Hey, y'all. Due to my first encounter with the MBTV Videotaping Curse, I ended up with a recording of this HBO TV movie instead of Satan's School for Girls. Sars asked me to provide my thoughts on it anyway, so I was lucky to have some. A friend and colleague at my day job, Jitterbug -- who just happens to be a lesbian -- has added some rebuttal/commentary of her own.
Credits. Oh my! The film hasn't even begun before the prayers of the Religious Right are answered and God scratches His fingernails down His blackboard in Heaven to protest. My bad. As if the conservatives have that much clout! It's just Melissa Etheridge "singing."
We begin with a little segment I like to call . . . Vanessa, meet the anvil; anvil, Vanessa.
B&W footage of June Cleaver types accompanied by "Que Sera, Sera (What Will Be, Will Be)." A title reads, "1961."
Movie theater. We see a clip of Shirley MacLaine emoting in The Children's Hour. She's confessing her lesbian love for this actress who's a dead ringer for Jennifer Love Hewitt (snicker). Vanessa Redgrave and her girlfriend sit in the audience, holding hands and weeping. Some teens behind them snicker so they unclasp hands guiltily. They walk out onto the street after the movie and head home to the House of Talking Walls, past a HUGE MURAL ADVERTISEMENT featuring a husband and wife with the slogan, "Kiss him goodbye in the morning." Welcome to Semiotics for Dummies.
Vanessa chastises her girlfriend for over-exerting herself by lugging the trash to the curb and staying up late to add seed to her birdhouse. From their banter it's established that they're an old married couple in every way except legally. Vanessa lays out her girlfriend's pajamas while she lingers in the backyard. Seems the bird in the house is sitting on some eggs in her nest. Vanessa makes tea and puts out cookies, then tells her girlfriend to come inside and be careful on the ladder. I think we all see where this is going. Cut to the ladder falling in slow motion while a choir sings on the soundtrack.
Hospital waiting room. Vanessa sits dejectedly in the corner. A woman comes in, crying and blathering about how her husband just had a heart attack. Vanessa gets up, although she's obviously worried and weary, and comforts this stranger. She gives the woman her handkerchief and holds her hand, because she's a saint. A living saint. What does Vanessa get for her trouble? The woman pooh-poohing the news that Vanessa's "friend" has had a stroke, and an inquiry about Vanessa's husband. Vanessa explains that she's never been married. The woman tells her that she's "lucky" because she'll never know "the heartbreak of losing one." Ouch. That's me taking the anvil blow for Vanessa. The woman is led away to talk to a doctor. Vanessa asks a nurse about her girlfriend, whose name is Abby. She's told that Abby's in intensive care, but only "family" can see her. Vanessa insists on staying, and wants to know about any developments in Abby's condition.
If These Walls Could Talk 2
“ Vanessa calmly registers her eviction from her home of thirty years by this odious geek, because she's a living saint. ”
morning. Vanessa wakes up in the waiting room and asks about Abby at the nurses' station. She's told that Abby passed away around 3:45 that morning. Vanessa breaks down in tears -- why wasn't she informed when it happened? My heart is breaking for Vanessa. Wah. The nurses inform Vanessa that the body is already in the morgue, and she should contact Abby's "of kin" for funeral arrangements.
Vanessa, in grief, sleeps to Abby's pajamas on their bed. Then she calls Abby's great-nephew to break the news of her death and to plan the funeral.
Cut to a sob-inducing montage of Vanessa removing her clothes from the master bedroom and putting them in the spare bedroom to pretend that she was just a tenant in the house. She also packs away all of the photos and mementos of their decades-long relationship. Sniffle.
Day of the funeral. Abby's great-nephew and his wife (played by Elizabeth Perkins, she of the unwise career choices since Big) and their small daughter accompany Vanessa into the house. Vanessa has already laid out a tea tray and made sandwiches for them, because she's a living saint. She shows the nephew an old photo she found of a visit he made when he was a boy and Abby taught him how to fish. This is wasted on the nephew, who barely registers any emotion. He gives Abby's binoculars to his daughter. Elizabeth asks Vanessa if the collection of bird figurines was Abby's. Vanessa says they were. The nephew looks through some papers and sees that the deed of the house is only in his great-aunt's name. Vanessa explains that she helped pay off the mortgage. The nephew agrees to compensate Vanessa after the house is sold. Vanessa explains that she and Abby had agreed that she would stay on there. Unfortunately, Abby never stated this in a will. The nephew considers letting Vanessa stay there and "pay rent." Vanessa explains again that she already paid off the mortgage. The nephew complains about the inheritance tax he'll have to pay if the house isn't sold right away. Vanessa calmly registers her eviction from her home of thirty years by this odious geek, because she's a living saint.
Elizabeth, who'd left the room to boil water for tea, joins them. She covets the teapot and wonders aloud if it was Abby's. Then she blathers about doing an inventory of the entire house. Her husband looks uncomfortable and tells her that they should just leave the furniture for now, because Vanessa wants to "stay on." Elizabeth makes a beeline for those symbolic bird figurines. She patronizes Vanessa about the loss of her "good friend," and out of the kindness of her antique-grubbing heart, she offers to let Vanessa pick a figurine as a keepsake. Vanessa, refusing to lose her composure, excuses herself to go into the kitchen. Elizabeth notices the white spaces on the walls where photos used to be. When Vanessa re-enters the room, the nephew has found some savings bonds of Abby's; he'll cash them, and that will help Vanessa with the rent. Vanessa changes the subject by asking the nephew to help her out by putting away the ladder that's still lying on the ground in the backyard.
If These Walls Could Talk 2
Upstairs. Elizabeth, that harridan, is measuring Vanessa and Abby's conjugal bed. The daughter finds an old photo in a drawer of Abby and Vanessa in male drag. They're perplexed. Vanessa appears. She takes the photo and tersely replies that it was taken at "a costume party." Elizabeth and daughter decide to go downstairs.
Elizabeth argues with her husband about letting Vanessa stay on in the house. The little girl finds an anvil, er, a broken eggshell that's been dropped outside the birdhouse. Elizabeth sends the girl inside to go get one of the symbolic bird figurines. The daughter hesitates, because they're the "old lady's." Elizabeth tells her to go inside and loot the place anyway.
Upstairs. The girl, still carrying the eggshell, hears Vanessa sobbing and wailing loudly in the master bedroom, while clutching Abby's pajamas. The girl walks into the room as if she owns the place. Like mother, like daughter. The girl shows Vanessa the eggshell. Vanessa surmises that the eggs are hatching in the birdhouse. The girl hands Vanessa a handkerchief from the dresser, and says it was "Aunt Abby's, but you can have it." Vanessa finally starts getting cross and explains, "Little girl, it is not for you to say what I can and cannot have. And it's not for your parents to tell you what you can take." The girl is sorry. Vanessa tells her that it's all right for her to keep the binoculars -- she never got to know her great-aunt.
Downstairs. Elizabeth is packing up all of the symbolic bird figurines. We cut between her pillaging and Vanessa's singing of Abby's praises to the little girl. As Elizabeth swipes Abby's stuff and a rain of anvils falls from the sky, Vanessa explains how "kind" Abby was and how "she hated to see anything suffer. She kept a hospital for the birds and mice she rescued from her cat. They all survived, those fragile little creatures."
The nephew wants to have "a word" with Vanessa. She fixes her hair and composes herself before joining him in the living room. She notices the empty bird figurine table but bites her tongue, because she's a saint. The nephew explains that due to "taxes and upkeep" she'll have to relocate. Just then the daughter comes back in from outside; she's found a birdling that's fallen out of the nest. Her father explains that she should just discard it, because it's "not supposed to make it." Ah, anvilicious! He sends Elizabeth and the girl out of the room while he continues his discussion with Vanessa. He'll wait to put the house on the market until he knows that Vanessa is settled elsewhere. Vanessa FINALLY gets her dander up and delivers this fine monologue which had me weeping all over again: "If you knew your aunt at all, you knew about all the marvelous things she did and how good she was . . . and funny . . . and tender . . . and brave, and smart. If you knew how hard she worked just to find a little peace in this life . . . if you knew her at all, then you'd know what she wanted. This wasn't it. No, my dear -- this certainly wasn't it."