Thoughts on Hope Floats

 

via Giphy/Courtesy 20th Century Studios

"Everything is so wrong without Bill."
"I know."
"I miss him so much."
"I know."
"He used to call me 'baby.' I never in a million years thought I'd be a woman who'd like that, but I did ... with him."
"Sure you do."
"I miss his hands. ... Miss his hands, the way they would just -- he would put them on the small of my back ... and just lead me into a room. It made me feel so safe. I miss all that."

It's time for another installment of What I Like, What I'm Okay With and What I Dislike!

I Dislike ... the execution of Hope Floats' opening sequence. If screenwiter Steven Rogers was determined to open with Birdee (Sandra Bullock) being humiliated on a nationally broadcast talk show, then I think he needed to start with Birdee. The actual movie has two minutes of setup with two one-and-done characters, hostess Toni Post (Kathy Najimy) and Connie (an uncredited Rosanna Arquette). Connie, Birdee's alleged best friend, reveals that she's having an affair with Birdee's husband, Bill (Michael Paré). Having this be followed up with the image of Birdee and Bill's elementary-age daughter Bernice (Mae Whitman) crying in the audience took the situation from misguided to unnecessarily cruel.

I'm Okay With ... Ramona (Gena Rowlands) laying it on thick with the tough love but smiling kind of attitude for Birdee and Bernice. I've found that these kind of movies live and die on the strength of their tell it like it is character. Hell, to an extent, so did The Golden Girls. Anyway, in addition to the three generations of females, we have Ramona's other grandchild, Travis (Cameron Finley). I totally forgot until now that Finley was the lead in the 1997 movie remake of Leave it to Beaver. Travis likes to wear costumes and play roles (dog, frog, Charlie Chaplin) that allow him to avoid speaking unless he has to. Quirky, but compelling.

I'm Okay With ... Hope Floats taking its time before it goes all in with the courtship of Birdee and Justin (Harry Connick Jr.). In the meantime, Birdee alienates Bernice and Ramona with her depression and we see the family father, Harry (James N. Harrell), living with Alzheimer's. Floats starred and was co-produced by Sandra Bullock after she was forced to make Speed 2: Cruise Control. It was Rogers' first produced movie script, directed by Forest Whitaker as his followup to Waiting to Exhale and produced by Lynda Obst as her followup to Contact. I'll get to the point: Floats doesn't reach the level of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, but it's also not an outright embarassment.

Harry got more of a star entrance than Sandra! Courtesy 20th Century Studios

I Dislike ... the lack of a decent punchline to the running gag that Birdee was apparently an absolute bitch in her teens. The way she interacts with Dot (Dee Hennigan), formerly "Polka Dot, a donut's best friend" and now the head of an employment agency, has me thinking that Birdee was more like Dedee in The Opposite of Sex than Rogers intended. Speaking of Opposite, I think Mr. Davis (Norman Bennett) at the photo center hanging onto copies of customers' naughty pictures -- he doesn't take them home, but just keeps them in a drawer -- would be more at home in that movie. Anyway, there is an adult mean girl in Floats, Bobbi-Claire (Connie Ray). In all honesty, I'd have liked to see more of her. Thanks to her job, Birdee does.

I Like ... the courtship of Birdee and Justin getting kicked up a few notches. Okay, so there are some aspects that are just too inevitable to be enjoyable, like Bernice being certain her parents will get back together. There's also good stuff, like Justin and Birdee's heart to heart about the American Dream. Or rather, falling in love and staying in love. 

I'm Okay With ... Birdee and Justin not actually having sex after their big scene. At least, that's what I think happened. When the two meet again, Birdee apologizes about what happened. Nevertheless, they were intimate enough for Birdee to have a walk of shame and for Bernice to be pissed. Roger Ebert hated that Birdee and Justin's afterglow didn't last. He has a point. Was anyone clammoring for more ugly relationship stuff? Ah well, Sandra and Gena (and closely behind them, Harry and Mae) acted the hell out of it.

"... I know it's so easy to blame him. But you know what? I think it's me. I do. Because ... he used to look at me, and I used to see myself in his eyes. It was like he saw me. And I was audacious, Mama. I was. And then, um -- I don't know -- things just started to change. The harder I tried to be what he wanted me to be, the less I saw myself in his eyes. And -- just one day I looked, and I was gone."

"Well, I still see her."

"No, Mama. No. No. It's happening with Bernice too. It is happening with Bernice. She doesn't even -- she doesn't even look at me the same way. Hey, it's like -- it's like there's a wall between us. There's a wall, and it's killing me. Because the one thing that I said -- the one thing I said when I grow up, 'If I ever have a daughter of my own, I would -- she would know her mother loved her, and she would -- I would hug her, and I would -- I would tell her nice things, and I wouldn't just let the daddy do all the hugging. ..."

I Love ... the payoff to the Alzheimer's storyline. Birdee gave Harry a photo of Bernice in the hope that he might recognize her. Later, when everything's gone wrong, Birdee visits her dad. He claims the photo of Bernice is of Birdee. "She's marked for happiness." "And how do you know that?" "If you look at her, child, you'll see it." "My God, you're right. I see it." Oh, the thousand words this shot says ...

Courtesy 20th Century Studios

I Love ... Ramona's ant hill story. Taken by itself, it's on the nose as hell, but Rowlands is a great actress, Whitman was a great supporting actress, I liked the sentiment ("That's why they invented families: so hopeless didn't get the last word.") and it puts down more of the foundation for the inevitable climactic reunion between Bernice and Birdee. Now that Ramona's done everything Floats requires of her, she's free to die from a heart attack. And at roughly the 90-minute mark, no less.

I Like ... Birdee crying into one of Ramona's old dresses. As overwrought as Rogers' writing throughout Floats could be, there were several times he got it just right.

I'm Okay With ... the tying up of loose ends. Travis' mother, Desiree, didn't show for Ramona's funeral. Justin is poised to become the boy's new guardian. (Watching Connick and Finley together, I wondered if the movie was implying that Justin is actually Travis' father.) Bill, meanwhile, did show up for the funeral and to formally ask Birdee for a divorce. Sandra Bullock gets a final chance to flex her acting muscles, but she's overshadowed a few minutes later.

I Love ... Whitman's acting in the heartbreaking, ugly scene where Bernice wants to leave with Bill and he won't let her. Floats has been building to this, and everyone involved handled it perfectly. You wouldn't think that something like that would have a tidy button, but it does: Bernice realizes that Birdee, not Bill, wrote the letter that gave her such hope when mother and daughter started their new life in Texas.

I'm Okay With ... Ending with a joke. Some time later, Bernice has come around to Justin. If he is going to be her stepdad, she just doesn't want to be known as "Bernice Matisse."

"... I realize that -- I realize that it doesn't matter ... who or what or when or where the hugging happens. Sometimes you just need a hug. And it just hasn't worked out that way."

"You know, I  -- I've seen you hug your daughter. ... She knows you love her. Yeah. Mothers love their daughters ... even if they show it poorly."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:

-- "You just never liked Bill." "Oh, I like all of God's creatures. I just like some of them better stuffed. And he's one of them."

-- Box Office: Grossing more than $60 million on a $30 million budget, this opened at No. 2 and came in at No. 34 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch: Whitman received a Young Artist Award in the category for film actresses under age 10, winning over the likes of Hallie Eisenberg in Paulie and Hatty Jones in Madeline. Finley, meanwhile lost for film actors under age 10 to Liam Aiken in Stepmom. Other losses included Connick Jr. and Rowlands falling to Nicolas Cage and Anjelica Huston, for City of Angels and Ever After: A Cinderella Story, respectively, in the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards' Drama/Romance actor and supporting actress categories. Bullock's most prominent nod was for Most Annoying Fake Accent. She lost the Stinker to Adam Sander for The Waterboy.

-- Memorable Music: The score is 20-14, still favoring non-original songs. Hope Floats has three entries, the two renditions of "To Make You Feel My Love" and "I Can't Get Next to You." Garth Brooks' version of "To Make You Feel My Love," written by Bob Dylan and also performed by Trisha Yearwood, was the one that got the attention. It topped the country charts, hit No. 8 on the adult contemporary chart and got nominated for two Grammys. Alas, Garth lost to Vince Gill and "If You Ever Have Forever in Mind," while Bob lost to "You're Still the One."

-- "Now, Birdee, this has never been a rude house. Strange, perhaps, but never rude. Now, I would like you to go and welcome our guest. ... Hey, I'm still your mama, missy. You move it!"

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: Dual strong stories about mothers and daughters learning to communicate and a woman rebuilding her life were "undercut by that soft, sentimental Hollywood glow," twee humor and an excessive soundtrack, according to Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times. "A sharper edge could have taken a pretty good, if uneven, picture to greater heights, considering its potent ingredients and actors." Ebert: "No film that starts so weirdly should develop so conventionally." "Hope Floats doesn't," declared Todd McCarthy, Variety. "(It's) dreadfully dull, completely conventional ... (a) by-the-numbers bit of emotional calculation without a single fresh, original or offbeat move ... apart from a nifty opening sequence. ... Viewers willing to be led by the nose into sniffles territory will find some of what they're looking for."

-- Critic's Corner, the female acting: Thomas liked "Bullock and Rowlands' knockout performances" and thought Whitman was "easily as effective" as both. Janet Maslin thought Whitman "gives zest to (her) potentially cloying role" and that "Rowlands' performance is a lot more likably down to earth than (Ramona as a character)." Ebert, still annoyed at the opening, claimed that it caused Bullock to give an off-center performance. "(Birdee) wanders through the whole movie like a person who senses that no matter what Harry Connick thinks, she will always be known as the Corn Queen who got dumped on TV."

-- Critic's Corner, Connick Jr: Because of his stiff acting, Maslin wrote, Justin wasn't enough of a dreamboat. For Thomas, the flaw started with the character. "We need to know more about the man to make him seem more than a plot contrivance."

-- Hey, It's 1998!: McCarthy's review mentioned that Rogers was set to make more movies with female stars including Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts and Jodie Foster. He got two for one with Stepmom, starring Susan and Julia (and featuring a recycling of that guaranteed crowd pleaser, a cheer up dance to a Motown hit). The Foster movie was the unmade Flora Plum, which would have had Jodie directing Claire Danes, Meryl Streep and Ewan McGregor. Alas, what could have been ...

-- Hey, It's 1998 TV!: At her lowest point, Birdee watches The Jerry Springer Show on a bar's TV. What, they couldn't have filmed an additional scene with Najimy?

-- Hey, It's ...!: Bill Cobb. Like Najimy, he received prominent billing for a brief appearance. I'm wondering if more material for the Alzheimer's subplot was filmed but ultimately didn't make it into the final cut.

-- Different Times: Was 1998 the last time it was possible for a previously stay-at-home mom in her '30s to have no skills? Birdee didn't even have computer experience when she was looking for work.

-- Does anyone want to speculate about what Desiree looks like? She's supposedly trying to make it as an actress in Hollywood. I figure that on a good day, Des probably could pass for Pamela Anderson's stand in.

-- Fanservice Junction: It didn't take long for me to be lustin' for Justin.

And one more:

Courtesy 20th Century Studios

-- "What can I say, Mama? I am my own crown of thorns."

-- Next: A Perfect Murder. On deck: The Truman Show.