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Entertainment Weekly - December 12,
1996 In Marvin´s Room, Bessie (Diane
Keaton), who devoted her life to caring for her stroke-impaired father (Hume
Cronin) and brittle old aunt (Gwen Verdon), discovers in tired middle age that
she has leukemia. Bessie is a coper; even while receiving the bad news from her
pleasently disorganized doctor (Robert De Niro), she´s more concerned about Dad
and Auntie. But now even Bessie needs help - and for that, she calls on her
rebellious sister, Lee (Meryl Streep), who reluctantly comes to test as a bone
marror donor, along with her troubled teenage son, Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and
his kid brother (Hal Scardino from The Indian in the Cupboard). The dying teach the healthy about
living in Scott McPherson´s adaption of his own 1991 stage play. Bessie´s
gentleness gets Hank to open up his anger. And Lee, a single mother fierce about
the freedom won by leaving home, comes to appreciate the reward her sister finds
in commitment. Are you weeping yet? Marvin´s Room is unrelentingly
depressing when not morbidly funny (the playwright died of AIDS in 1992, and the
AIDS subtext is everywhere if you look for it). And the movie, directed in his
feature film debut by noted Broadway talent Jerry Zaks (Guys and Dolls), doesn´t
really lift from the stage. But the performances of Keaton, Streep,
and DiCaprio, it´s worth putting up with some free-floating sentimentality.
Keaton´s warmth, freed from that fluttery thing she so famously does and only
enhanced by her bravely shopworn look, thaws any Streepish coolness, and the two
get off on each other far more honestly than, say, Keaton bonded with Bette
Midler in The First Wives Club. The deeply gifted DiCaprio, meanwhile, keeps
right up with these older pros. The three are so full-bodied and so powerfully
affecting that you´re carried along on the pleasure of being in the presence of
their extraordinary talent. * |