The Lemon Sisters Reviews

There's a word for movies like this. The word is painful. Of recent films, only ISHTAR engendered the kind of accusations of big-star self-indulgence that greeted THE LEMON SISTERS, which brings a condescending, heavy-handed cuteness to its portrayal of three amateur musicians of negligible talent. Although many critics found similar fault with ISHTAR, at least Elaine May's film had a plot. THE LEMON SISTERS doesn't. Instead it cuts back and forth between half-baked, vaguely related vignettes set in the present and jury-rigged flashbacks tacked on to give the other scenes some illusory semblance of order and logic. Like the film in general, this structure is an exercise in futility. What plot there is revolves around three friends who grew up together in Atlantic City--hence the flashbacks, which, despite having little or nothing to do with the present action, are generally more entertaining than the rest of the film. Franki (Carol Kane) is "the dreamer." Eloise (Diane Keaton) is "the kooky asthmatic schizophrenic," a character whose presence indicates immediately that there's trouble afoot. Rounding out the trio is Nola (Kathyrn Grody), "the sensible one," who marries and raises a family--though marrying an even-more-annoying-than-usual Elliott Gould may seem less than sensible to many viewers. Since Franki is "the dreamer," it's her idea that the three form a singing group. But this would-be plot gets scuttled almost before the movie gets underway, when the married couple who own the supper club where the trio performs decide to sell out and move to Florida. In an abortive attempt to keep the group together, Franki takes their pooled earnings--all of $675--gambles part of it away in slot machines, buys some losing lottery tickets, and invests the rest in "Plan X." "Franki always had a Plan X," chirps Nola, who, for no discernible reason, narrates the transitions between the present action and the flashbacks. In one flashback, "Plan X" is a jar of breast development cream Franki has swiped from her aunt and which the three friends decide to try, though we never see the outcome of their experiment. Back in the present, Franki's newest "Plan X" calls for Eloise to make a jerk of herself on an inane, anachronistic 50s-style quiz show. Mercifully sparing us from more of Franki's moneymaking schemes, a real estate agent abruptly offers Eloise and Nola big bucks for their boardwalk businesses: Eloise operates a musty TV museum started by her father (played by an uncredited Matthew Modine in the flashbacks), and Nola is the owner of a failing salt-water taffy shop that was started by her mother. Franki tries to talk her friends into using their money to buy another supper club; Eloise and Nola quite sensibly tell her to forget it. Then, not so sensibly, Eloise develops a fixation on Atlantic City Greco-Roman kitsch--mostly fiberglass statues of naked men. In an extended, morosely unfunny sexual sight gag, we see her schlepping one of these statues back to her place from a casino. Eventually, Eloise fritters away her money on a home museum of sculpted hands and male genitalia. Nola's husband, certain that his nauseating "Taffit" taffy rabbits will make a fortune, convinces his wife to use the money from the sale of their old failing taffy store to buy a new failing taffy store. Miffed because her friends won't help finance her harebrained idea, Franki stomps off to launch a solo singing career under the dubious management of her new boy friend, also named Frankie (Aidan Quinn), a would-be sharpie who wears luminescent suits and advises his client to fondle herself while singing "Wild Thing." The trouble is Franki, who actually sounds pretty good when singing with the Lemons, for unexplained reasons sounds suddenly wheezy and awful on her own. Eloise, who supposedly suffers from debilitating asthma, doesn't sound wheezy at all, yet she has an attack that lands her in the hospital. After getting out, she has a schizoid fit when her friends stage a surprise coming-home party for her. In the process, Eloise alienates her sometime boy friend, C.W. (Ruben Blades in a role that is almost as superfluous as his gangster character in THE TWO JAKES), Nola, and both Frankies. (What kind of friends walk out on someone in obvious turmoil?) Because of Franki's and Eloise's tantrums, the Lemons spend a lot of screen time apart from one another in a film supposedly about lifelong friendship. But that doesn't stop the three from posing picturesquely on the beach at the end, Nola having gone broke and moved her family into her sister's place in Philadelphia, Franki having inexplicably landed a gig at Caesar's, and Eloise having probably slipped more deeply into genteel madness. If curdled whimsy could kill, THE LEMON SISTERS would make a neat murder weapon. It wants to be a deep, warmhearted comedy about three complex women, but its characters are thin, undeveloped, and unpleasant. As a result the film winds up resembling something like MC TEAGUE played for laughs, with top Hollywood stars cast as appallingly moronic, possibly disturbed characters meant to pass for touching everyday people. This film could serve as yet more damning evidence of the sad state of roles for women in male-dominated Hollywood; however, THE LEMON SISTERS was the pet project of the three lead actresses, who spent years bringing it to the screen. But by the time the film was completed, Keaton had her producer's credit removed and did nothing to promote the movie during its theatrical run. Even the releasing company kept the film on the shelf for about a year. On the whole, everyone would have been better off had the film not been released at all. It is tempting, of course, to belabor the obvious by labelling THE LEMON SISTERS a lemon of a movie, but that would be an insult to what is, after all, a perfectly fine fruit. (Adult situations.)