Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!att!cbnewsj!ecl
From: alternat@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Ann Hodgins)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00826
Keywords: author=Hodgins
Message-ID: <1990Oct22.122337.1019@cbnewsj.att.com>
Date: 22 Oct 90 12:23:37 GMT
Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (evelyn.c.leeper)
Reply-To: alternat@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Ann Hodgins)
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Organization: University of Waterloo
Lines: 55
Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com


			  POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE
		       A film review by Ann Hodgins
			Copyright 1990 Ann Hodgins

     I once dreamed that I was a Kung Fu fighter fending off several
thugs at once on the edge of a precipice.  I thought then in the morning
how unusual that dream was for a girl to have and I think now what a
perfect analogy it is for POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE.

     This movie is not the comedy I took it to be from it promotion
although it is consistently light and subtly witty.  And the promotion
also led me to hope for some hot scenes with Dennis Quaid a la THE BIG
EASY.  No such luck.

     But on the positive side, it was not the heavy 'message' movie I 
feared it would be either, despite its anti-drug theme.  There are no
heavy themes of life vs. death or good vs. evil.  What messages there
are to be found in this film are indeed like postcards: short, friendly
and to the point.  

     And rather disjointed.  There is no central theme in this movie  so
it does not build to a grand finale like a Great Work of Art.  It is
simply a woman struggling through a difficult point in her life against
several different but related problems, like my Kung Fu fighter dealing
with several thugs at once.  And like Robin Hood or Zorro the hero's
motto is: be light-hearted, be gallant, don't hurt any one, and laugh
in the face of death.

     In the movie she fights her problems as they come.  Sometimes she
seems to fall back and is pushed to the edge, then comes back strong.
Sometimes she grabs on to weapon that breaks in her hands.  But she is
always a fighter.  Her habits may be self-destructive but she is
determined to win.  

     The heroine's self image as a *woman* is, I think, the real theme
of this movie.  It is as though she did not quite pass puberty, but
failed it.    

     She has remained like a pre-pubescent poised to become a woman but
blocked from passing over the edge of childhood into womanhood, and the
block in her *Mother*.  To grow up would be to compete with her
overwhelming mother at Her own game.

     There is a theory, post-Freudian I think, that a young girl's first
love is her mother and to grow up she must instead learn to identify
with and to be like her mother.  There are scenes, especially the first
singing scene, when this dynamic seems clearly to be the heroine's
central problem.  

     But whether or not you find this theme intriguing you will probably
enjoy POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE.  It is light, interesting and amusing.
It has many unexpected twists and surprise: the singing is wonderful!

Ann Hodgins