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So prepare for documentary-strength honesty if you venture forth to see Karen Croner's no-holds-barred adaptation of writer Anna Quindlen's novel. The sophisticated tearjerker isn't for everyone. With solid direction by Carl Franklin, excellent production standards, and a fine cast led by the inimitable Meryl Streep, the dramatic consequences are haunting.
Whereas Saving Private Ryan placed us smack dab in the middle of war, One True Thing's contemporary version of cinema verite puts us as close to fatal illness as the movie experience will allow. Certainly no major film in recent memory details the progressive decline of a terminally ill protagonist with such unremitting, unsentimental pitch. Miss Streep in the swan song role is sure to score an Academy Award nomination, with a similar nod likely for makeup.
But the powerfully impressive drama does more than just decry the grim reaper. After all, there's really no point to death in the movies if you can't garner a plethora of life lessons from it. And One Sure Thing remakes this aphoristic mechanism with an elan usually not seen in any of the fatal-disease-of-the-week movies that generally populate TV. Yet while the trite outline of a loving family reaching greater understanding through one member's mortal illness is certainly familiar, director Franklin's artistically subtle handling of this and several other profound issues rarely feels manipulative.
Hence, with homemaker Kate Gulden's watershed demise as the emotional catalyst, several touching investigations are set in motion. Of primary focus is the mother-daughter tension portrayed when Ellen Gulden (Renee Zellweger) returns home from her Big Apple career to care for Mom. The filmmaker injects a glib hint of cynicism as comedy relief and balance to the often crucial doings. For example, when Ellen informs her editor at New York Magazine that she needs a hiatus in order to nursemaid her cancer-stricken Mom, he offers her a raise. Nonplussed, Ellen asks incredulously, "You mean you think I would say my mother had cancer to get a raise?" More dry than defensive, he reminds, "This is New York."
Previously partial to Pop (William Hurt), a university literature teacher and scribe of more than moderate note, daughter dear has always idolised her dilettantish dad. A Harvard grad like her father, she seeks only his approval, traditionally taking bubbly Mom's ever-present support for granted. Later, as Ellen's odyssey of parental rediscovery evolves, what mother actually knows will surprise her.
Heretofore, Ellen has viewed her mom's Martha Stewart-like domesticity as somewhat less than glamorous. But when the situation causes the prodigal daughter to take a second look, her feelings are subject to emotive review and revision. The Misses Streep and Zellweger are impressive in their superb rendition of the archetypal, toe-to-toe relationship.
Then there's Dad's tale. George Gulden enjoys chairmanship of his university's literature department, significant standing as a writer, and the adulation of nearly every co-ed on campus. In a full-tilt swing of the emotional pendulum, this latter item isn't lost on the revisiting daughter. Suddenly, her heroic father is a wenching ogre, an obnoxious, self-important fop whose selfish schedule hasn't been compromised in the least since his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
One telling scene in particular depicts George's special brand of vulnerability. When a renowned poet is a last-minute guest for Thanksgiving dinner, the college Prof. suffers an unintentional slight. It seems the famous bard had previously lauded the first chapter of George's legendary but long-unfinished novel, and now apologises that he can't recall it at all. Later Ellen catches Dad wallowing in self-pity; she believes he should instead be consumed by his wife's advancing illness.
But the author isn't as tough on George as Ellen is. Championing tolerance and understanding, the humanistic story's splendid character studies point up the various gradations of reality that different people must subscribe to in order to cope with the frightening finality of life's major transitions.
It is said that, at its best, art is the ultimate mirror. That it gives us insight into the human condition. The better the reflection, the deeper we see inside ourselves. Engendering honest introspection by exploring the diverse aspects of a family crisis with high-minded values, there's nothing false about One True Thing.
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