Although her screen persona in such films as Starting Over and It's My Turn was being the nice girl next door, Jill Clayburgh
also took some chances. Just think of her vomiting in An Unmarried
Woman and her incestuous opera singer in Bernardo Bertolucci's
Luna. This film is based on Barbara Gordon's book and what probably
helped Clayburgh to deliver her searing performance is that her
husband playwright David Rabe both produced and did the screenplay,
and the director was Jack Hofsiss who did The Elephant Man on stage to
such acclaim. Her Barbara is barely likeable - obsessive-compulsive,
hostile, chain-smoking and valium addicted. It's fascinating to see
how she conceals her pills, and clear that she lacks the support to
accomodate her impulsive decision to withdraw. She is told that valium
withdrawal is as traumatic as opiate withdrawal, and having an
alcoholic abusive lover doesn't help. As Barbara withdraws, Clayburgh
goes all out - convulsing, drooling, shrieking, maniacal, with wild
mad eyes and Frances Farmer hair. When she is eventually
institutionalised we see the anger that the valium had suppressed as
she rages at her therapist played by Dianne Wiest, who matches
Clayburgh. Wiest's first film had been Clayburgh's It's My Turn and
it's generous to think that Clayburgh helped her along with this role,
before she found greater success with Woody Allen. The film is
actually full of interesting actors in small roles - John Lithgow,
David Margulies, Kathleen Widdoes, Daniel Stern, Joe Pesci, Anne de
Salvo, Ellen Greene, Richard Masur, Jeffrey de Munn, and Geraldine
Page as a poet with cancer who Barbara is making a doco on. The poetry
we hear her recite is by Marsha Rabe. Occasionally Page slips into
Method-overdrive, with her hands and her little girl voice, and she
kills the meaning of the title, but mostly she is believable. The
casting of Nicol Williamson as Clayburgh's lover however doesn't quite
work. He is certainly creepy but we never understand his reluctance to
get Barbara medical help during her withdrawal. Hofsiss gives us two
great images - Clayburgh walking down a long corridor after having
been insulted by Page, aggresively wiping away her tears, and her
running on the beach in a white gown. The music of Stanley Silverman
and the Primavera String Quartet is particularly beautiful and
moving. Also Clayburgh is dressed very stylishly here, that is when
not draped in her crazy lady pyjamas.
