World According To Garp
When is a drama not really a drama? When does what appears to be a comedy sometimes become too serious for its own good? How can the balance possibly be maintained between both realms to create a rewarding cinematic experience? Perhaps the rarest of these types of films to actually work to a plausible extent was this 1982 release directed by George Roy Hill which was based on the acclaimed novel by John Irving. The story at its heart (according to Irving) was a satiric examination of the consequences of sexual intolerance, but just who exactly in the story can really be considered intolerant is left wide open for interpretation. As far as the film is concerned, it comes off as being about a poor insignificant schmuck who was seemingly born under a bad sign and continued that way through his whole life while being raised by a single mother who was loving towards him but yet was still a raving lunatic as he suffered one mishap after another as we try to stay rooted in him but yet still know naturally to keep our distance all the way to the bitter end as we ponder whether or not his actions were really for the best. Essentially, this is a film that fools us into thinking that itās supposed to be a depressing drama with several scenes which serve as examples to back that up (including the onscreen death of a child) but in reality itās probably one of the bleakest, darkest, blackest comedies ever produced, so awash in its own absurdity that we canāt help but laugh at the most inopportune times. The fact that it stars Robin Williams in the role of Garp (during his underrated early to mid 80s run in which he starred in a number of underappreciated comedies before Good Morning Vietnam in 1987 made him respectable and a Best Actor Nominee) should be the tip off to most of us as to how the film should be looked at no matter how serious some portions of it are. Williams does give a commendable, restrained performance here that never really gets too manic, but he winds up being overshadowed by Glenn Close (in her debut movie acting role that earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination) as his mother, Jenny Fields, a professional nurse who winds up becoming something much more significant than that (and worse). Close readily carries the movie as the de facto star for about the first twenty minutes (until the Garp character has grown up enough to be played by Williams) as we find out the twisted backstory behind Garpās conception: Closeās Jenny Fields (having never felt any need for a man in her life much less a husband) was tending to badly wounded and maimed World War II veterans in a VA Hospital when she came upon one who was suffering brain damage and clearly dying while still inexplicably sporting a very large erection, one in which she saw the opportunity for motherhood and having a child which led to her mounting on top and using the man as her sperm donor before the poor bastard expired completely (in essence raping him), giving her son the dying manās name (Garp) and explaining to him quite often that not only was his father dead, but that she barely knew him and heād be better off not worrying about who he really was. The amazing thing is that despite this backstory, the script still portrays Close in a relatively sympathetic, caring light, raising Garp to be a good man while harboring her own seething hatred towards men, one that comes to the forefront when both she and Garp decide to become writers, with Garp churning out an original work of fiction that scores with critics and intellectuals but fails to find much of an audience while his mother comes out with a literally insane āpolitical manifestoā that accuses all men of being driven solely by their ālustā which compels them to try and control any women that they are involved with (while one of many ironies in the film is the fact that any men whom Close is friendly and civil towards are only those whom she can knowingly and obviously overwhelm with her own personality) which makes her an overnight sensation, a superheroine of the feminist movement and a darling of the resident pop culture (as Garp finds himself often mockingly referred to as being her ābastard sonā). She also becomes a target, as obviously she becomes directly responsible for a number of wives and girlfriends turning against their significant others which leads to numerous death threats and even assassination attempts from men who canāt stand to see this empowerment of women that she has bequeathed. Garp for his part (while still loving his mother and supporting her efforts) has retreated to a more conventional life, excelling in amateur wrestling (perhaps as a primal form of therapy to escape the embarrassment of being raised by such a castrating figure) and marrying his coachās daughter (Mary Beth Hurt), a cute intellectual type for whom we can actually see where the attraction comes from. It is from this section of the story that the more dramatic elements spring from with pseudo soap opera dynamics abounding as their marriage starts hitting some rough patches culminating in a hilariously grotesque accident that would be horrifying if it were not only for the at least partial justification in what happens to one victim but also the extremely twisted foreshadowing in the several scenes leading up to it. Garp is certainly somewhat of a hothead, as seen when dealing with a truck driver who blithely barrels through the neighborhood at full speed or confronting the dog who had attacked him as a child all while spending his life being stalked by a creepy, possibly retarded or autistic girl who seems to have an unquenchable hatred for him for absolutely no reason. But in the tradition of his mother, instead of being saddled with your usual guy best friend, his best friend turns out to be an ex pro football player turned transgender transsexual (and devout supporter of his mother) played by John Lithgow in a performance nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. While Lithgow does succeed in giving a dignified performance in a landmine filled role that could have easily fallen prey to any number of annoying, offensive homosexual clichĆ©s, just the fact we still know that underneath the wigs, dresses and makeup that we are watching John Lithgow in all out drag makes him almost a walking freakshow onto himself which ironically enough allows him to fit in with all of the other freakshow elements of the film. Really in the end though it remains Glenn Closeās movie from the first frame on, playing a kindly, likable and (since Close was young here and in her physical prime) beautiful woman who treated her son well but nonetheless in her own personal views towards men was purely an unfettered psychopath who succeeded in channeling that wrath towards an almost dangerous movement that results in the rise of The Ellen James Society, a group of man hating women whom (in response to a young woman who had been raped horribly and then had her tongue cut out in order to keep her quiet) had cut out their own tongues as a ritualistic act of self mutilation in order to show their solidarity against men victimizing women, something which horrifies Garp to no end and (when finding out that the real Ellen James was opposed to what they had done to themselves) makes him decide to write his own political manifesto against the group and feminism in general, an act that causes no animosity between he and his mother but now also makes him a target from the female side of the aisle who regard him as some kind of a turncoat, Antichrist figure who has tried to undermine his own motherās work. If much of this story description makes it sound like something thatās whacked out of its mind, thatās because it is, but nonetheless the tone remains one of pure realism with no truly over the top scenes or sequences and the characters being played off as real people rather than clownish caricatures (which in Lithgowās case is particularly admirable). The fact that it stays so grounded and just allows the insane plot developments to carry the day both helps and (at times) hurts the movie, but it stands to reason that it remains a feather in the cap for the early career of Williams (among other underrated films which he starred in during this time) and also got the ball rolling on the brilliant career of Glenn Close in a performance that remains hard to pin down as being either a pure evil incarnation of Nazi feminism or as merely a kindly soul who bravely railed in favor of better treatment for women everywhereā¦
8/10