As we continue celebrating 1995 with the imminent Smackdown, here’s Murtada with a new edition of Great Moments in Screen Bitchery.
Remember the endless jokes last year about that often repeated line in The Imitation Game (We won’t repeat it here - you've heard it enough). Well in Dolores Claiborne a better line is repeated by different characters at different times and yet no one cringes. It's so good you relish it instead. In fact I’d go as far as to say the line is what the movie is all about. Say it with us after the jump...
Illustration by Gary Smith
Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hang onto.
The scene that sets up the first delivery of the line - chronologically within the story if not actually in the film - is the one we're in love with.
It starts innocuously enough with Dolores dusting as her employer Vera Donovan saunters into the room.
Vera : Dolores as soon as the caterers arrive I want you to make sure ‘they have everything they need. I made a list. Do you hear me? (Dolores is weeping).
Are we quite finished? Pamela do put on some tea.
Dolores : (through her tears) I’m sorry Mrs. Donovan. I truly am.
Vera : Vera. I insist that all women who have hysterics in my drawing room call me by my christian name.
The scene is a classic of bitchiness. Parfitt delivers one bitchy line after another. A series of brilliant bitchy come ons , put downs, pithy throwouts. She’s brimming with bitchiness and relishes every bit. Other choice lines :
Well, don't look to me, Dolores. All my money is tied up in cash.
It's a depressingly masculine world we live in, Dolores.
Husbands die every day, Dolores. Why... one is probably dying right now while you're sitting here weeping. They die... and leave their wives their money. I should know, shouldn't I? Sometimes they're driving home from their mistress's apartment and their brakes suddenly fail. An accident, Dolores, can be an unhappy woman's best friend.
Then later on is the big scene that sets the denouement going. And that line. This time delivered by Parfitt herself, after we’ve heard it before tossed out by both Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
See it in all its glory starting at the 334 minute mark. (The first part of this video also includes the the set up scene we talked about above).
The performance is stellar and surprisingly full of nuance and range. We get to see Parfitt as an old woman in the scenes set in the present framing the story. Throughout it all Parfitt is perfect modulating steely determination, showing us how the bitch became so embittered as an invalid but still keeping her strength even when her physical power is gone.
Alas Parfitt wasn’t nominated. It could be the lukewarm reception the film received, both critically and commercially. Possibly the early Spring release date. I think it is because the film itself doesn’t work; it is too dour and serious and not campy enough. Parfitt’s scenes are a delight, but the rest is a drag to sit through.(ahem JJL).
It’s a pity because the nomination could have led to a bigger career for Parfitt. Think Brenda Blethyn or Jacki Weaver. All we got from Parfitt stateside is a guest spot on ER and a recent stint on Call the Midwife.
Is the love for this performance only in hindsight? If you cried “Parfitt was robbed” at the time speak out!