Postcards from the Edge with Crystal

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Crystal move back in with their mothers and discuss Postcards from the Edge (1990)!

Follow Crystal on Instagram at @crystal.will.see.you.now and check out the podcast Camp Classics!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdecast, the questions asked if movies have women
and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Caitlin, yes, Jamie, should I sing?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes? Yes? You should?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Should I podcast? That really was the equivalent of recording
a live podcast at your daughter's sobriety party. Yeah, to
be like, Okay, first of all, I'm fucked up. Second
of all, let's let's record a podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yo, let's steal the show.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome Home, not Carys make it all about me. I love,
oh oh, I love the degree to which this is
obviously carried. But Carrie has to be like, no, what
could you possibly mean me? What is it? The wig?
Is it Shirley McLean's wig? Welcome to the becht Cast.
My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Droonte.

(01:03):
This is our show where we examine movies through an
intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a
jumping off point. And Jamie, what on earth is that? Well,
the Bechdel test, We're not gonna have a trouble with
it today, I tell you that much. It is a
media metric originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel urginally
created like as a one off joke in her comic

(01:26):
collection dis to Watch Out four, but has since been
adapted to a more generalized media metric. And our version
of it requires that two characters of a marginalized gender
with names speak to each other about something other than
a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And
in spite of Dennis Quaid's larger presence in this movie
than you'd think, this movie does pass the Bechdel test.

(01:48):
And if that's why you're listening to this show, get
a life.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, we've got bigger fish to fry today real in
every episode. Yes, today is our episode on Postcards from
the Edge nineteen ninety and our returning guest is a
drag artist known for RuPaul's Drag Race UK season one.

(02:13):
She's a host of the podcast Camp Classics, and you
remember her from our episodes on Jawbreaker, Show Girls, Bram
Stoker's Dracula, The Raine.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
It's Crystal.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Oh my gosh, is this my fourth appearance?

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
One appearance away from a jacket, Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
And truly what a bunch of different camp flavored movies. Oh,
I'm so glad to be back. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely,
wigs exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh my god, the line there's blood on the wig. Really,
it's so evocative.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Could have easily been in Bramstoker's Dracula. Actually so true.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Welcome back, Thank you so much for bringing us. Thank
you this wonderful movie.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
Oh, I'm so excited to talk about it. I've had
such a nice time this week, like just reimmersing myself
in this world. It's it's delicious.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Tell us all about your history, your relationship with the film,
maybe the book, if you've read it, tell us everything.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm a drag queen. I haven't read the book. And
to be honest with you, this movie was kind of
new to me. I think I discovered it only a
year ago, and I was in Mexico and I had
just taken some over the counter cold medication that really
spun me out, and I was laying on my hotel bed,

(03:42):
like literally gripping the bed, and I was like, I need,
I need to find something to do, and this movie
just got suggested to me on like whatever, some streaming
service and I watched it. It was obviously perfect viewing
for the state I was in, but yeah, I had
never even heard of it before before or that moment.
And then we covered it on my podcast a couple

(04:05):
months later, and I rewatched it and I was like, oh, yeah, no,
it's wasn't just the painkillers. It wasn't just the cold medicine.
It was good, But yeah, I've got it. It's one
of those movies that, like, I feel like I should
have already been obsessed with, but it somehow passed me by.
And I don't know if that's the same for for
you guys, but like it feels a little forgotten somehow,

(04:29):
despite being like a commercial success, a critical success.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
A solid cast.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, it just feels a bit overlooked.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
So, yeah, glad to be here singing its praises.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Jamie, what about you? I am the opposite. I am
a I'm a loser. So I have read the book,
but I also hadn't seen the movie. We've been talking
about Carrie Fisher quite a bit. Recently. We just covered
Empire Strikes Back. We covered her Legends episode on Daily Psych.
I'm always thinking about Carrie Fisher, So it's weird that

(05:03):
I hadn't seen this movie before, But either way, she's
one of my favorite writers. I love. I've read all
of her books and if you haven't, I know I
said this on the show recently, but if you haven't
given yourself the gift of a Carrie Fisher audio book,
she reads them all and it is just like the
best experience you could possibly have. And this is a

(05:24):
really good book too, And she also reads the audiobook
to the book. She you know, she's the greatest. I
just like admire her so much. I think her work
is so timeless, and so it is I agree Crystal,
like bizarre that this movie isn't talked about more because
it is. I mean, it's definitely a product of its time,

(05:45):
but in a way that I really like. Something that
I appreciate about Carrie Fisher's writing more and more the
more I live is how open, not only open she
is about mental health and addiction issues, but how like
in the way that does is not going to work
for everyone, but really worked for me. How like self

(06:07):
deprecating she is about it, and how matter of fact
she is. I feel like stories of addiction are so
often tragedy porn, and that's just not how she writes
about addiction, even though you know it was a huge
specter in her life. And also now knowing I haven't
finished it yet, but that Mike Nichols also had extensive

(06:32):
issues with addiction throughout his life, and I feel like
he's bringing his sensibility to the same topic. And I
just I don't know. This movie was like my mom's
visiting right now, so right place, right time. The themes
were really theming for me this week, and I'm like

(06:52):
so happy to have this movie in my life. I
also watched it on I think two be so now.
It's the kind of movie where you're like, I love
how Postcards in the Edge has this same sports gambling
commercial in it forty five times. It's my favorite.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, that's how it's remembered. Yes, I too have a mother,
and I too perhaps have a complicated relationship with her. Yeah.
I had never seen this movie either. I've notne about
it for a while, and I knew that Carrie Fisher

(07:29):
was involved in some way, but I thought it was
because she was the star of the movie, not the
semi autobiographical subject of the movie. Slash writer and I
knew that she was a writer, but I didn't know
to what extent. I mostly knew her as a script doctor.

(07:50):
I didn't realize she had such an extensive library of novels.
And I knew about Wishful Drinking, and I recently watched
her solo show of it, which I enjoyed very very much.
But yeah, I'm learning so much about Carrie Fisher recently,
and the more I learned, the more I love her.

(08:12):
Rip to a legend.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
She's so amazing. I also yeah that I did not know.
I knew Meryl Streep, Charlie McLean, but truly, it's like
almost everyone in this movie is so famous, even like yeah,
and it builds in this fun way where you're like,
whoa CCX Pounder is in this That's so fun. I
love her. Gene Hackman is yelling, Anette Benning is sluting

(08:36):
out all of her a late stage, all of our.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
All that flat.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Rob Ryaner is there.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Rob Ryer just incredible. Richard Dreyfuss, who I didn't recognize,
and my mom was like, upset, I don't know, and
then I had her, and then I had to tell
her Dennis Quaid was a Republican. We had to have
the talk about Dennis Quayne. You know what an adventure.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
I'm so excited to talk more about it. So let's
take a quick break and then we'll come back for
the recap.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And we're back. Also music by Carly Simon. It should
be so.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I didn't realize that.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Really, Yeah, this movie should be considered a classic.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah, it's got literally everything going for it, not the
least salacious celebrity gossip, which normally, you know, as a
culture we're really into.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's really I just wanted to shout out because I
know I talked about it, I think on the Zegist
episode as well. But Carrie Fisher wrote not many other
movies that sounded like there was like a lot of
development hell issues. But yes, to continue what you were saying, Caitlin,
she script doctored famously sister act Anastasia the Wedding Singer.

(10:00):
She also wrote this movie that's also on Toby that
I watched for fun recently that Shirley McClain is also in,
called These Old Broads And if you want to watch
a very disjointed movie that has a lot of old
Hollywood gossip, heavily alluded to it. You gotta watch these

(10:20):
old broads with all the two B commercials. It's Shirley McLain,
Debbie Reynolds, Joan Collins, and Elizabeth Taylor. H And if
you know, you know, if you don't, you're gonna be
so confused by these old broads.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, I remember you mentioning that, And it is also
mentioned in the Be Kind Rewind.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, that's how I learned about it.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Video essay about Carrie Fisher as a writer. I highly
recommend watching that video. But she mentions how that movie
kind of paves the way for like older women buddy comedies,
which I associate with James.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Bonda, Lily Tomlin, all those all those divas. It's a
good genre. We got to keep that genre alive.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Shout out eighty for Brady. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, the movies. The movies do not have to be good.
They just need to be made. They just need to
be there.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, we just need to see Shirley mclin doing things exciting.
It doesn't really doesn't matter what.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
It does not matter what.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
She's so important. I'd love for her.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
All right, here's the recap for both Cards from the Edge.
But first, a quick content warning for things like drug use, addiction, rape,
and sexual assault. We'll talk about it. But the movie
opens on Meryl Streep traveling to the US from an

(11:47):
unspecified Latin American country, but she's pulled aside at passport control.
There's violence, there's conflict there, but then she messes up
her line because we're on a movie set and she's
an actor named Suzanne Veil.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
It is so fun seeing Meryl Streep look to camera.
It's so jarring.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
I love it so good.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
You're like, wait, you never do that, You famously never
do that. I Oh god, I having just seen The
Devil Wars Prota two, which I thought was aggressively mid
but I did see it. I saw it in a
new movie format that I also wouldn't recommend, but it

(12:34):
maybe laugh a few times. It's called screenex I don't
know they have one in Burbank now where it's basically
like there's three screens, but there's been no movie filmed
for this format, so it's just you're watching The Devil
War's Prota.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Two but like three times.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, it's just really stretched out on the side. And
there was, oh, the best joke in the Devil Wars
Prota two can only be seen in the screenex because
there is one scene where Meryl Streep is sitting to
the side and she's so stretched. Don't anyways, it's not
very good. But that's okay. It doesn't need to be good,
it just has to be made.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Wow the theme of the episode.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
But I love this trope of like you're watching a
scene and then the camera pulls back and you're like, oh,
it was just all a set. It's so fun.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
I love a reveal like that.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Uh huh. It reminds me of who framed Roger Rabbit.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yes, that is exactly how that movie opens. You don't
know it's a movie. Then a character messes up, does
a little blooper, and you're like, wait a minute, I've
been watching a movie within a movie this whole time.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
It's a great gimmick.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
It makes you think it always works.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
So, yes, we realize that she is Susanne Vail, an
actor and the director of the movie she's starring in. Lowell,
played by Gene Hackman, pulls her aside and tells her
not to fuck up his movie because he and everyone
else knows that she is using a lot of drugs

(14:01):
on set. We cut to Suzanne passed out in bed
with a guy, presumably a lover, played by Dennis Quaid.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Dennis Quaid with slightly frosted tips, Dennis Quaid with highlights.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, he puts son in in his hair.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
And my toxic trade is I think Dennis Quaid looks
really hot in this movie.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Fortunately does he does? He looks. I still like a
very formative crush for me. Was Dennis Quaiden parent trap?
Like sure, Peak Quaid, It's just it's it's a shame.
It's a shame.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, but we did have to kill him.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
Yes did.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Anyway, he realizes that Suzanne is unresponsive. He's trying to
wake her up. She's apparently overdosed on pills, so he
rushes her to the er, acts like he doesn't know her,
and then speeds.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Away, also very looney tunes, honestly like yes.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Peels out. So doctor Richard Dreyfus pumps Susanne's stomach and
saves her life. She wakes up and in the hospital
room with her is C. C. H. Pounder. She's the
director of the rehab unit at this hospital.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
I kept waiting for her to come back. I'm bummed
that she doesn't come back. She's such a fun The
like exchange between her and Meryl Streep about you only
speak and bumper stickers is so funny.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah. So she is there to admit Suzanne to rehab
and mentions that if they hadn't pumped her stomach, she
would have died, which is a bit of a wake
up call to Suzanne.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Meryl is just so good in this scene. It's I mean,
I don't know if anyone's ever said it before, but
what an actress can You can really see her like
building her defensive nos and like using humor to get
out of this situation that is obviously incredibly uncomfortable for her.
It's just it's so incredible how much she can tell

(16:10):
you about her character in this scene where she's waking
up in a hospital that it's ah, I love it,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's I love dialogue movies, but like just the when
this movie and Mike Nichols is so good at dialogue
movies when they just give Merrill and Shirley McLain room
to act capital a. It's so good I could keep
watching it for another forty five minutes.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yes, Yeah, So a short time later, Suzanne's mother Doris,
played by Shirley McLain comes to the hospital and we
learn that she is also a movie star. She is
a queer icon She's a legend in her craft.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Isn't there something like CEC Pounder says something like, we
just need to get to the bottom of why you
take all these drugs? And then Shirley McLean's.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Like, hello, great writing, so good, and so Doris and
Suzanne's relationship is perhaps a bit complicated.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
It's a bit tense, also iconic, barely disguising Debbie Reynold's name,
Doris sure, sure, by the hell not.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Doris is perhaps a bit overbearing and micromanagy as a parent,
and Suzanne is a bit resentful toward her.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Maybe and just like a category five narcissist, like hmm,
everything is about her.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah. We will also learn that Doris perhaps has addiction
issues of her own, as we will often see her
drinking alcohol, something that she denies. Some more time passes
and Suzanne feels ready to go back to work, but
there's an she with insurance. The production of the movie

(18:02):
she was cast in won't insure her because of her
drug use unless she stays with a responsible party who
can look after her such as her mother.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
Well, she can't stay with her father. She's worse.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
He's worse, is yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Not bad?

Speaker 4 (18:20):
Dear?

Speaker 2 (18:20):
And who could that be a reference to? We'll never know.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
We'll never know, certainly not Eddie Fisher.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
No, I I like that. I wish that this didn't
get cut. Apparently there were scenes filmed with Jerry Orbach
playing her father. Whoa and awesome to see it. Jerry
Orbach doing Eddie Fisher would have rocked.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Wow. Lumier himself.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
Yeah, this scene with the agent that is just so great.
The way they're, the way they speak over each other,
and like meryll Is finishing Shirley McLain's lines because she's
heard all of these anecdotes a million times before. Oh,
it's just it's perfect writing.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's great. So it's suggested that Suzanne's stay with her mother.
She is very reluctant to do this, but she eventually
agrees and moves in with Doris. Suzanne returns to work
and on the movie set of this Like what seems
like a pretty bad movie and a low budget one,

(19:20):
she meets a producer played by Rob Reiner, who tells
her that she will have to do routine drug tests
or else again, the insurance won't cover her, and Suzanne
finds this humiliating. Then Doris throws Suzanne a welcome back
from rehab party.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know that classical party is yep, but the opportunity
is she finds for attention is really a second to none.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Totally, because this is the scene where Doris is encouraging
Suzanne to sing for the guests, and Suzanne doesn't want to,
but she reluctantly does, and then people are like, well, Doris,
what if you sing too, and She's like, no, I
couldn't then burst into song d flat.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
I think Izzy says in her video like it's the
Christien Wig character from a sene.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Yeah, don't make me sick, don't make me sing. It's
so so good.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
And then she does an amazing rendition of I'm Still here?
Who is? I think the CHIRLEYE. McLain is incredible in
this part, but when I hear I'm Still here, I'm like, Wow.
The only person who I would have wanted more in
this part is Elaine Stritch. Elayne Stritch plays a bitch
mother unlike anyone on the face of the planet, as

(20:45):
evidenced in thirty rock. But right, Shirley McClain, does she
have the range? I don't know, and I don't care.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
I felt that she did.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
I love Elayne Stretch. She Hers and Carrie Fisher's one
woman shows were ones that I was both like obsessed
with high school in college.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
I'll have to check it out.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Oh it's so good.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
But yeah, this whole scene, the set piece is just
again just like perfect writing. The songs that they each sing.
It's kind of so annoyingly on the nose, but it
still works. Like Meryl's singing you don't know me to
her mother, and then her mother just completely upstaging her,
and like you watch Meryll perform and you're.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Like, oh, okay, she's talented.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yeah she did a good job. And then yeah, Sirley
McLean's just like hold my cocktail, dear, let me show
you how she flashes the panty. Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
I love Meryl. I don't understand why we're like she
should be singing, But I love Mama Mia of course. Nonetheless, Nonetheless,
I like Meryl. I hope you had fun on your vacation, Degrease.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
I think Meryl is such a good actress that she
can convince you she's a good singer.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yes, I mean it works on me because I'm like,
is she not a good singer? I thought she won?

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, I think. I don't know what it is, but
like Charlie McClain, I think, probably a comparable singer. But
like Buries her, it's just incredible.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
I mean, well, that's because she's the greatest showman.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah she is.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
She is.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah. So cut to Suzanne back on the set of
the movie. She's getting various notes about her performance, including
from a producer played by Oliver Platt. Then she hears
the director talking to wardrobe about her body and they're
talking about how she eats too much and she's gaining

(22:38):
weight and just you know, classic body shaming stuff. Then
she runs into the Dennis Quaid guy again, this is Jack.
She doesn't realize exactly who he is at first, and
then he reminds her that it was him who took
her to.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
The hospital and does I pretty like, I think if
you were to have to show in two minutes or
less what is love bombing and what can it look like,
it would be this scene that is about to come
up with them.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yes, yeah, we will talk all about their relationship because
it is troublesome.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, he is just, uh, you know how some people
just have a way of laser focusing you at your lowest.
He's that person.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yes, So what happens is they reconnect, they kiss a bit,
and then they arrange a date. He picks her up,
but Doris answers the door and she's very chummy with him,
and Susan has to pull her mother aside to be like,
stop overshadowing me, and stop making everyone like you more

(23:45):
than they'd like me and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
And then on their date at Jack's fancy Malibu house.
I think he's a movie producer, she tells him that
she's in recovery. She can't do casual li fair, she's
not really ready for romance.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
And he's like, great, I've been looking for someone exactly
as vulnerable as you. This is awesome news.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, and he professes his love for her, and she's like,
we barely know each other and he's like, no, no, no,
I've seen you in movies and I fell in love
with you on screen.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Is this where we get the line she was in
a movie called A Night Full of Shoes.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh yeah, somewhere around here, Oh Carrie Fisher jokes are
so specific.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
I loved you in A Night full of Shoes.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Incredible. She's in another movie, like fake movie called I
think public Domain, which does sound like it would be
the title of a movie. Yes, but A Night full
of Shoes is so good.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
I love I love it even when I mean this
is very Carrie Fisher. But like, even when she's writing
her insert character, she still writes her to be kind
of a loser, like compared to her mother, which you know, Susan,
it doesn't seem like Suzanne Vale had the Princess Leah
moment and the way that Carrie Fisher dead, it seems
like she's been stuck on TV. I think that the

(25:10):
book gets more into like how stuck in TV? She
was sure anyway, Jack is love bombing her, and because
she's so vulnerable it works quote unquote. She seems flattered
and they sleep together. Suzanne returns home late that night

(25:31):
and Doris has been worried sick about her because she
didn't call and didn't show up, and Doris has been
drinking again, as she often does. Suzanne suggests that maybe
her mother has issues with addiction as well. But again
Doris refused to admit anything of the sort.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
She drinks like an Irish person, yes, she says.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
A bit later, back on the movie set, Suzanne finds
out that another woman in the cast, Evelyn played by
Annette Benning, also knows Jack, so Suzanne goes to talk
to her, and it turns out that Evelyn slept with
Jack recently, and in fact, on the same day that
Suzanne went to his house, and apparently he has a

(26:17):
reputation for seeing many women at once.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
I don't think I've ever seen a net Benning in
a role like this before. I feel like I'm so
used to seeing her as like wife.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
With Bob, but like I'm she's giving full.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's really it took me a second to realize it
was her.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
She.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
I mean, she's so amazing that I was like, wow,
I've just never seen her in the like it's Hollywood dark,
like roll yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
Like the idea that she's stealing a scene from Meryl
Streep is like, I know, and this is her first movie.
Oh really, Oh my god, yeah yeah, yeah, she's so
so good. The way she just puts that twizzle stick
in her mouth as she's like talking about how she
loves to fuck. It's like, no notes, no notes in
that betting.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
He's like, no big deal, it's the nineties, ye, Shara condoms.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah, she's in it for the Dolphin Rush.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
The Dolphin.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
I did not even realize that was a net Benning
until I had already watched the movie and then was
like scouring IMDb and I was like, wait a minute,
what do you mean Anette Benning's in this movie?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Who?

Speaker 3 (27:22):
And then I realized it was her. She racks anyway,
So now Suzanne knows that Jack is sleeping with multiple people,
so she confronts him about it, and he acts like
a total dick. He admits to sexually assaulting her the
night she was passed out in his bed, and again,

(27:43):
we'll talk about this, yeah, but they break up. The
next day, Doris tells Suzanne that her business manager has disappeared,
along with all of his client's money. So Suzanne's money
is gone, and then she and Doris start talking about
Suzanne's career, her history with addiction, and it turns into

(28:05):
an argument. They're talking about blame, jealousy, resentment, Doris's parenting,
Doris's drinking, and how her skirt twirled up at Suzanne's
seventeenth birthday party and she wasn't wearing any underwear and
it's this iconic scene when they're on the stairs. Anyway,

(28:27):
Suzanne storms out of the house. She takes some pills
but then makes herself throw up. She shows up at
an adr slash like looping session with that director Lowell
for the movie she was doing at the beginning, and
then she and Lowell have a heart to heart where
he gives her advice about breaking this cycle of generational trauma.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
And then on Suzanne's way back home, she sees a
car accident and it turns out that her mother had
been drinking and driving and smashed into a tree and
she was arrested and then taken to the hospital with
a minor head injury. So Suzanne goes to the hospital.
Her grandmother is there, who we met previously at the

(29:16):
party scene, and she's freaking out. She's saying, I can't
believe I have a daughter and a granddaughter who are
both addicts and losers. So Suzanne is like, fuck you, Grandma,
get out of here. She kicks her out of the room,
and then Susanna and Doris start to reconcile and she

(29:37):
helps her mom do her makeup. It's a really sweet,
tender scene. Then Suzanne bumps into doctor Richard Dreyfus. He
had sent her flowers after he pumped her stomach, and
then he asks her on a date and she's like,
I'll go out with you, but I'm not ready to date.

(29:59):
And then he's like, no, worries, I'll wait. And then
we cut to Suzanne on the set of another movie
or music video, I'm not totally sure, but it's directed
by Lowell and she performs a song Heartbreak Hotel, and
her mom and some friends are on set to support

(30:20):
her the end.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
And fun fact that song at the end was written
by shel Silverstein, famous children's poet.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yes, oh, I thought that was Is that not an
Elvis song Heartbreak Hotel? Is that a different song?

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Elvis has a song called Heartbreak Hotel, but it is
a different one different.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, so shout out Shell Silverstein.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
And that song was OSCAR nominated as well as was
Merrill in this movie.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, incredible.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Do you know how many Oscar nominations Merril had by
this point in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Oh god seven? This was her ninth, ninth nine, and
she was like, what forty or something ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Ridiculous goodness, Well, let's take a quick break and really
ponder that.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Let that sink in.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, and we're back. Gosh, Okay, where do we start?

Speaker 4 (31:28):
I guess maybe we can just talk about like the
diva worship of it all a bit. I mean, that's
definitely the appeal a lot of the appeal of this movie.
For me, it's the it's the seeing the Hollywood glamour,
seeing behind the scenes, seeing the struggles that make up
these gorgeous, fabulous creatures that we all worship, and it's
it just really scratches an itch, and even more so

(31:51):
because you know it's kind of true and kind of
not and it's presented in this humorous package. It gives
you permission to revel in it, which clearly Carrie Fisher
was doing when she was writing this, like she was
having so much fun kind of making fun of her
of the ridiculousness of also the trauma of her life.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
I don't know. I just think it's so it's so
fun to watch Shirley McLane just chew up the scenery
as this big character who yes, not a very good mother,
but like brings she brings so much heart and soul
into it, and like, you know, you can't escape the
comparison to something like Mommy Dearist, which is kind of

(32:31):
the same story but is so much right, yeah, so
much harder to watch and so much more tragic. It's
it can be fun to watch that movie in a
camp way because it's also over the top, but like
the subject matter is dark as fuck. Yeah, whereas this movie,
you know, everybody loves each other. They're just messed up people,

(32:54):
and that that dynamic between them, I think is so special. Like,
you know, we already talked about it a little bit,
but that scene where they are both doing their show
tunes and you can see if it was Mommy DearS,
you know, the daughter character would just be watching her
mom perform and she'd fucking hate her and it would
be like they were at war with each other. But

(33:16):
in this movie, like you watch Meryl go through this
entire journey of like I'm proud of my mother. She's
such an amazing star, and you can see her be
like a little girl who's like in awe of her
incredibly talented mother, and then she can then she's like,
oh that's making me shrink. Oh that's hard for me.
And it's like all of these this mix of emotions,

(33:36):
which is which just feels so real, and I think
I've just talked to my way around a couple of topics.
But it's yeah, I love I love this movie for
all of that.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, No, the admiration they have for each other, but
also the resentment for different reasons. Because Susanne resents her
mother or blames her for getting her addicted to drugs.
She's like, you fed me sleeping pills when I was
nine years old, resents her for always wanting to be

(34:09):
the center of attention, you know, things like that. And
then Doris seems to be harboring some resentment about the
fact that she's an aging actor who's a woman in
Hollywood and feels like her time has passed and her
daughter's up and coming, and you know, just all these things.

(34:29):
But then again, they admire each other, they think each
other is talented. It's just it does feel like such
an authentic portrayal of a mother daughter relationship. Obviously not
every mother daughter relationship, but sure there were aspects of
this that felt very familiar.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, I really appreciate that, and I know that, like again,
everyone's my edge is going to vary with a story
like this because it's impossible not to project yourself onto
the characters. But like there's so many things that I
think Carrie Fisher is so uniquely good at. She is
very aware of like how directly this is going to

(35:07):
be compared to her life, even though she has remained
pretty firm that like this pulls from her life, but
is not a biography, you know, a biographical film, which
is part of why and this does always crack me up.
Debbie Reynolds was like, I'll do it. I'll play the part,
and which to me is like I don't know. The
better of how you look at it is like okay,

(35:28):
so it can't be that real. If Debbie Reynolds is
like I would love to do it, I could do it,
and Mike Nichols was gently like.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
No, yeah, like you're not right for the part, which
it's not quite you, it's something else, it's someone else.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, And it would be so distracting from I mean,
it's so so much of the stories potentially in that
interaction alone of like you know, this is Carrie's story.
Debeat but anyways, but the fact that you know everyone,
it seems like everyone involved in this production had ties
to this family and a lot of love for the family,

(36:04):
regardless of how much of the family actually appears on screen. Obviously,
Carrie Fisher's she's writing based on these dynamics. Potentially, Shirley
Maclain was a really close friend of Debbie Reynolds. Mike
Nichols and Carrie Fisher were close. Mike Nichols also directed
Elizabeth Taylor. Like there's just all of these like connections
that but through all of that, like it would be

(36:27):
so easy for Carrie Fisher's writing to be like navel
gazy bullshit, but she's so clear on processing feelings around privilege,
Like she does not let Suzanne get away with the
amount of privilege that she absolutely does have. We see

(36:48):
other people react to that privilege, and we see Suzanne
internalize and develop a deep shame around like understanding she
has privileged but still struggling. And it's just like it's
such a difficult needle to thread, I would imagine, especially
if that is like very similar to your background that
she's so good at. It's like amazing to watch in

(37:12):
the fact that she you know, with Shirley McClain's character,
Doris is able to portray that, you know, this is
a character who also clearly struggles with addiction, but the
struggles we don't even really know, like she's just sort
of refusing to confront it. And seeing Suzanne you sort

(37:32):
of have to contend with, like, is this someone I
can have in my life if this is the case?
Because in the end and it is like, you know,
maybe dismissive of an addiction, but I was laughing whatever
at the end where Shirley McLain is like giving the
interview to the press and you're like, what are you
gonna do next? And she's like, I'm gonna go back
to drinking. Thank you, thank you so much, and everyone's

(37:52):
like got it, got it, got it. But I just
I really love that whatever. I think it's safe to
say that Doris has narcissistic qualities and that Suzanne is
such a like, I think well written child of a narcissist,
where she is hyper aware of what her mother is

(38:15):
like and it clearly informs her own behavior and how
she talks to and perceives other people, and that she
also has a lot of empathy for her mom in
many moments where you would have to have a lot
of empathy to keep this woman in your life, first
of all, Like, but that she does seem to understand.

(38:35):
And I feel like we're given information in like broad
the broad characters, but like by seeing the grandparents and
seeing because that that also is very similar to Debbie
Reynolds's life where she grew up, you know, with absolutely
nothing and and then became this big star and is
always there's always going to be like tension and maybe

(38:57):
overdoing the opulence to escape your past quote unquote, but
that I don't know that Suzanne like understands this is
how my mother is. If I want her in my life,
I kind of have to accept it and create boundaries.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
Yeah, and I have to imagine I wish I had
paid closer attention to the scenes with Suzanne's grandmother because
I think she's only in two scenes. Yeah, but it
seems clear to me at least that Suzanne recognizes the
ways in which her grandmother affected her mother's life. Right,

(39:32):
And you know, again the cycle of dysfunction type parenting dysfunction.
You know, perhaps Doris got that from her mother and
is passing it down to Susanne. So it almost made
me want the grandmother character to be more prominent, just
to kind of drive that home a bit more.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Two generations of trauma simply was not enough.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
We need the third more.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
But yeah, I like it, even though the I think
definitely the grandparents are like a little cartoonier than the
other two generations. But I do think that, like, I
don't know, it's in a very carry Fisher way. And
I will excuse basically most of the things that people
don't like about her writing, but that even though you
have this sort of cartoonish presentation of people essentially from

(40:23):
the South, from low income background, you still get this
thing that like, not a lot of people are good
at writing, where it's like this grandmother, while dismissive and
unkind to her daughter and granddaughter, is also receiving constant
verbal abuse from her husband, who appears to be suffering
from mental illness. But it does seem like, I mean,

(40:46):
I don't know, I have memories of my grandparents having
a dynamic like that, and that when one of their
you know, mental capacities began to slip, the cruel behavior
that was displayed before escalates and it just you know,
she is both unkind to her daughter and granddaughter and
is literally being screamed at by her husband to shut

(41:09):
up every second of her life, and like, both of
these things have to be true, and seeing them both
at the same time helps you understand where Doris comes
from and therefore where Suzanne comes from. It's so good.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yeah, it does occasionally verge on like quite hollywoody, I
guess where it's like everything does get a little bit
neatly wrapped up, and it's like you get given the
lesson and then she applies it and then everybody has
a reconciliation and everyone moves on and drug addiction solved,
and you know, there's a little bow on everything. But
it is also just really satisfying to watch, and that's

(41:44):
like what makes kind of a movie kind of worth watching.
We like the resolution, We like all of that, and
so yeah, the fact that you've got that Gene Hackman
speech where he's like, you know, your mother did it
to you, and her mother did her all the way
back to eve and at some point you have to
say it stops, and then the next scene Susanna puts
a stop to it. It's just like very satisfying. Also,

(42:05):
she puts stop to it while she's tying a turban
around her mother's head, which that looks like it's probably
hard to do, and she had to practice that a lot.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
She has false eyelashes on her mother.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Not that well, to be honest, not that I was
like the blush was messy, too much blush. Yeah, but
there is also something I mean, it's like again, is
it toxic? Yes, But also it is so satisfying seeing
these two divas march out of the hospital room after

(42:38):
a dui and be like, here we are and we
look amazing.

Speaker 4 (42:43):
You're like, come get me boys.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
I also got the impression that they had only just
begun to reconcile and that their their relationship still needs
a lot of repair and yeah, fair therapy perhaps, but
that they had begun the journey of addressing their issues
with one another. So I think it would have been

(43:09):
like really too like sacarine and too Hollywood if they
were like, and we fixed everything and now we're the
best mother daughter pair you've ever seen. And I didn't
get that impression. It was more just like, they still
have some problems to work through, but they're in a

(43:30):
better place to start to do that now.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
Yeah, they kind of get to have the fantasy conversation
that you wish you could have with your parents, which
is like, and now we're both going to explain our
central issue with each other and like that will be
so great, and like obviously that just never you know,
those are the things that kind of never get said.
But it is incredibly satisfying to watch these two characters

(43:53):
kind of get that moment.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, and really see them like struggle too. Like it's
I don't know, like the fact that Zan is struggling
so much in these like early days of sobriety, and
in a way that feels like it's really funny but
also realistic. And I don't know, I like little patterns
I was noticing on my second watcher, like, Okay, both

(44:17):
her mother and grandmother have these husbands who are just there.
Arguably grandfather is there because maybe he's like experiencing some
form of dementia, but I'm I'm gonna headcan and say
he was always kind of just there. Sureley Mcleane's husband
is truly horizontal for the entire movie.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
It's so good, barely says a word, barely is aware
of what's going on around him, and you.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
See to some extent in that last scene, like Suzanne
begin to break that cycle where, of course in the
early days of her sobriety, of course, like getting love
bombed by a hot guy, it's tempting under any circumstances,
but like it makes sense to me why she is,
but why both she tries to attempts to set a

(45:05):
boundary that he love bombs his way through and that
she is in a vulnerable place that makes her receptive
to what he's saying even though he very much doesn't
mean it and in fact is an abuser to a
degree that she eventually learned. But I just I don't know,
Like she is both so funny and so specific and

(45:27):
also very vulnerable and I can't it's just like I
really love it. And then at the end that she's
able to draw the boundary of like not a good time,
Doctor Dreyfus or whatever.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Yeah, I mean this character experience is basically every humiliation
a person can experience in like what the month that
she's been out of rehabits, the world is really laying
it on thick on her, and it's almost a little
bit sex in the city, Like the level of indignities
she has to suffer. But it's yeah, very fun to watch.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
I mean, speaking of some of these characters, as far
as Doris's husband, Suzanne's grandfather, Jack, and we'll talk more
about the relationship with Jack specifically, but I noticed, especially
on my second watch of this movie that basically all
the men are despicable in some way, to varying degrees

(46:24):
of despicableness. But because I mean, like, I feel like
Jack is the extreme where he sexually assaults an unconscious person.
But then you've got various producers on the movie set
who are just condescending and shitty. There's the director who

(46:45):
is body shaming her, and he is talking with a
woman Dana Ivy, who I associate with the Adams family.
Oh okay, Yeah, they're talking about her body is if
it's a piece of meat, and again fat shaming her,
which is absurd because look at Meryl Streep in this movie.

(47:09):
Then you've got Lowell, who cares more about his movie
and his art than the well being of the human
beings in his movie. You've got Marty, the business manager
who steals Suzanne's money and disappears. Yeah, so, just like
every man is horrible and also kind of barely a character.

(47:34):
I love that they're just sort of like secondary or
tertiary characters, and that the main focus remains on Suzanne
and Doris.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah. I love stories about women. Well that's a whole sentence,
but like how they're working their way around men, which
is like so much of life working around men and
suffering as a result of the actions of men. But

(48:04):
this story does not need to be focused on them.
I really I appreciated. It felt very much like a
note we would have on most movies of this genre,
being like why didn't she have more friends? Why didn't
she have people to talk to you? And I think
that this movie does a great job with that, with
giving her a character that she becomes friends with in rehab,

(48:27):
a character played by Robin Bartlett Aretha Area.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
I left out of the recap, but she is there.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
I mean, she's sort of a friend character. Like I guess,
not much changes if she's not there, But I think
it is like crucial that she is there, if that
makes sense, because it's just it makes the world feel
more real. I automatically like a character a million times
more if she has a cool goth friend, you know,

(48:55):
like the world feels very even though it's like very elevated,
it feels lived in and I really appreciated that, and
that she keeps coming back. That's why I wish. I mean,
I guess it wouldn't make sense if C. H. Pounder's
character came back because why would your rehab doctor be around?
But I just wanted to see her again.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Yeah, speaking of shitty men, I feel like even Richard Dreyfus,
like I think the movie thinks he's kind of a
good guy, but I don't. I don't think he comes
off very well and in this year.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Yeah, maybe it's not appropriate to ask a patient on
a date.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
I think, not especially one that like its famous and
you have a crush on because you've seen in movies
in any situation. But it's just weird, it's it's stockersh
and it's.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Gross, especially the line I'll wait. You're like, no need,
no need?

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Should we talk about Jack? I guess Dennis Quaid, we
have to, Yeah, we must. Yeah. I really struggled with
this series of beats for a few reasons. But so again,
trigger warning here for rape. But this storyline starts with
the scene where Jack wakes up. They're in bed together,

(50:20):
he realizes that she's unresponsive, so he takes her to
the er. He is shitty about that, as we already
mentioned in the recap, where he pretends he doesn't know her,
refuses to give his name to the hospital, and then
like peels out in his jeep wrangler.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
Bad sign, Bad Sign.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
They bump into each other later, and it was unclear
to me if Jack was kind of like following her
trying to bump into her, if it was just coincidental.
I didn't have a clear sense of that. But either way,
they reconnect and Jack tells her nothing happened that night,

(51:02):
we just talked.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, And he does that very intentionally to sell her
on the idea that he is a not I wouldn't
even say respectful, but just that he is not a monster.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah. He says, like, I have rules, Like you were
under the influence, I have rules about that. And it's like, okay, sir,
that is the bare minimum.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yeah, And it's like, okay, so you don't you don't
belong in jail, got it?

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Like?

Speaker 3 (51:31):
And then her response feels like a very like of
the time, nineteen nineties kind of thing, because she's like, well,
why didn't anything happen, was I that unappealing to you?
Which of the time, of the time, I'm giving Carrie
Fisher every pass. And then the following scene they're in

(51:52):
together is when he's love bombing her and she's you know,
she's saying like, no, I can't do this, I can't
do a casual relationship. I'm not ready for anything like this,
and he blows past all of that. He takes advantage
of her vulnerable state and professes his love, which is

(52:13):
like absolutely false and fake. Then she finds out he
is seeing multiple women and has not told her about them,
and she says like, I don't even care that you're
seeing other people. I care that you lied about that, right,
And then he starts making sweeping generalizations about women, basically
implying that women don't know what they want. Oh, you

(52:35):
say one thing, but you mean another thing, and your
feelings can't be trusted and classic shitty stuff like that.
And then he reveals that he raped her when she
was blacked out. Yeah, and the movie does not exactly
acknowledge it for the rape that it is.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Again of the time, Yeah, I think it's obviously like
it makes the character come off worse, but I don't
think worse to the degree that we consider it to
be worse, like and I don't, I mean it is.
I would be curious what kind of process a scene
like that being written in nineteen ninety goes through. It

(53:20):
feels weird to say, like, I appreciate that it's there,
but like it I don't. I don't know, like the
fact that the movie gives him no way out of
being an absolute monster but doesn't quite make it clear
the degree to which he is. But then it's like,
I don't know. I mean, carry Fisher is generally like really,
she's really good on these issues. She famously sent a

(53:43):
producer who attempted to assault her friend in a cab
a cow's tongue in a Tiffany box like.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
She's that's incredible, She's amazing.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
So I fully believe that, like Carrie Fisher understands how
monstros is. So it is interesting that it is presented
with this sort of like I don't know, like I
don't even know what the word is.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
I think it's just that it's a comedy and they're
just trying to keep it kind of light, and they
kind of make him look as bad as you can
in a comedy like this. I agree with you, though,
he'd be nice to see him punished a little more,
you know, lose his job.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Say, yeah something. I also think it's probably again, just
a byproduct of the time where for a very long time,
I think people's impression of what rape was was like
snatching someone off the street, dragging them into an alley.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
And like, yeah, almost always a stranger, a stranger.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, and that our understanding of all of the circumstances
under which an act could be considered assault or rape,
we're just not fully recognized or understood at the time. Yeah,
So I think it's probably partly that.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
And this plot point kind of comes up as well
in Working Girl, which is another Mike Nichols movie. Yeah,
and Melanie Griffiths has passed out, and Harrison Ford it's
been so long since since I've seen it.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
You have we evenen covered it's been so long since
we covered it.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
I think he gets like good guy points for not
having sex with her. Well she's unconscious again, bare minimum shit,
the bare minimum. Yeah right. Apparently Dennis Quaid in this
movie is kind of based on Harrison Ford though, which
is kind of fun. Yeah, that kind of tracks yep.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
And it's so it's so tough because it's like you,
I don't know, Carrie Fisher has written extensively about or
that it was like published shortly before she died, about
the affair that she had with Harrison Ford, and it's
just I mean, this is just like a I feel like,
sometimes difficult conversation to have intergenerationally about like she was

(56:04):
a teenager, he was, you know, in his thirties and married,
and obviously the power dynamic was wildly different. But and
she both sees it that way and doesn't see it
that way and didn't want people to think ill of
him as a result. That it's just so like it
feels like a very difficult, kind of impossible conversation have,

(56:26):
especially when it's like, well, you can't tell her she's
wrong for how she perceives her own experiences. But I
think that a woman of a younger generation would feel
quite different.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
I don't know, sure, Yeah, it's complicated, it is.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
I kind of just want to shout out, like the
beautiful world that is created here, the Hollywood of it,
all the set pieces. I think it's just so fun.
The first thing I can think of that happens is
when we see Suzanne Merrill on the set of her
new movie and she's getting tied to a cactus and
she's in the desert and she's getting tied to this

(57:07):
cactus and then someone just opens a door in the
back of the desert and sets. It was so good,
and there's moments like that throughout which are just like,
I don't know, it's movie, it's movie magic. It's so fun.
Like she's talking to Dennis Quaide at one point and
then the house that he's standing in front of just
drives away. The scene where she's chatting to an atte

(57:29):
Benning like they're walking through a lot and they're suddenly
in a New York, snowy New York street, and then
they're back at the food truck and there's Freddy Krueger
in the line behind them. For the I didn't even
notice that. Yeah, for Craft Services, it's the bit where
she's hanging on the window but it's actually horizontal. Like
it's really really great, and it's just these fun little

(57:51):
visual gags that like they're just so smart and yeah,
it's great. It's great little storytelling, and it constantly kind
of highlights the absurdity of this world that she's in,
this industry, that she's in, the fact that she has
this confrontation with Dennis Quid dressed as a cop.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Right the complete with lengths in her like a pop gun.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
Which we've learned since don't don't, don't do it's very
dangerous unless it's Dennis Quaid.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Maybe take your chances. Yeah, this was like a slightly
less like prominent theme, but one that I appreciated and
one that definitely comes up throughout Carrie Fisher's life is
how like the entertainment industry deals quote unquote deals with

(58:40):
and punishes people with addiction issues, where I think like
making the point that literally on a production actors are
insured like they are not people, which is to I mean,
I guess, you know, prevent you know, harm potentially to
others as well, But but it also is like a

(59:01):
fundamentally capitalist decision in a way that is acknowledged throughout
the movie in different moments. And also just how you
know she's she's punished for. She's not punished for having
addiction issues, She's punished for getting caught having addiction issues,
which feels very telling, like everyone is an open secret

(59:24):
on this set that she's struggling with addiction and is
doing drugs in her trailer, and I think her dealer
is her body double, which is kind of funny. But
it's only when she is publicly humiliated and almost dies
that the consequence comes and that her life is like
sort of irreversibly changed. And that is that's like not

(59:46):
limited to entertainment, but I think is like really smartly
said and how she's treated and spoken to by mostly
men who are directing or in charge of her of
like she's given a hand basically, which I don't know,
like you feel whatever way you want about it. He
seems like a decent guy. But the idea that like

(01:00:08):
I just wonder, at what point is it like she's
they need her to work, Like a lot of these
like structures that are put in place seem like so
that she can continue to work and create stuff to
be consumed. And Suzanne does say repeatedly like she wants
to be at work, she wants to be distracted, she
wants to be doing things. But it's just I don't know,

(01:00:31):
I think it does a good job without like bonking
you over the head of about it. What a system
that she's trapped in, and it makes sense that Suzanne
wouldn't be super pushed back about it because it's all
she knows. It's what she grew up around, is her
mother being a functional addict working in entertainment. So it
just like it. I don't know, I appreciated that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Yeah, it's very good at handling the idea that she's
got a lot of power but also kind of none.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
But also still treated horror on set and exploited for
her labor. I think it's Doris who points out at
some point how badly actors are treated and how actresses
have it even worse. And then she tells a story
about how she had a phone meeting. I think it
was a phone meeting with an executive.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
It was a what I think it was. I think
it was in person.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Well she says that he was on the toilet the
whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, because that's a a that was
a Louis v. Meher thing, right, Yeah, yeah, I feel
like that would have been in person.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
So she just in the bathroom with him, I don't
I mean, I mean, either way, it's it's horrible. Yeah,
but yeah, you see the ways in which Suzanne is mistreated,
be rated, humiliated on set, and yeah, I feel like
the general public has this idea that, oh, if you're

(01:01:55):
in movies, people are laying out the red carpet for you.
They you you're treated like royalty, And maybe some actors are,
depending on the amount of like box office draw they have,
but even then, like, there are so many people on
a set with more power than an actor that often

(01:02:17):
abused that power, and we've seen, we've heard so many
stories of that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
But I mean, I also crystill. You mentioned this earlier
and I was thinking about it as well, But I'm
so curious what you both think because we just covered
Mommy Dearist on the podcast and the louis Villemare overt
reference in There's I mean, there's so many similarities in
these movies, but obviously their approach couldn't be more different.

(01:02:45):
I think at least part of that is because you know,
Carrie Fisher has explicitly said and so we have to
respect that she said this is not her one to
one experience, but that she Carrie Fisher has narrative control
to some extent over the story. Where As we talked
about in the Mommy Dearis episode, which you can just

(01:03:05):
go listen to it's with be kind rewind but deals
with a very similar in description character is like a
famous actress such as let's say not Debbie Reynolds or
overtly Joan Crawford, down to the example of Louis B.
Mayer being abusive towards them when they were young actors

(01:03:29):
and how they parent daughters specifically, like it's wild how
similar it is, but that this story I think does
a lot better of a job of contextualizing how that
character got to the place because and maybe to the
point where I could definitely see the argument that Doris's

(01:03:50):
abusive behavior is excused more than some people would like,
I mean, her admitting that she did give her child
sleeping pills to go to sleep. Do I believe that
Doris believes this was okay because it was over the counter, Sure,
But I don't know. It's these movies came out, like
I think, about ten years apart, and like I had

(01:04:14):
to have my attention drawn to how similar the premises
are because it's treated so differently where I.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Mean, tone is so vastly different between the two movies.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
And there's no villain in Postcards from the Edge if
anything like a villain would be like a cycle or
a system, it wouldn't be one specific person, where obviously
Mammy dearis Joan Crawford is the devil incarnate.

Speaker 4 (01:04:39):
Yeah, I think it's partially just that Mommy Dearus is
kind of a much worse film in many ways. It's like,
you know, nothing is particularly well written. I guess by
the end of the movie in Mommy Dearris, they are
trying to humanize her a bit, but it's just you've
had such incredible, over the top camp by that point

(01:05:01):
that it's like you kind of can't go there with
that movie anymore, because you know, you've seen such extremes
by that point, you've seen too much. Yeah, exactly. Whereas
whereas in Postcards, you know, there's always nuance with these characters,
and there's always push and pull and love and resentment,
and yeah, it's just it's not a screaming, hysterical portrayal

(01:05:26):
of anything. It's nuanced and funny and feels real.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Especially when you think about how Carrie Fisher and her
mother did very much want to, you know, make their
relationship work, and what a deep love they shared, even
though oh god, if no one has recently watched the
Bright Lights documentary with the two of them sort of
Beverly Hills, Great Gardening. It's like filmed towards the end

(01:05:55):
of both of their lives. It came out in twenty sixteen,
but it's so good. It's yeah, it's Debbie Reynolds and
Carrie Fisher. They were like neighbors until the time of
their death, and it's just them loving each other and
being very dysfunctional.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
All right, they died. They died one day apart, right, It's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
It makes me cry thinking about it, but yeah, I
mean and also the just to close that Mammy Deiras loop,
because I know we talked about this in the episode
that Christina Crawford, who is you know, everyone involved in
Mommy Darras is a polarizing figure in their own right,
but that Christina Crawford kind of disowned that movie when
it first came out because she had no authorial control

(01:06:37):
in how her mother was presented in this big budget movie.
Where I think that's like kind of Carrie Fisher's ultimate
strength in her you know, both her position, but also
like without her ability as a writer, this same premise,
we know could have been taken to a pretty horrible extreme,

(01:06:59):
but I don't know as a testament to her.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
Yeah, I know, and she is a big proponent of
the concept of tragedy plus time equals comedy and her
comedic approach to so much of her writing, and yeah,
her just sort of like self deprecating approach to her work.

(01:07:24):
And we already talked about this a little bit, but
I just really appreciate the ability to take a generally
serious topic and apply a comedic slant or comedic perspective
to it in a way that I think is still
tasteful and not you know, like making light of something
that should be taken seriously, but rather finding humor in

(01:07:47):
a situation, or maybe even coping with something using humor,
because as we said earlier, so much media about addiction,
for example, is very tonally serious. If not try magity porn.
And of course I understand approaching a serious topic with
a serious tone, but there's also room for stories about

(01:08:08):
something serious told with a more comedic tone, and that's
how I approach writing that type of thing. And again,
Carrie Fisher's ability to do that with nuance and grace
while still being funny, I think is really well done.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Yeah. It speaks to the way she was in her
personal life as well, and how she never let her
own struggles with addiction like be a shame for her
or I'm sure she did privately, but she owned it
so publicly that I think was very important for a
lot of people. And she, you know, she talked about

(01:08:46):
I was watching interviews she gave around this time talking
about this movie, and she just talks about it all
so matter of factly. And same with Richard Dreyfus. This
movie started as like it was going to be a
vehicle to talk about addiction, and it was going to
be starring Richard Dreyfus because he'd also experienced that. And
you know, she talks about it all just so matter
of factly, and it's it's very destigmatizing, it's very powerful.

(01:09:09):
And then you see it presented in this movie with
a comedic edge as well, and I think that also
has the exact same effect, which is just let's normalize
talking about this. Sometimes it is funny.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Yeah, she's just one of one. Yeah, no one's doing
what she's doing except this. Watching this movie and covering
it does make me want to also cover heartburn, because
I just associate her and Nora Efron so strongly as
like confessional brunettes of this era. And I feel like

(01:09:40):
there's like a fun conversation about that movie too, because
she just killed Carl Bernstein. She just killed him. She
killed them in public, and it's I think one of
the most historic things that's ever been done.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
I've actually never seen heartburn.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
It's great.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
It's great.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
She just kills one of the president's men. Anyways, Yes,
is there anything else that either of you want us
to chat about? Not really, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.
It definitely passes the Beachdel test about all sorts of things,
obviously primarily between Doris and Suzanne, but also between Susanne

(01:10:21):
and C. C. H. Pounder, Suzanne and Aretha, grandma and
you know, daughter and granddaughter. There is This movie is
unquestionably about women and about surviving your early days out
of addiction and surviving your mother. So easy pass it

(01:10:44):
is a very very white movie, it needs to be said.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
And so reading it on our nipple scale, where we
rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining
it through an intersectional feminist lens all, go oh gosh,
I don't know. Three four, three and a half, I

(01:11:08):
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
What I like about this movie is it's I think,
more nuanced examination of a mother daughter relationship that feels authentic,
even though, like I don't have the same backstory at
all as the Suzanne character. I saw so many traces
of the types of things they argue about in arguments

(01:11:32):
I've had with my mother. Not to put my mom
on blast here, but there was just so much that
was familiar about maybe not the specifics, but of the
essence of their arguments and resentments, but also their love
and affection for each other. Yeah, so I guess because

(01:11:55):
of that, let's go three and a half and I'm
gonna get them all to Carrie Fisher. And I also
want to shout out that she had said that when
she was working as a script doctor, her goal was
to make the women characters smarter and the love scenes better.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
So she did it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
A champion for women love her across the board. So yeah,
three and a half nipples all to Carrie Fisher.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
I'm gonna go four. I'm going four. I'm going for it.
I love this movie. There's only one Carrie Fisher. There
are certainly things that are a product of it's time.
It doesn't tackle absolutely everything that could, and you know,
mainly it is a very white movie that said, I

(01:12:49):
just think this, I don't know. The way that she
writes relationships between women and between mothers and daughters is
so specific and so cool, and I just I love
But there is a world where Debbie Reynolds could have
taken this story's existence very poorly. But there's also really
sweet pictures of them at the premiere together, and I think,

(01:13:12):
you know, Debbie Reynolds is like, all attention is good attention,
all press is good press. She has survived so much
worse than this, and I just really appreciate just Carrie
Fisher in general, but Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds like
generosity with each other to sort things out often in public.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
So I'm going to give it four nipples. I'm going
to give one to Carrie. I'm going to give one
to C. H. Pounder, I'm going to give one to
I guess SHIRLEYE. McLain, she deserves it, and then I'm
going to give my last one to Oliver Platt because
I just love to see a young Oliver Platt pop up.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
He is for me, He really is for you, Jamie, Crystal,
how about you.

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
Yeah, I think I'll see your three and a half
in your four and I think I might raise you
four and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
Nice, I'm going there. Yeah. I think it's a delightful,
delightful movie, and for all of the reasons that you
guys have already outlined. But yeah, what a great time
spent watching all of these wonderful people do all of
these wonderful things. I will give my four and a
half nipples to all of the blanks that Meryl fires
off at Dennis.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
Quaid and then she goes relax. They're just blanks speeds off.
There's so much like peeling out in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
Really we used if we used to be a proper country.
Any Meryl Street comedy performance is worth celebrating, truly, I
know it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:47):
Yeah, I'm I'm going to see Devil Wor's part of
two tomorrow and I'm very prepared for it to be
incredibly mid but i know I'm gonna just love watching her.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
It's worth it for her, It's always worth it for her.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
Wow. Well, Crystal, thank you so much for joining us
for a fourth time, come back for a fifth and
get your imaginary Bechdel Cast jacket.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
It's going to exist one that I we're working on it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
We're working on it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
We're yeah, they're handstitched. It takes a long time. It
takes a long time.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
Yeah, thank you for having me. It's it's always such
a treat. And yeah, if you're listening, please check out
my podcast which is called camp Classics and it's out
every two weeks and we discuss movies just like this one.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Yay.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
Can people follow you on Instagram or anything like that, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:15:39):
Camp Classics Podcast and Crystal will see you now on
all fine social medias and all the unfine ones too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Which is most all of them, all of them. You
can follow us also on bad bad social media platforms
such as Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You can support us
on Patreon aka are Matreon, where Jamie and I do
two episodes every month based on a genius, brilliant, amazing theme.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Often of your choice unless you misbehave and then it's
of our choice. And that's just sort of how the
Matreon works.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
Yes, yes, and yeah, we put up polls all the
time so you can pick which movies it's very fun
and that's all for five dollars a month at patreon
dot com slash Bechtel Cast.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
And with that, uh, why don't we how do we
end this? Why don't we sing a long Shell Silverstein
country song for some reason to close it out?

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
Why the hellmu let's do it?

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Bye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
Me Kaitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
That's me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
heard of her?

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
Spectel Cast