Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle

A few weeks ago, the Algonquin Round Table came up in the comments box of Catholic Light. Last week, I saw the film Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle available for loan at the public library, so I thought I’d check it out.
My thoughts on this movie (oh, excuse me, film):
Taking out the cassette: whoa! I didn’t see this thing was rated R! How am I going to watch this with Hambet around? We’ll just have to distract him with toys, and fast-forward through any bad parts….
Watching the previews: I haven’t heard of a single one of these movies, but they all seem as arty-trite as arty-trite can be.
Watching the movie film: What is going on? What year is it supposed to be? A little context, please? Nice costumes, though.
A little further in: Oooops, fast forward here. They really could have left that out. So when are they going to get to the writing part?
A little further in: I wish I were watching this movie with Lee Ann, it would be so funny to see get her started on this thing….
Halfway through the movie: Okay, I’m done. Where’s the eject button?
It must be hard to make a movie about writers; there’s not much visually interesting about watching someone stare at a typewriter, even if the writer is dressed in the best the costume department has to offer. It’s even harder to pull off a movie stuffed witty remarks — one or two are funny, but a constant stream of scathing repartee is like a steady diet of Russell Stover’s. After a while, the stomach starts to quiver. It’s also hard to be self-consciously witty (must… write… something… witty!); the dialogue in a party scene is particularly contrived (“Look to your own flanks before you go hunting, dearie…” — that kind of thing)
Jennifer Jason Leigh does a good job as Dorothy Parker, including impersonating a really grating accent. The movie itself looks great — I love period pieces with great costumes and art direction, and thie movie does a swell job showing us the ’20s and ’30s. But, as I said, the moviemakers seemed to think that showing Dorothy Parker sitting at her typewriter would have been a little too dull, so instead they focused on Dorothy Parker’s love and sex life, and there is a great deal of focus on that. The pattern: Dorothy making witty remarks at the Round Table, next scene showing how unhappy she really is, next scene showing her either pining for someone or happily jumping in bed with someone. Okay, unhappy and starved for love, got it, but what else?
Memo to Hollywood: A movie about a writer is not necessarily an “artistic” movie. Costumes and art direction are not substitutes for a script that has some direction, some story with momentum. And it really is possible to make an art film without nudity! No, it is, really! Look at everything Hitchcock achieved without a view of Harvey Keitel’s rear end!