Movie Review: Diane

Diane **** / *****

Directed by: Kent Jones   

Written by: Kent Jones.

Starring: Mary Kay Place (Diane), Jake Lacy (Brian), Estelle Parsons (Mary), Andrea Martin (Bobbie), Deirdre O'Connell (Donna), Glynnis O'Connor (Dottie), Joyce Van Patten (Madge), Kerry Flanagan (Nurse Jackie), Phyllis Somerville (Ina), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Tally), Ray Iannicelli (Al Rymanowski), David Tuttle (Minister), Marcia Haufrecht (Carol Rymanowski). 

 

Diane is one of those women we all kind of know, but we don’t often think about. She’s older now – retired, single, her only child long since moved out of the house. But she isn’t lonely in part because she’s always doing something – always on the move. She has a large contingent of people around her – Aunts and Uncles, cousins, friends and Diane is always popping by to check on them, maybe drop off a casserole to someone who is recovering from surgery. She spends a lot of time at the bedside of a cousin dying of cancer. She wishes she could help her son – Brian (Jake Lacy) – who is addicted to drugs but she can’t do much for him, unless he wants to do something for himself. He isn’t homeless – not yet at least. Diane is always running from one place to another – helping others, going to dinner with friends, volunteering at a soup kitchen, etc. For the most part, she seems completely selfless. At least at first.

 

Diane is played in a remarkable performance by Mary Kay Place – and if you don’t know the name, you know the actress – who has (as of this moment) 135 credits on IMDB, and has appeared on every TV show you can think of, and in countless movies you have seen. She is one of the great character actors out there – who shows up for a scene here and there, an episode here and there, and is always great – and never gets the credit, never gets the spotlight or the lead role she deserves. Here, Kent Jones – longtime film critic and Festival programmer turned filmmaker (he’s made some docs before, but this – at the age of 60 is his feature debut) has crafted a perfect role for Place – inspired by his own mother. He then filled out the cast with character actors all equally as good as Place – all of whom could (and probably should) carry their own movie like this. Estelle Parsons, Andrea Martin, Phyllis Somerville, Deirdre O’Connell, etc. The result is a movie full of people who know how to act, and know just what it means to be supportive in their scenes.

 

Diane is a tricky character – she starts as this cliché – the mother we perhaps all know, who is constantly worried about everyone else, except herself. This is the mother you often see mocked in shows – or on Twitter – as being overbearing, etc. – but very rarely do we get an exploration of them, and what makes them tick. As the movie progresses, and we start to get to know her Diane – and her past – it becomes clear that perhaps she isn’t motivated so much by “goodness” and “selflessness” – as it first appears – but by guilt. There is an incident in the past – a summer – in which Diane did something she has never been able to forgive herself for. And while everyone around her – including those that she hurt then – seem to have forgiven her, or at least moved on and don’t like to bring it up, she hasn’t. It isn’t an awful thing – no one died, etc. – but for her, she cannot forgive herself. And it haunts her in a way. Which raises the question – does it matter if she acts the way she does out of kindness or guilt? Is it what drives her that is important, or what she does?

 

The first hour of the movie seems to take place over the span of a few weeks and/or months. The last 30 minutes has a few leaps forward in time – everyone starts dying around Diane, as we expect that they will, either because we see them sick, or they are just old. Her son replaces one addiction with another – and they aren’t all that much closer as a result. And still, Diane keeps on chugging along – keeps up that mental list in her head of all the things she has to get done, all the people she wants to “do for”. Lessons aren’t really learned, as much as time just chugs along, indifferent to what Diane or anyone else thinks.

 

Through it all, Place holds the center of every scene, and does a remarkable job. Diane is more flawed, more human and complex than we think in the first few scenes. And she brings life to this movie that seems so simple at first, and becomes oh so complex by the end.