Postcards from the Edge (1990)

[7]

Meryl Streep plays a drug-addicted actress forced to stay with her celebrity mother (Shirley MacLaine) in order for insurance companies to allow her to continue working in Hollywood. Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directs this pseudo-autobiographical story written by Star Wars‘ Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher (based on her novel). Nichols captures Fisher’s decidedly snarky, self-deprecating tone on what could easily have turned into a heavy drama. Postcards from the Edge surrenders to comedy at most turns, with moments of subtle hope and inspiration thrown into the mix.

The role is a great one for an actress of Streep’s range. The film gives her the opportunity to play vulnerability and near-rage, but her finest moments are when her character is just trying to adjust to her new post-rehab reality with as much humility as possible. One highlight is when she hides in a wardrobe rack while overhearing a film director and costume designer discussing how to hide the imperfections of her body. Another high point is the film’s musical finale, when Streep sings (very well!) a country music number.

Nichols sprinkles sight-gags and illusions throughout the movie — like a door opening in a painted backdrop, or a house being hauled away on a flatbed movie truck — both reminders that the world this woman inhabits is one of artifice and deception. It’s the perfect backdrop for a paranoid mother/daughter story. If Fisher is playing Carrie Fisher, then Shirley MacLaine is playing Fisher’s real-life mother, Debbie Reynolds (Singin’ in the Rain). Postcards from the Edge feels like a reconciliation story, where the daughter learns the mother has suffered through many of the same surreal, heightened experiences that only Hollywood can generate. The script and the performances never get too deep — and the sparring is often pretty comical — but there’s also a poignant ‘passing of the torch’ element at play, with MacLaine’s character not wanting to leave the limelight, and Streep’s fearing she’ll never get out from under her indomitable mother’s shadow.

Postcards from the Edge may be too light to leave much of a dramatic impression, but it’s refreshing to see drug abuse and the dark side of stardom treated with a healthy sense of humor. Dennis Quaid makes for a sexy, potential love interest, and Gene Hackman is memorable as a director who takes a tough love approach with Streep. The cast is rounded out with a lot of notable names, including Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner, Annette Bening, Simon Callow, Mary Wickes, Oliver Platt, and Conrad Baines.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress (Meryl Streep), Original Song (“I’m Steppin’ Out”)