Hanging Up (Columbia, R)
Starring Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Diane Keaton
Rating:
Half a star - I would make some sort of awful pun here, but this movie doesn't even deserve that.
Sisterhood. The philosophy of the telephone. Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Diane Keaton. "Hanging Up."
Something has to give.
Boy, does it ever.
First off, a stand must be made against all of the puns this movie seems to encourage. Therefore, you will not be reading "she phoned in her role," "someone call 911" or any reference to Blondie's "Call Me." What you will find are enough lowlights to give a pair of sneakers a star complex.
Ryan stars as Eve, the middle sister in a quirky, whiny family. Her father (Walter Matthau) is bed-ridden with old age and severe delusions. His ex-wide's departure years ago sent him into a tailspin filled with one-liners and pathetic drunken acts.
While Eve is the glue that holds the family together, her sisters make appearances like the tide. Georgia (Keaton) is the feminist poster child, a magazine owner whose touch is as gold as Oprah's. Maddy (Kudrow) lives the L.A. lifestyle with career choices dependent on soap opera storylines. Literally. Their father's decent into hopelessness begins to wear on all the sisters, especially Eve. Through recent flashbacks, we see normal life disrupted by uncomfortable intrusions by Matthau.
These painful but humorous scenes are expertly acted by Matthau with a strong sense of realism. By the end of the film, the audience can't decide whether to hate the man or feel sorry for him. This two-way street should ring a bell for anyone dealing with aged senility.
Unfortunately, watching Ryan, Kudrow and Keaton work their "cute" humor can lead the audience to the same senile state. The mistake is offering three characters with different backgrounds but the same personality. Their hip cell-phone interaction does not provide an examination of their relationships; rather, it is just a reminder that no one really has any phone manners anymore.
With the goal of sisterhood more obvious than a slap to the face, daughterhood remains the only engaging part of the script. Each sister deals with the ordeal in a different way, feeding off the fire of Matthau's performance. But take them away from his bed, and it's a snoozefest critique of the modern woman's place in society. What about daddy?
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on in "Hanging Up." Do the characters learn from their experiences? Is life a little more meaningful? Or, can all our problems be solved with bad puns, cell phones and food fights? If we blindly follow the amazing trifecta of nerve graters, better stock up on cell phone batteries and wet-dry vacuums.
That dull beep is not the dial tone of a phone, but the EKG meter of a film that skirts death for one and a half hours before finally succumbing to the sweet surrender of a fade to black.
Originally published in the 3/8/00 edition of the Northern Star.
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