Movie Musing: "Diane" (2019)

(Spoilers here.)

A nice mid-week jaunt to Downtown Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Filmmakers lives!

Such a sweet, funny movie for such sobering topics as a longsuffering mother and friend whose main purpose in life seems to be caring for others incessantly. This is an older woman (Mary Kay Place), so obviously she's retired, but still tending to the sick and infirm (her son, who has a drug problem, her niece, who has cervical cancer -- and yes, dies in the film). Other friends and family suffer during the course of the movie (Andrea Martin plays one of them, a sassy friend, in a purely dramatic role but still, very Andrea Martin).

One thing about this movie that makes it extra special is that, for all of the gloomy content, Kent Jones (writer/director) doesn't make it a slog. Diane has a support system of friends and family who love and care for her, and we see that exhibited when they come to her rescue as she does to theirs. And it's not made a big deal out of, it just happens, which is terrific in a modest, non-showy way.

Diane is not perfect. We get to see her ornery side, her faults and flaws. She even confesses (to the viewers) that she carries with her a "sin," which turns out to be name-brand infidelity. (It's sad to me to see characters so hard on themselves, keeping the wounds open by picking at them). Nice twist with her son admitting that he "loved the guy," even though Mom was fooling around with him while married to his father.

The movie does go down a few uncharted lanes. Outside of a normal arc where it's all dark and then protagonist dies, her son does recover from his drug habit, goes to get detoxed, but then substitutes another addiction, a fundamentalist kind of branch. Yet religion doesn't seem to moderate his general anger and frustration towards his mom, which felt honest (if a little cartoony. I laughed, though).

Some of the dialogue is a little off-the-rack generic, but overall it's not too bad (and quite possibly reflective of the mundane stuff we all say) , and the actors bring their good will to it and help to sell it. (Estelle Parsons is here, how about that, Glynnis O'Connor, though I didn't recognize her...) And I wish in a way that we didn't see Diane die at the end. (I think we can assume that she dies, and not just collapses). It seemed too predictable, a flash forward to a slightly older Diane, feeding the birds. But the sudden confusion portrayed before her succumbing was creative and affecting.

There's a fascinatingly weird scene near the end, after Diane has made an imperfect peace with her son. We see her journaling, resting, and then hearing voices in her home. She follows the voice to another room, where it's this Jesus-looking guy (and I thought, is she dead, and this is a reverie?) who asks her to sit down. Then he shoots her up with drugs, and I'm thinking, is this some sort of metaphor for passing on into the next life?

But no (although I got the feeling that if you got this vibe, the filmmakers would be just fine with it). Apparently she must have been curious to try once what had a hold of her son for years. Jesus injects her, she has a little kaleidoscopic fantasy of half-remembered nightstand images, and then we're suddenly back to real life, with her having a meal in the diner again. How very strange, and also nicely disorienting. I think I'm interpreting it correctly.

I enjoyed listening to the family and friends gathering scenes, even though I'm not the gathering type. Diane reminded me a little bit of someone I know, in how she is a non-stop giver. No doubt lots of viewers will also see old familiars of their own in her portrayal.

I was ready for a true bummer of a movie, and I would have been okay with that, but I was pleasantly surprised at how Jones is not going for a morose tone here. (Your mileage may vary. Once again, here's another movie I recommend with a limited prospective audience). It's just real life going on, and the characters tackle it like you think they would. Day by day. It didn't wreck me. It actually lifted me a bit. Felt honest, authentic. (****)