It is nothing but heartbreak and relentless heartache in "Men Don't Leave," a rather offbeat domestic drama about a widow learning to cope with loss, with everything she thought she knew but has no idea how to deal with it going forward. What is so terrific about the film is that Jessica Lange plays the widowed mother of two sons who leaves her home for an apartment in Baltimore City. Lange conveys everything you want and need to know about this woman and how much suffering she's going through, even if it isn't always apparent.
Lange is Beth MacAuley and she finds a job as an assistant manager at a gourmet food place called Lisa, run by a very finicky Lisa of course (memorably played by Kathy Bates). Beth has her two boys, the rebellious teenager Chris Macauley (Chris O’Donnell) and 9-year-old Matt Macauley (Charlie Korsmo). Chris simply wants to do what he wants, especially dating an older woman named Jody (Joan Cusack) who lives in the same apartment building. Matt won't cry about his father's accidental death and starts stealing VCR's with a classmate, just so that he can have enough money to return his family home. Home is where the heart is in his old house.
Meanwhile, Beth meets a "weird" musician (Arliss Howard) during a food delivery and a relationship strikes where he makes it clear that bowling is as physical as they will get. Beth clearly is not ready for her new life and when he loses her job, everything becomes a shambles. She loves to bake to relax yet, one night, she throws her oversized muffins out the window! She can't get out of bed and it takes Jody to get her out of the slump and in a hot air balloon ride!
None of this may read as extraordinarily believable, especially on paper, but it is Jessica Lange who makes everything seem possible. The lonely Beth is trying to move on and the hardships and emotional toll follow with a great deal of emotional sensibility. Arliss Howard seems like a contrivance as the musician who loves Beth unconditionally yet he also takes great pains to make him credible as a human being. Joan Cusack is not nearly as over-the-top as she can get in some movies and she also shows sensitivity as Jody, and wants to make a better life for everyone. A new family unit emerges.
"Men Don't Leave" is a tearjerker but it is so life-affirming, so moving without jerking tears so obviously that I found myself weeping by the end. Sure, there are some cliches and foreseeable moments but the movie still works because it never feels false. A most unusual family film from Paul Brickman, the writer-director of "Risky Business."
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