Tuesday Weld's model turned actress character Maria Wyeth should be easy to relate to, with a mentally challenged daughter in an institution, a director husband who treats her coldly and forces her to have an abortion, a suicidal best friend (Perkins), and nowhere to go to escape any of it. Unfortunately, the poor beautiful rich girl routine is taken to such an extreme that she can barely stand up by herself, and can't even eat without seeing a rattlesnake coiled up and ready to strike. She acts like a child who no one can take anywhere without her acting out. Still, she thinks she is better than everyone else (she practically says this in her final voice over), because she "knows what nothing is, and she keeps playing". Does she really think that no one else in Hollywood, who hasn't committed suicide, is dissatisfied? The "existential" point (as they say repeatedly) is supposed to be that plasticized Hollywood does that to people, but we don't see her break - she just skips right to the catatonia. The scenes are so short as to not even qualify as episodic, or scenes, really. Many of them just serve as excuses to say some of the novel's more poetic lines. I was so trying to relate to this movie that I found myself wondering if I would hate it so much if it were French, but, yes, I would. It felt a outdated and film school to me. Obviously, the acting, cinematography were better, but the pacing and concept, while as numbing as they intended to be, weren't relatable.
Review of Play It As It Lays
