This beautifully filmed and highly intelligent movie is essentially a soap opera about a small-time nightclub singer in Alaska and her adolescent daughter. The latter is perpetually upset by the former's continuous succession of boy friends, forcing the daughter to move each year and feel a loneliness that is eating her up. The plot, in short, resembles that of Neal Simon's The Goodbye Girl.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is superb as the singer, and David Strathairn is a fine lead male character. More than halfway through the film, the plot takes a strong turn, and the lives of the three major characters are placed in jeopardy. Incredibly, the film ends without resolving the issue. We do not know if these interesting people we've learned to know for the past couple of hours are murdered or rescued. In a theater, I would have booed and thrown things at the screen. (Well, at least when I was younger and dumber.) Along the way, we receive some liberal propaganda about the commercial uses of Alaska. And there are some fine shots of the landscape and seascape. But don't expect to learn much about the state, for this is a fascinating melodrama that could have been filmed anywhere. What a shame that John Sayles copped out at the end, leaving many viewers frustrated and angry.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is superb as the singer, and David Strathairn is a fine lead male character. More than halfway through the film, the plot takes a strong turn, and the lives of the three major characters are placed in jeopardy. Incredibly, the film ends without resolving the issue. We do not know if these interesting people we've learned to know for the past couple of hours are murdered or rescued. In a theater, I would have booed and thrown things at the screen. (Well, at least when I was younger and dumber.) Along the way, we receive some liberal propaganda about the commercial uses of Alaska. And there are some fine shots of the landscape and seascape. But don't expect to learn much about the state, for this is a fascinating melodrama that could have been filmed anywhere. What a shame that John Sayles copped out at the end, leaving many viewers frustrated and angry.