This film needs to digest, it has a shock factor but without using adult content. The acting is great, glorious even. What stands out is the relationship between a man and woman. Other actors play key parts but the characterization of the couple, first Vanessa Redgrave (Miss Amelia) and then her man Keith Carradine (Marvin Macy) plus a third wheel are at the center. It uses gothic elaboration on southern stereotypes, larger than life, and so maybe tempting to dismiss what it says about couples simply because it's freakish. Other 'reality' couples films out recently like 'Marriage Story' by Noah Baumbach suggest falsely that an angry separation is either heroic or acceptable. But The Ballad of the Sad Cafe doesn't lie, the shocking human spectacle remains.
Review of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
