Simply A Masterpiece

How sad is this?

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

(Flash Review)I saw Nicholson & Streep and an unknown movie title, clicked play and was ready for an acting clinic. I was not disappointed. The film opens with Jack awaking from his slumber under a blanket of cardboard, on the side of the road, in the midst of the Great Depression. There by circumstances partially within his own control as we slowly come to learn, he is there to visit his old hometown and later runs into a female friend, played by Streep, who is also down on her luck. Much of the film follows the two of them as they wrestle internal strife, try to earn a couple dollars to fill their stomachs with more booze than food and mend old relationships. Will this phase in their life lead to a happier place or drive them deeper into despair? Overall, the acting was really good but it wasn't an enjoyable watch. Not just because it was gritty and depressing but the pacing felt uneven and it failed to honestly emotionally affect me rather than superciliously.

I, like many others I assume, was drawn to this film by it's list of actors. With a cast like that it's gotta be great, right? As it turns out, not so much.The story here is simply not THAT interesting to warrant a run time of almost two and a half hours. A baseball player accidentally kills his child and then, in his grief, abandons his family and becomes a bum. Years later he goes back to see his wife and is welcomed home with (mostly) open arms. And things really don't develop much more than that. So A-listers, Jack Nicholson and Merrill Streep flounder around a gloomy set and try to act their way to an epic film, but they just don't have the material to work with. So you end up with a very drawn out, dreary, and unavoidably BORING movie. It's certainly not worth the time investment when there's no payoff.

I watched Ironweed back in 80's,5times on screen.Mainly because I am a big fan of Tom Waits..But something inside this very depressing movie caught then-Student's mind. Now I can watch with DVD,and knew many supporting actor is gone now. Some of them were already old age back then.Lots of sparkle came from those supporting actors. You can see younger day's Nathan Lane (well,Same Nathan who is on "Modern Family")giving the scene great impression. Tom Waits gave the role pure innocence. Not only Lead Actors,Many people wrote,Those supporting actors gave "Ironweed" magic. There's something not only depressed,something pure.

Ironweed is the kind of film that pierces right through my senses, to the point where I'm left to no other alternative but to sob at the end of it all. I felt that at the end of such films as Requiem for a Dream, Mystic River, United 93, and a good few Bergman works. Ironweed, as with those films, doesn't cheat the audience with anything that seems dishonest. Even the schizophrenia (if that is what it is definitively) that Francis (Nicholson) has throughout where he sees visions of all the dead that he either caused- in self-defense or otherwise- or saw happen, doesn't have that kitschy sentimental beat to it. This goes without saying it won't be for all moviegoers, and the most recent DVD release is misleading: we see Nicholson's trademark grin, as if this might be a *cheerful* movie about those in even deeper squalor than most in 1938 Albany, New York.Sure, there might be a few lines here or there that bring a chuckle, like a line Francis has about needing turkey since he has no duck. But for the most part this is a drama that is deep into its artistic intentions to be frank with the story at hand. Director Babilco doesn't shy away with his camera from the material in William Kennedy's script, and neither do the cast. A good thing to: there needs to be a formidable handle on the pain and misery that Francis, Helen (Streep), and Rudy (Waits) have to deal with every day and especially at night. They could die any moment- Rudy reveals that he has terminal cancer almost with a strange, ambiguous grin (which, coming from Waits, has a lot of meaning to that)- but there's just enough hope with whatever few bucks can come around.If for no other reason should you see the film it's for the cast, as it's above all else an actor's film. While the director and writer have their immense contributions to the proceedings (the direction is patient, sometimes tense, occasionally even poetic even with the slightly sappy music score, and the writing is not compromised in the adaptation from Pulitzer prize winning source), Nicholson, Streep, and everybody all make this a vital and potent take on those, ultimately, marginalized. Whether Streep or Nicholson take more of the meaty drama for their characters can be debated till dawn's break, but if I did have to really choose I'd say Nicholson was greater, one of the high points in a career chock full of them. Perhaps he does have more though to have a hold of; Streep's Helen has a background of a failed pianist career, odd ties to those still in Albany, and a perpetual self-hatred. It goes without saying she carries her end of the log well as the star-cum-lumberjack, particularly in a perfect scene in the midway through involving a song in a bar.But with Francis Nicholson goes into real "actor" mode (i.e. Passenger, Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, Carnal Knowledge), delving into this man who has many past ghosts, from his crimes of passion to his ultimate sin involving his baby's death. Any thoughts that Nicholson can't get into sorrow, regret, and ultimately a form of madness, and yes even tears, can be squashed watching this. But at the same time is he forceful and intense in handling the regret and anger Francis has, there's also great subtlety, underplaying it just enough for what the scenes often require, which is subtext, such as the scenes at her old family's house where what isn't spoken speaks even more than what is. Throw in some extra supporting work that clicks excellently, such as a possible best-yet Tom Waits performance, a singing Ed Gwynn, and Diane Verona among others, and it's assuredly one of the best crops of performances in 80s American film. It deserves, some twenty years or so later, to get rediscovered.