This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

If you liked Alan Rudolph's "Choose Me", "Remember Me", "Trouble in Mind", "Afterglow" or "Welcome to L.A.", if you especially liked his movie "The Moderns", if you like film scores by Mark Isham, if you liked Robert Altman (who produced this film and a few others by Rudolph) and if you like Jennifer Jason Leigh (great, great, great, with no Oscar, while one or two other hags flaunt two), do not miss, if it ever comes your way, "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle", a fascinating cinematic biography of the even more fascinating writer Dorothy Parker, and her circle of critics and authors of the New York literary scene who were integral part of the "round table" of the Algonquin hotel in the city in the 1920s. A deluxe cast: Campbell Scott, Matthew Broderick, Andrew McCarthy, Jennifer Beals, Nick Cassavetes, Lily Taylor, Martha Plimpton, Wallace Shawn, Stephen Baldwin, James Le Gros, Rebecca Miller, Sam Robards, Gwyneth Paltrow, Peter Gallagher, Heather Graham, Stanley Tucci, Keith Carradine.. For those who love the literary world and writers of "brilliant pen", "sharp tongue" and smart repartee in debates, this is your motion picture. I rate it 10/10. Those who don't, it's up to them to raise objections. Beautiful film. Memorable performance by Leigh and, by the way, a very good one by Andrew McCarthy too, as Mr. Parker: considering his previous works (all pretty eyes and little substance), he truly made a good impression on me.

---Who was the target audience of this film? People who were really interested in Parker would have to find this disappointing.----- so...We spend a lot of time indoors/While Leigh suffers from lockjaw/With boozy loud insufferable boors /That self-indulgent Parker sawThe costumes great, production high,/ But what is that she is saying?/ Parker did drone, but diction, sigh,/ Is needed above the other's braying.Paltrow, so often wan and fey/ Shows marvelous character actress prospect /She towers above this teeny fray /But her humor and tartness are not lost yet.Leigh is lovely, dewy and luminous /Her vocal imitation comes and goes/ Will someone unclench her jaw for us /So we can decipher her character's woes?Leigh's smaller than a umbrella stand/ Matthew Broderick is a lovely pairing /The story only starts when he enters, grand /And sexy and strong and stirring.Cambell Scott is the backbone of this /Screeching brood, he doesn't contest a fraction. /He calmly settles back in bliss/ And steals every scene, every action.Parker fans, I think, would largely not/ Feel compelled to this trendy casting spread. / With this posey art, we can bet on spot/ That she's now even more happy that she's dead.

In a lot of ways, this movie isn't really about Dorothy Parker. It might as well have been about a fictional poetry writer from 1920's who later went on to work on writing in magazines and writing reviews and later still, writing scripts in Hollywood with her husband. When I first saw this movie, I believe this was how she was but after reading a biography on her and reading some of her poetry, I got a totally different feeling about her and it changed my feelings for this movie too. I can still enjoy it, but don't take this as reality. Nowhere in reality has it ever been mentioned that Dorothy had feelings for Robert Benchley besides friendship. In real life, her true love was Alan Campbell (who is poorly played in this movie has a feminine type) who she married twice and they were going to have a baby together but she had a miscarriage. She was also with him when he died and worked on many Hollywood film scripts with him. Still, to spite the exaggerated lust for Benchley, I can't help but admire the way Campbell Scott played him. He really held the film together and was the life of the party and the real true friend to all those there and very dryly amusing, sort a big brother type at the round table. He actually manages to steal the film from Jennifer Leigh who slurs her words and sits around uttering her words sourly and so bitterly, I'm sure that if the real Dorothy Parker had behaved that way, she would hardly be remembered for her great wit and dark poetry. Jennifer plays her way too depressed and way too sad. It's awful to watch. It's also watch her love affair with that guy who played ferris bueller (not sure who is being here) and the guy who plays her first husband doesn't do much better. At the round table, Dorothy is seeing laughing a little but mostly listening. I thought she was famous for her quips and people were always listening to her??? what! This movie got it all wrong and can be depressing especially when Benchley vanishes from her life for no apparent reason. I think one of their last scenes together is her helping him get a whore. Again? WHAT! Why would she do that, first of all, benchley is married and secondly, isn't she supposed to have feelings for him? Anyway, it's hard to enjoy this movie with all wrong. The real Dorothy Parker died nearly forgotten in a hotel room, alone, obese, forgetful, sad with only one friend who bothered to look after her. At the end of this movie, Jennifer Jason Leigh emerges tiny and petite wearing a bun and clutching a dog, still slurring her words as though Dorothy parker was a big drunk and giving bitter lectures in her ripe old age. That just wasn't so. Besides, Dorothy wasn't bitter, she just liked to shock people and say unexpected things and did mostly for laughs. I don't think anyone who made this movie did any research. It doesn't even mention the time she had her miscarriage (it does mention her abortion though) or the time she had the house in the country with Alan Campbell or how she believed in equal rights or how her ashes were forgotten and finally what actually became of them and how she mentioned in her will that she left her money to help blacks and one of her friends protested and came off as looking racist. there was lot to dorothy parker, more than her suicide attempts or her times at the round table. it might have been interesting had the movie been more about dorothy and had a better actress playing her, not one who was in love with representing her as a just someone who suffered from depression.

Dorothy Parker was certainly a character and a witty writer, but the lives of writers are typically hard to film for obvious reasons. This movie does an adequate job and Jennifer Jason Leigh turns in the best possible performance (as we've come to expect from her). The script and the other characterizations are a bit thin but this movie is definitely worth it of you happen to be a Parker fan. Men don't make passes...