MAXIE. Directed by Paul Aaron; written by Patricia Resnick, produced by Carter DeHaven for Orion. Starring Glenn Close and Mandy Patinkin. Rated PG.
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Living in an old house has its drawbacks. (Believe me, I know.) The plumbing and wiring always need work, and new leaks are always springing out. Jan (Close) and Nick (Patinkin) Cheyney, though, have an additional problem with their San Francisco apartment in Maxie. It's haunted.
A previous tenant was Maxie, a flapper songbird who died in 1927, on the way to Hollywood for a screen test with D.W. Griffith. Although it takes us a little while to get there, we eventually find out that Maxie would really like to know if she could have been a big star. She needs a body for this, tough, and Jan's is the logical choice.
Maxie is a pleasant fantasy/romantic comedy; short on the big laughs but with a measure of smiles and chuckles. The story of the movie is too lightweight, even for a ghost story, to sustain our interest for an hour and a half. And the movie is also cluttered with some distracting minor characters and subplots.
But it does have the attraction of two good actors playing (and playing well) roles that are unusual for them. Most of Patinkin's success has been on the stage. His movie roles have been ethnic and not contemporary, for the most part (Yentl, Ragtime). Here he plays a regular person in modern society, a person whose ethnic background isn't part of the story.
Close's characters have either been down-to-earth (The Big Chill), or eccentric (The World According to Garp). Here she gets to play it both ways. Jan is the shy, proper, straightlaced workaholic while Maxie is impetuous, irresponsible and flamboyant. Not just any actress could make both personalities believable. But Close does. Even the quick changes from one to the other don't strain credibility as much as one would expect.
As the movie progresses, Maxie and Jan become more alike, and Maxie is the big winner here. She is striking, but not too appealing in her first appearances. Unfortunately, this situation results in the main storyline getting off to a bad start. (It recovers near the end, but that's a long time to wait.)
Her initial appearances really put me off. She apparently drank a lot in her previous incarnation, for example, and the years haven't changed her. Drunk humor has never been one of my favorite varieties, so I found these early scenes more disturbing than funny.
By the same token, Maxie's continual self-pity for dying in her prime wears a bit, as well. After all, no one forced her to drive drunk down the dangerous California coast highway at night. Her death was a direct result of her own irresponsible, one might even say self-destructive, personality. Not exactly the stuff of comedy.
The performances may make Maxie worth seeing in spite of these problems. And the movie isn't without its good scenes. Nick's confusion over whether or not he's been unfaithful (technically) to Jan, after sleeping with "Maxie," is one. And Maxie makes Jan do the first few takes of her screen test, with hilariously embarrassing results. But if you see it, go for the characters, not the story.
October 16, 1985