Marie: A True Story (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Oct 23, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
-
Director
Roger DonaldsonRelease Date(s)
1985 (August 13, 2024)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: D
Review
Known as Marie: A True Story on the posters but just Marie on the film itself, this is a fact-based, small-scale drama-thriller similar in approach to the better-known Silkwood (1983), and in the tradition of other movies about determined women fighting for their rights in a male-dominated, corporate landscape, e.g., Norma Rae, The China Syndrome, and even Coal Miner’s Daughter, also starring Sissy Spacek.
Here Spacek plays Marie Ragghianti, who after leaving an abusive marriage moves her and her three children to her wheelchair-ridden mother Virginia’s (Collin Wilcox Paxton) home in Tennessee. There she goes back to school, obtaining a B.A. in English and Psychology from Vanderbilt University. She then asks college acquaintance Eddie Sisk (Jeff Daniels), recently appointed legal counsel for newly-elected governor Ray Blanton (Don Hood), for a job. Possibly she’s expecting work as a receptionist but he surprises her with an offer to serve as the state’s Extradition Officer, and later is appointed by the governor to Parole Board Chair.
It soon becomes apparent, however, that with Marie’s high-paying, big responsibility job comes the tacit implication to look the other way when Eddie subtly and not-so-subtly suggests paroling violent inmates with connections to the governor and his rich donors. The more vocal her opposition, the more openly they intimidate Marie with threats of violence and professional ruin.
Sissy Spacek’s multi-layered performance carries the film. Small of stature, sleight of built, the Good Ol’ Boy men tower over her (reminding one of Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs), yet she projects a quiet, common sense determination to do what’s right. Threatened by the governor, in his office with lackeys looking on, she doesn’t make speeches when he threatens to fire her—she simply looks him straight in the eye and walks out, refusing to bend to his wishes. A subplot involving her sickly youngest son, besieged with breathing problems after nearly choking to death on a pistachio nut, obviously but somewhat effectively underscores her indefatigable nature. She’s reluctant to use a bulky emergency device provided by a hospital to clear the boy’s lungs because it seems traumatizing for both mother and son, but on the road when he has a medical emergency, she proves up to the task.
The script by Gandhi screenwriter John Briley from Peter Maas’s book hits all the salient points, but even at 112 minutes feels a little rushed at times, spanning about a decade and dealing with fairly complex state bureaucracy issues, Ragghianti is several different government jobs over the course of the story, and the material might have worked better as a two-part miniseries. Seriously damaging the film is French composer Francis Lai’s musical score, which not only has the air of a cheap Charles Bronson-Cannon era thriller, but telegraphs every emotion to the audience, warning them of impending danger, swelling with emotion for those scenes, etc.
That Marie’s story is true, or mostly true (it’s unclear if a very Hollywood thriller-like murder in the film actually happened), makes it naturally compelling, with blatant corruption (Want a parole? That’ll cost you $20,000...) in broad daylight, and there’s an implication the case of Governor Blanton is hardly unique.
The mostly Southern-born cast adds verisimilitude. Spacek is from Texas, but John Cullum (as a defense attorney) and Morgan Freeman (fourth-billed but wasted as a conspiring Parole Board member) are both from Tennessee. Collin Wilcox, perfectly cast as Marie’s mother (Wilcox resembled Spacek in her youth) was raised in North Carolina but studied drama at the University of Tennessee. (Incidentally, beyond his role in the film, I’m pretty sure that’s Freeman voice looping an unseen prison inmate in one scene.)
A number of speaking parts are clearly played but local non-actors, including Fred Thompson, Ragghianti’s real-life attorney. Director Donaldson was so taken by his personality that he cast Thompson as himself, and Thompson proved to be a more than capable actor. Later a U.S. Senator representing Tennessee and, briefly, a Presidential candidate, Thompson enjoyed a surprisingly robust simultaneous acting career in movies and TV shows, including a long run on Law & Order.
Produced on a budget comparable to Silkwood, Marie enjoyed none of that film’s commercial and critical success, Marie limited to just a handful of theaters during its original run, though Spacek was singled out for praise. The J-D-C Scope cinematography by Chris Menges, Ken Loach’s regular DP, is imaginative, and the production and costume design captures the late-1970s era with impressive authenticity.
Warner Archive’s Blu-ray of Marie is excellent the 2.39:1 widescreen image looking nearly flawless, while the 2.0 mono DTS-HD soundtrack is very good for those last few years before everything went stereo surround. Optional English subtitles are provided on this Region-Free disc.
The only extra is a trailer (reformatted for 1.85:1), which suggests a much more nefarious thriller than the film actually is.
Marie is good, not great, somewhat predictable and undermined by that inadequate, telegraphic musical score, but Sissy Spacek, as she often does, with her excellent performance makes the picture eminently watchable.
- Stuart Galbraith IV