“It's a depressingly masculine world we live in, Dolores … Sometimes, Dolores, sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive.”
I have to admit that I didn’t feel “Dolores Claiborne” was one of Stephen King’s better efforts at the time that I read it. It seemed to drag somewhat and King, like all male writers, tends to struggle somewhat in developing female characters. However, I finally got around to seeing the film version (it only took me 15 years, gimme a break) and I’ve gotta say, the movie painted a different portrait.
Director Taylor Hackford chose a rather intense opening scene, setting the stage for the rest of the flick from jump street. Kathy Bates -- who was tremendous in another King vehicle, “Misery,” and also appeared in the TV adaptation of “The Stand -- plays the title character, a housekeeper accused of killing her elderly benefactor. When it turns out that her employer, Vera Donovan (played by a creepy Judy Parfitt), bequeathed a shit-ton of money to Dolores -- a cool 1.6 million beans, in fact --rather unexpectedly, it appears that Dolores is cooked. Throw in her past history of possibly killing her abusive husband and the fact that the mailman found her with a rolling pin over her head getting ready to turn Vera into the Pillsbury Dough Bitch, and, well … things don’t look good for ol’ Dolores.
But all is not as it seems! (*cue major plot point music*) Dolores’s estranged daughter, Selena St. George, finds out about Mom’s latest murder troubles and journeys from her high-falootin’ job as a New York reporter (it’s still eerie to me anytime I see the Twin Towers as a background in a movie) back to her Maine-island roots. Jennifer Jason Leigh is solid as Selena, who hides some rather garish skeletons behind that cute face: she’s promiscuous, is sleeping with her boss and has a disturbing propensity for chasing pills with bourbon … and, well, more pills.
Selena tries to intervene on what appears to be a personal vendetta by Detective John Mackey (well-played by Christopher Plummer) to take Dolores down, but the strained relationship with her Mom keeps getting in the way. Hackford tries hard to juxtapose Selena’s big-city tendencies with her tiny-town upbringing, relying extensively on lingering shots of ferries (the ferry plays a surprisingly large role in this flick) and the surrounding scenery -- almost to the point of awkward uncomfortableness (yes, it’s a word now). It’s an odd approach to cinematography, but it’s difficult to ignore the power of this particular setting (shot in Nova Scotia), and King has always excelled at turning setting into a major character. Elsewhere, at least, Hackford shows his chops with a pretty cool glass-breaking effect.
It’s hard to take the hilarious John C. Reilly too seriously as Constable Frank Stamshaw, especially with his effected Maine accent, and David Strathairn is a weak choice as Dolores’s former husband and Selena’s former father, Joe St. George. Through awkwardly transitioned flashbacks, we learn that Joe was an alcoholic deadbeat who used to beat Dolores and molest Selena (hence the reason why she’s a career-first, emotionally dead, chain-smoking, liquor-swilling, pill-popping harpy with no recollection of the sexual abuse and a grudge against her Mom for killing -- allegedly -- her father). Both mother and daughter see visions of the past to this day, so at least they have that in common. These flashbacks also reveal Vera to be a completely and total bitch, which is one of the reasons why Dolores’s alibi of “I worked for this cunt for 22 years and waited that long just to push her down a flight of stairs?” actually has some credence.
Eventually, the back story of Dolores and Joe is revealed, complete with the revelation that Joe stole the money that Dolores was secretly squirreling away to send Selena to Vassar. Withstanding the verbal abuse and the back-breaking labor involved with working for Vera, Dolores slowly and methodically is able to put aside enough money each month to give Selena a better life. When she learns that Joe found a way to pilfer the account that was in her name and her name only, something within her finally breaks. Piling thievery on top of years of mental, physical and sexual abuse, plus the discovery of Joe’s molestation of Selena, finally sends Dolores over the edge -- semi-pushed by advice from Vera who, in turns out, killed her cheating husband and made it look like an accident. “An accident, Dolores,” Vera cryptically advises, “can be an unhappy woman's best friend."
During an eclipse (which plays a much bigger role in the book) that lasts six-and-a-half minutes, Dolores gets Joe tipsy, confronts him, then forces him to chase her into a field that has an old well hidden under the grass. With weather serving as a metaphor and character (another King specialty), we get an unintentional comedy moment when fatass Dolores jumps over the hidden well (in another strangely shot, awkward scene) and Joe falls in. Under an eerie sky, Dolores refuses to help him and Joe eventually falls to his demise. His death was ruled an accident, but Detective Mackey always believed Dolores was to blame and won’t rest until he finds a way to nail that fat ass to the wall.
However, it is eventually shown that Vera’s death was, indeed, an accident (after a creepy scene with china pigs), and there’s a slightly forced dramatic return to the island by Serena to step in and save her Mom with some quasi-courtroom heroics. Eighteen years after the death of her father, Selena learns the truth behind the story from her Mom and accepts it. It’s cathartic for Selena to accept and for Dolores to finally tell it, setting up a semi-bonding moment as Selena prepares to head back to the Big Apple and leave her Mom jobless, penniless and outcast on a stark island (that part was kinda glossed over, though).
Jennifer Jason Leigh was always a somewhat-limited actress, but this is a pretty fitting role for her. Her memories filter back to her slowly throughout the film; she had blocked out her suicide attempt, a nervous breakdown and the molestation perpetrated on her by her father (a rather nausea-inducing scene). In a split scene where she looks on as her younger version gives her Dad a hand (*coughing) on the ferry, it all comes back to her as she attempts to flee Little Tall Island for good. She goes to the bathroom on the ferry and looks in the mirror only to see her back (creepy as hell), apparently not-so-subtly deriding her for turning her back on her Mom when she needs her most. That’s when she returns to the island to rescue Dolores at the hearing.
Bates is tremendous as usual as Dolores, who has eventually turned into the town’s weird, scary old lady. Despite having a murder charge, a vandalized home, the hatred of her fellow townfolk and a junkie daughter who hates her hanging over her head, she possesses an internal strength and conviction that Bates brings to life tremendously. She’s the metaphoric rock in the hurricane, the lighthouse in the storm, and she seems to thrive in the role of the life-battered, persevering lead character.
All in all, it turns into a damn good yarn, better than I had remembered. Hackford does a fine job of realizing King’s vision, which was to craft a plot founded on the basis of strong, but vulnerable, women. The story itself is perhaps best summed up by Vera’s words to Dolores, who in turn passes them on to Selena:
"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”
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