My f---in heart is in my throat

MORTAL THOUGHTS (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Mortal Thoughts" is hardly a typical Alan Rudolph production - it is more like a slow jazz version of a Mike Figgis picture. The movie, a glum morality play set in 1990's Bayonne, N.J., is not written by director Rudolph (William Reilly and Claude Kerven penned it) thus it does not contain his ability to sneak up on characters and make them vivid, as in his vastly underrated "Trouble in Mind."

At a haircut place called "Clip and Dye" (not subtle!), two hairdressers, Joy (Glenne Headly) and Cynthia (Demi Moore), go out one night to a carnival with a loudmouth, cruel and unkind man, Joy's husband, Jimmy (an atypical and deliciously evil turn by goateed Bruce Willis). Jimmy doesn't work, uses duct tape to hold his child's diapers together, gets drunk and snorts coke, and ingests way too much sugar in his coffee. At the carnival, Jimmy is killed by Joy in their van. The motive is unclear but now these New Jersey women are faced with a dilemma: call the cops or dump the body in a ditch. Which choice do you think they will make?

"Mortal Thoughts" uses a flashback structure framed against its never-ending interrogation scenes between Cynthia and two detectives (played by Harvey Keitel and Billie Neal). The only issue I have with these scenes is that they are not as effective as the story being told from Cynthia's point-of-view. Keitel is a magnetic actor and there are some solid uses of humor (powdered donut covering his lips, the Honeymooners reference) but the dialogue is often repetitive, at least until the closing scenes where a twist occurs that negates some of what preceded the film, to a certain extent. Billie Neal's detective is mostly the silent observer, though I am not sure what purpose that serves.

On the plus side, Demi Moore gives the most powerful performance of her career. Her Cynthia is a vulnerable wife and mother who tries her damnedest to be the dutiful best friend to the haywire personality of Joyce. Moore does seem like a force-of-nature, especially in her scenes with Keitel when the dialogue isn't stilted or too dry. Glenne Headly also dominates as the suffering wife of a loser like the volatile Jimmy. And Bruce Willis is about as far gone from any role he has ever played - his trademark smirks, his singing songs like "Kung-Fu Fighting" and a terrific line, possibly improvised, where he says "My fucking heart is in my throat" gives the character a lovable loser quality that Paul Newman could have played in his prime. We discover that Jimmy, Cynthia and Joyce are, however, not quite what they seem.

"Mortal Thoughts" is my kind of suspense thriller but it has elements that feel forced, as in the various slow-motion shots and overuse of melodic, slow jazz by Mark Isham amidst some dutch camera angles. Alan Rudolph lends the film atmosphere but its interrogation scenes do not quite connect as they should have, again with certain exceptions. But Demi Moore, Glenne Headly, Harvey Keitel, John Pankow (an understated role as Cynthia's husband) and Bruce Willis are pure dynamite on screen and worth catching. They just deserved a more nuanced screenplay.