Gloria (1980)

[5]

A young boy’s family is marked for death after the father is caught embezzling money from the mob. Before they are all killed, a tough-as-nails neighbor named Gloria, played by Gena Rowlands, reluctantly agrees to take custody of the boy. Gloria then becomes a cat and mouse chase movie throughout New York City as the mob attempts to find and kill both Gloria and the boy.

Gena Rowlands is one of my favorite actors, and I really wanted to love Gloria, but it never quite reaches the dramatic and visceral heights it should. It’s certainly not a bad film, though. Rowlands is reliably wonderful and whenever she’s allowed to take charge and be a bad ass, the movie works. But when she’s alone with the boy, the film falters. The kid, played by eight-year-old John Adames, is not a great actor — certainly not skilled enough to go head to head with the venerable Rowlands. You can see him trying in some scenes, and he pulls off a few compelling moments (including the ending), but it’s overall a bad performance that drags the movie down considerably since the entire emotional weight of the film falls on his and Rowland’s chemistry and relationship.

I also think director John Cassavetes (A Woman Under the Influence), known for his ‘cinéma vérité’, improvisational style, might have better served the film by embracing an exploitation genre approach. If you see Gloria, imagine how Quentin Tarantino might have handled it, for example.

With Buck Henry, a terrifically propulsive score by Bill Conti (Rocky), and a title sequence that paints a beautiful portrait of New York City.

Oscar Nomination:
Best Actress (Gena Rowlands)