Starring Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, John Travolta, Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazur, Gena Rowland. Written by John Cassavetes. Directed by Nick Cassavetes.
A hard drinking, irresponsible punk named Eddie (Sean Penn) has gone missing from his wife Maureen (Wright) for 3 days. Maureen is pregnant and lonely, takes to smoking and drinking with her next door neighbour. Before Eddie returns, she is attacked by the neighbour after both had gone out and got good and drunk. Upon Eddie's return, she refuses to tell him her bruises came from their neighbour, and says if came from slipping in the rain. But he eventually figures out it was the neighbour, grabs his gun and takes off. She panics and calls the psychiatric officials to rescue him before he does something crazy, but he shoots a medical official instead. Eddie is institutionalized for 3 months, but 3 months lasts 10 years.
When Eddie gets out, he finds that his wife has divorced him, and is living a prosperous life with a construction company owner Joey (Travolta). Maureen never visited or wrote Eddie while he was in the hospital - she was told he'd never get better. And she hasn't told Eddie he has a daughter, who is now 9 years old and accepts Joey as her father. When Eddie gets out, Maureen tells Joey she is still in love with Eddie. Joey decides to take Eddie's daughter to see Eddie, and basically warn him not to go near Maureen, but ends up inviting him to their place for dinner, with Eddie's friend Shorty (Stanton). Maureen is then forced to decide who she wants - Joey or Eddie.
Sean Penn won the best actor award at Cannes this year, and he is excellent. Robin Wright is also quite good. But the first part of the movie, up until Eddie's institutionalization, is not very interesting, it's not very funny, and it takes at least an hour of the film. The movie doesn't take off until Travolta arrives. All of sudden, the script comes alive and the lines are very funny and the actors are at their best. The scene at Joey and Maureen's house where Shorty, Joey and Eddie's natural daughter are arguing about Maureen had me laughing so hard, I was crying. The lines are fresh, quirky and often deliver the unexpected. But then very soon after this the movie ends, just when you hope some more interesting events will occur. I left the film feeling it was missing something, and that it could have been much more.
