W I D E R SCREENINGS TM presents...
DVD REVIEW ARCHIVE
IMMEDIATE FAMILY (1989)
Columbia DVD (region 4)
d. Jonathan Kaplan; pr. Sarah Pillsbury, Mitch Sanford; scr. Barbara Benedek; ph. John Lindley; m. Brad Fiedel; ed. Jane Kurson; cast. James Woods, Glenn Close, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Linda Darlow, Mimi Kennedy, Jane Greer (95 mins)
_______________________________________________________
DVD COVER ART
The Emotional Needs of a Childless Couple in Midlife Wanting Children
The problems facing a childless couple can be frustrating, even soul-destroying, especially when they have attained the degree of mutual respect, love, material comfort and financial security that would guarantee a stable home in affluent middle America.
A TRIBUTE TO
MARY STUART MASTERSON
The films made about this plight are usually dismissed as sentimental made for cable television dramas, the subject matter thought better suited to a movie of the week than to a feature. However, as sentiment gradually extended into a series of emotional and mature films to counteract the onslaught of Hollywood blockbusters in the 1980s era of glossy spectaculars, one soft, under-appreciated film did emerge on the subject. Ironically, its director, Jonathan Kaplan, had risen through the Roger Corman world of titillating exploitation in the 1970s before he turned to the mainstream for the controversial rape-trial movie The Accused, in the process guiding Jodie Foster to an Oscar and a guaranteed career. With his newfound high profile, Kaplan chose a low-key drama about ethical issues concerning child-raising. Although a disarming little film, Immediate Family sadly did not fare well with indifferent critics and public and thus quickly sank onto home video. However, its obscurity need not condemn it, especially in light of the re-discovery potential offered by DVD as it remains one of the rare feature films to delve into the frustrations of the childless.
_______________________________________________________
Synopsis (contains spoilers)
Immediate Family concerns a financially very well-off couple (played by Glenn Close and James Woods, the latter in unusually restrained form) who have all they could want, except children.
The regimen of fertility tests and pills has proven unsuccessful and so they turn to a new form of adoption known as “open adoption”. Under this scheme they effectively search for a pregnant woman who is ready to sign over her child to them as soon as it is born, the mother in so doing relinquishing her rights to the child. Soon, a teenage mother (Mary Stuart Masterson) contacts them and the adoption agency makes all the necessary arrangements. The girl meets the couple and starts to bond with them, perhaps a little too closely for the comfort of all concerned. The couple are naturally curious about her and are especially eager to meet the baby’s father (Kevin Dillon) whom they briefly fear may be a hoodlum just ready to rip them off. However, they seem pleasantly surprised even though these young people are clearly from a different social class. When Masterson finally gives birth, however, the strings of her newfound maternal instinct begin exerting themselves and she wants to change her mind, effectively robbing the couple of all they had hoped for. The adoption agency may be legally powerless to prevent this, even if it is clear that the baby will certainly be better off with the adoptive parents.
_______________________________________________________
Child Birth, Child Raising, Surrogacy, Adoption & Modern Motherhood
The film follows a straight-forward narrative and is quite concerned with establishing firstly the routine of fertility treatment, clearly revealing it as now a habit for these people.
Similarly the film details as needed the process of the “open adoption” scheme wherein couples in need of a child advertise via the agency for a willing mother whom they meet before the baby is born, the mother then consenting to turn over the child. The film is matter-of-fact about relating these moral issues of child-birth and child-raising and longs for a solution to be found to the social problems that affect motherhood. There is no hostility or blame here – it doesn’t condemn Masterson for getting pregnant so early although it does show that some people are unprepared for parenthood. However, there is a distinct age, class and socio-economic basis underlying parental suitability which is thus perhaps slyly judgmental despite itself. Echoes of Close’s opening statement wondering just how irresponsible people always seem to have the most children is hence subject to a series of examinations throughout the film. Similarly, it addresses Close’s dilemma as she perhaps feels that being childless is somehow unnatural. In Close and Masterson, it is a film about the imperative of fertility and explores the range of feelings felt by all participants in the open adoption process, centring on the way Masterson almost begins to feel Woods and Close are her substitute parents.
Although Immediate Family is a nicely, quietly realized film about genuine human needs and feelings regarding children and the innate human need to be parents, in subject matter and design it resembles a Hallmark channel movie.
Although there is happiness in the way the characters warm to each other (making for a subtly performed film) there is the realization that soon these people must part and it is this sense of loss that Masterson seems to most fear. In her reactions, we get the sense of a young woman who fears being alone, yet for whom motherhood is merely impractical. She thus needs to let go of what soon comes to be the dearest parts of her new emotional state, not only the baby but Woods and Close as her own potential new substitute parents. As nice as everybody is to one another, once the child is delivered, the relationship officially ends and separate lives must be pursued. With this in mind, and noting the difficulty in accepting what it considers responsible decisions in the light of rather determining social factors, the film calmly and emotionally observes the evolving behaviour and inter-relationship of these decent people (with their differing socio-economic backgrounds) in terms of how they jointly react to the dilemma of parental responsibility now put before them. The result is a surprisingly tender and delicate film based around a quartet of fine performances.
_______________________________________________________
Upper Middle Class American Midlife
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer is thankfully of decent enough quality, preserving what is a film intent on capturing the prettiness and stability of middle-American respectability and the longings which can still underpin it.
A TRIBUTE TO GLENN CLOSE
In colour it looks somewhat colder, deliberately eschewing the glossiness of most Hollywood films of the era. It is somehow more naturalistic in intention, although obviously this effect has been very well calculated in advance. What is intriguing is the irony and sadness in its initial treatment of point of view shots, relaying just how the childless will be drawn to gaze and pick out the children in different circumstances. This visually indicates their lack and longing quite effectively. In texture, the film is ever so slightly wintry and cold, at first thus rather gently melancholic, making much of the promise of spring that eventually brings more colours to the latter stages of the film. It is a technically accomplished film and is given a fine transfer, there being nothing in this DVD that distracts from the emotional experience and indeed much that subtly enhances its understated mood. As he delicate, realistic balance is maintained throughout, the consistency in location, look and texture thus allows for a visual emphasis on the smaller details of the human interaction within the unfolding drama, fully befitting director Kaplan’s rather restrained and behaviourist approach to this movie.
_______________________________________________________
The Search for Calm & Harmony
The Dolby Digital Surround sound transfer is equally delicate and effective as befits a quiet and surprisingly subdued movie in sound design.
Indeed, the sprightly consistency in the film’s visual design extends into its aural spaces. It is full of crisp details, often with a fine but rather subtle spatial distribution, the judiciously employed score nicely filling out the film when needed to enhance the mood and emotional underpinnings. Everyday natural sounds (birds for instance) are enhanced by the film’s deliberate pauses for moments of natural silence and contemplation. Indeed, the search for calm and harmony in life seems a subtext here. Off-screen sounds regularly add depth and space to the film, complemented by subtle directional effects in the mixing of background ambience. Voices are always a standout as much of the film explores the processes of the verbal as well as the nonverbal communication between four people whose fates affect the life of an unborn child. Tone of voice is measured and also restrained, emotions getting the better of people at key moments. In a film about what Kaplan and his screenwriters consider the natural responsibility of child-raising and the quiet mix of hope and despair underlying the childless, the sound mix is kept fully authentic and perfectly crafted to convey a decent world. Thus, although the film is emotional, sentiment is earned, calming and restrained – controlled by the performances.
_______________________________________________________
DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION:
Immediate Family
AMAZON.COM DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Immediate Family
AMAZON.CO.UK DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Immediate Family [DVD] [1989]
RELATED DVD ARCHIVE VIEWING SELECTIONS
