Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
*
Cinema Releases - September 27, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA.
116 minutes. Directed by Callie Khouri. Written by Callie Khouri; adaptation
by Mark Andrus; from the novels "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood"
and "Little Altars Everywhere" by Rebecca Wells. Starring Sandra Bullock,
Ellen Burstyn, Ashley Judd, James Garner, Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan,
Shirley Knight, Angus MacFayden.
"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood" is one of those movies where Southern belles get together
and chat and chat and chat, and there are flashbacks to when they were all
young and purty-lookin', and we get pearls of wisdom and home cookin' and
tales of woe and bits of laughter. Sometimes all that can make for charming
filmmaking, but this is one of the most irritating films of the season. How
cute can it possibly be to see four old women screaming "Ya-ya!" at the top
of their lungs every five minutes, as greeting, exclamation and adjective?
It's just not a very nice sound.
The movie opens with Ellen Burstyn squealing like
a stuck pig and slamming her phone to the kitchen table in the manner of
a spoiled child whose daily crate of Ritalin has not arrived. She's the Louisiana
mother of a New York playwright (Sandra Bullock), upset because her daughter
has given an interview to Time magazine and opened sensitive wounds simply
by saying that her childhood was "difficult".
Bullock is visited in New York by the 'Ya-Yas',
a trio of Burstyn's old-time gal-friends played by Maggie Smith, Fionnula
Flanagan and Shirley Knight. The team buzzes around the place, drinking too
much, talking too much and sure as hell screaming "Ya-ya!" too much. Then
they drug Bullock, take her back down South and sit her around the fireplace
telling stories about way back when, so that the girl can have newfound empathy
for her elders and everyone can hug before the credits roll.
The stories, inspired of course by a photo album
Bullock finds in the corner of a living room, are told in flashbacks spanning
from the 1930s to the 1960s, where Burstyn's character is played by Ashley
Judd and other actors play roles of whose significance I remain uncertain.
We get to see a lot of sugary girly chatter, including the moment when the
old friends first went out into the woods and crowned themselves the
'Ya-Yas'.
There are also the hard moments, as when Judd
got addicted on pills to stop herself from drinking and ended up chasing
her four children in the rain and slapping them with a belt, or when her
character as a little girl stuck up for the maid and eased racial tensions
by starting a custard pie fight with plates of scrambled eggs.
One of the best films I have seen is Andrei
Konchalovsky's "Shy People", which is also about a smartass writer from the
big city taking a trip down South and learning about the psychology of her
rural relatives through stories from the past. I don't even mind generational
chick flicks, and always get embarrassingly engrossed by "Terms of Endearment",
"Fried Green Tomatoes" and "Steel Magnolias". But "Divine Secrets of the
Ya-Ya Sisterhood" is a loud, screechy insult to the audience. Its wounds
are contrived, its cheer is phoney, and the women who will like it are those
who get excited by any film of this type and aren't really paying
attention.
For all the quirky behaviour on display, there
is still no personality, merely 'issues', their resolutions and a lot of
frickin' ya-yas. Seasoned actors give bad performances: Burstyn bellows her
moans, Bullock does a lot of sulking, Knight and Flanagan look so excited
whenever they speak that it's as if they're trying to squeeze in lines without
being caught. Smith speaks in a bizarre, screechy drawl, saying words like
"fewwwd" and "Yaaainkayz" as if she were a lazy stand-up comedian doing a
bad impression. Angus MacFayden, the Scottish actor who played Robert the
Bruce in "Braveheart", puts on such a lame accent that I sat wondering what
part of Eastern Europe his character was from before realising he was supposed
to be Irish. James Garner, poor soul, is unable to use his grand wit to sort
out this mess; he stands on the sidelines looking lost, before engaging in
a conversation comprised entirely of such clichés as "The road to
hell is paved with good intentions!" and "Go with the flow!"
"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" is based
on a bestselling novel by Rebecca Wells, and has been written and directed
by Callie Khouri, most famous for her Oscar-winning screenplay to "Thelma
and Louise". It's such a huge drop that I am lost for comment. All I know
is that I sat through two hours of this without leaving for so much as a
bathroom break. It's a big achievement, for which I deserve to never hear
the chant of "Ya-ya!" ever again. Deal?
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
2002 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2002 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)
