial excesses helps to ruin what could’ve and should’ve been a simple, if clichéd story about a long-suffering woman who keeps on truckin’ (My vote for the best film in that category? “Places in the Heart”) There’s irritating zooms, and a silly “Wizard of Oz” fantasy sequence, etc. It just isn’t necessary or helpful. Great use of popular songs throughout though, and lots of people love this film. Maybe too much time and too many films have passed, and it’s no longer fresh to me. Maybe you have to be a chick (apparently feminists love it). Maybe you just had to be there. Maybe it’s just not good. I’m sorry, I just didn’t get this one at all, folks and I really wanted to.

 

Rating: C

 

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