Drowning Mona
As my companion sagely pointed out, the dark comedic elements of Drowning Mona could have raised feature film virgin director Nick Gomez to the Farrelly Brothers’ sick level, and at times it looked like he had it in him. But his TV experience, and that of his writer, Peter Steinfeld, may have overcome any hope this film would have had to be the next Something About Mary, or even the next Weekend at Bernie’s.
Made for an astoundingly skimpy $8 million, Drowning Mona was a little movie that got a huge cast of famous (and, you’d think, super-expensive) faces to stock it up. The only main character I did not recognize was Marcus Thomas, playing the son of the titular Mona (Bette Midler). The IMDB is shamefully lacking in information about this movie, considering it opens in like, 2 days. But come on! Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Neve Campbell, Casey Affleck (at his most flat and unwatchable), and some other folks should guarantee at least an amusing time. But indeed, Drowning Mona was lucky for her - she got to be dead most of the time while we didn’t get that luxury. Midler (who of course appears in posthumous flashbacks) is an uncompromising bitch, which is great. Many of the flashbacks are the best part of the movie. Structurally it does work better with them as flashbacks rather than killing her in a linear sense…but the movie is just too simplistic and overdone and silly to work. It’s a shame.
Interesting tidbit - everyone looks awful! William Fichtner’s makeup, while horrid, makes him look terribly withered. Jamie Lee “Va Va Voom” Curtis looks nothing like her Baroness self, Casey has bad hair, Neve has the same stress acne she has in Scream 3, and DeVito…well, actually, he looks pretty good. Midler - yow! That Isn’t She Great movie must have taken it all out of her. Will Ferrell has the same terrible SNL makeup he always wears *and* he is more unfunny than his Spartan character - he’s the mortician, for goodness’ sake - it’s a black comedy about death - USE THE MORTICIAN! Oh woe is me. The burly female mechanic looked familiar (Say Anything as one of Cusack’s friends?) but the IMDB drew a blank for me. I liked her, though.
The film is set in 1990 in Verplanck NY, and everyone drives a Yugo with vanity plates. This is actually kind of funny after a while. Thank god for vanity plates, else we wouldn’t know who was parked where and why that would be interesting at all. Jokes about dinner theatre are a little funny. The machinations of the town around DeVito’s investigation, his “first mate” cop is pretty amusing in a predictable, Type-A kind of way, and the guy from Repo Man is still playing the same character - in fact, he was also playing this character in Erin Brockovich. He’s even the same kind of stupid deus ex machina - what is this?! We get some funny vignettes/flashbacks as the townspeople gossip about each other, and that is entertaining. Best of all are the ones regarding Casey Affleck’s business partner, who is a pure idiot. That’s kind of funny, but he’s so unlikable that you can’t help but wish a lot would have been trimmed to make this a one hour TV movie. Basically, the movie is all promise with little payoff. The biggest crime of all. Certainly, it’s a bigger crime than the one being investigated.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 3/3/2000
Time in minutes 91
Director Nick Gomez
Studio Destination Films
