It’s 1985 and Robert Altman is still deep in the creative and commercial wilderness of his, to be generous, mixed 1980s run. He’s five years removed from Popeye, a “disaster” of a film that wasn’t really a disaster. His soft comeback, the HBO mockumentary Tanner ‘88, and his true mid-career rebirth The Player, were still a few years ahead. In the interregnum, Altman decided to downshift from big casts and sweeping cinematics, choosing to film smaller, more intimate theatrical adaptations. Fool for Love is yet another middling entry in this dispiriting parade.
Sam Shepard stars in this version of his own celebrated play (which he, naturally, adapted for the screen.) He loomed so large on both sides of the camera that it often seemed to be a Shepard, rather than Altman, production. There are rumors of diva-like activity on Shepard’s part, with him calling “cut” in the middle of scenes and quarrelling with his co-stars, in what was by all accounts a grueling eight-week shoot in Santa Fe and Las Vegas. (Since all the action in the story happens during a single evening, everyone involved worked the night shift.) The film’s troubled production shows in the final product, a bizarre yet intriguing misfire of a movie.
Set in a dilapidated motel in an unnamed outpost in the Mojave Desert, Fool for Love is a dark-night-of-the-soul character drama featuring two main characters, Eddie (Shepard) and May (a young and winning Kim Basinger). May has been seeking refuge at the El Royal motel for some time when her tranquil situation is disrupted by an unexpected visit from Eddie, whom at first we’re to assume is an old flame and childhood friend. Eddie, a rodeo stunt rider living in Wyoming, breaks through May’s front door and launches into what seems like an interminable, feature-length conflagration (its runtime is a mere 106 minutes, but Fool for Love feels much, much longer). During this heated, sometimes violent, confrontation he contends their destinies are entwined, that they should rekindle their relationship. May vehemently rebuffs him, citing various reasons, including his infidelity with an enigmatic fashion model known only as the Countess (Deborah McNaughton). She refuses to move back to Wyoming with Eddie, fearing a return to their destructive past.
As May and Eddie bicker endlessly, the motel’s proprietor (Harry Dean Stanton), referred to only as the Old Man, observes them closely as an almost spectral figure (his presence is never acknowledged, even though he’s often lurking in the background in most shots). The Old Man offers insights and personal anecdotes about his connections with both May and Eddie. Eventually, it emerges that the two are, in fact, half-siblings with the same father, who led a double life and abandoned their respective families in their hometown at different times. Unaware of their shared parentage, the siblings had been in a romantic relationship in high school. When their parents discovered the truth, Eddie’s mother (Louise Egolf) took her own life out of guilt and shame.
May discloses that her current boyfriend, Martin (Randy Quaid), is due to arrive for a date later the same night. And so he does. The Countess, gun toting, shows up too. The film, after much tumult among a handful of characters, ends in a literal blaze.
Despite its tawdry subject matter, and its David-Lynch-meets-Douglas-Sirk flourishes, Fool for Love remains a misbegotten slog. The performances are fine enough, Basinger in particular is quite good, but this theatrical melodrama never needed to grace the silver screen. Altman does his best to make the material feel cinematic and alive, framing scenes with active camera shots and employing frequent flashbacks, as the viewer begins to discover our main duo’s deeply sordid, if not outright creepy, past. In the end, this is a chamber piece that almost certainly works better onstage (after all, the play was nominated for the Pulitzer).
So, Fool for Love was yet another commercial flop in a string of flops for Robert Altman in the 1980s. With a budget of $2 million (they built the motel complex from scratch in the desert and immediately dismantled it after filming wrapped), it only grossed $900,000 worldwide. Among critics, the film was met with lukewarm reviews, but had a notable champion. Roger Ebert gave Fool for Love three stars out of four, saying “the characters achieve a kind of nobility.” He had a point. Shepard imbued his Eddie with a convincing mixture of menace and malaise. Basinger, the true star of the show, carries the picture, especially during its nearly dialogue-free, first 30-minute stretch. Noble? I don’t know. Impressive? For sure. Still Fool for Love never attempts to match Robert Altman’s own stratospheric heights – those that preceded it and, more importantly, the Everest-level films to come.
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