MOVIE REVIEW : ‘THAT’S LIFE!’: A FAMILY AFFAIR

In “Blake Edwards’ That’s Life!” (selected theaters) one of America’s masters of movie comedy takes on some grim subjects: familial strife, decay and mortality. And the results are far from gloomy: This is one of the funniest, and perhaps the most life-embracing, movies Edwards has made in the ‘80s. The currents of despair give the humor a deeper bite.

Edwards imagines a married couple--seemingly patterned on himself and wife Julie Andrews--in the throes of an almost unbearable weekend: one in which the husband is facing his 60th birthday, and, unknown to him, his wife is awaiting the results of a biopsy.

The husband, architect Harvey Fairchild (Jack Lemmon), is an often ridiculous hypochondriac, practically a catalogue of contemporary woe. He’s depressed at his job, at his sexual dysfunction, TV, the movies, his family, even at coy chain-store names like We Be Food. His wife, Gillian (Julie Andrews), meanwhile, tries in every way to hold things together, and avoid dwelling on her own anxiety.

Superficially, this would seem a joyous occasion--a regathering of family, a celebration with old friends. (In another “inside” touch, the Fairchilds’ children--Megan, Josh and Kate--are played by Edwards’ daughter Jennifer, Lemmon’s son Chris, and Andrews’ daughter, Emma Walton.) But, beyond their parents’ problems, the daughters are wrapped up in their own, while son Josh--a successful “Miami Vice”-style TV cop--seems at first a little callous and happy-go-lucky.

The movie sets up a constant comic-dramatic tension between Gillian’s justifiable fears, and Harvey’s unjustified, ludicrous gripes--between the husband as wandering, philandering, self-absorbed whiner and the wife as long-suffering stoic.

In that respect, “That’s Life!” may please the male side of its audience slightly more than the female side; women may become irritated at Gillian’s self-sacrifice and yearn for her to take a crack at her maddening spouse. The seemingly ideal moment for this is ignored: As the Fairchilds dress in their bedroom for the party, we’re braced for a climactic knockdown-drag out. But the real clash is saved instead for a sotto voce exchange at the party; you feel that everyone has missed a great opportunity.

In any case, you can understand Edwards’ tendency to mock himself and idealize his wife--and Lemmon and Andrews play their roles with such brilliance, wit and feeling, that they erase any imbalance.

Essentially, they’re typecast. In some ways, this is the radiantly optimistic, supercompetent Andrews we’ve known since “The Sound of Music.” And Lemmon once again trots out his matchless, murderously glib delivery--that fleet, streaking, Lemmonian stream of consciousness where ideas and words keep leapfrogging. In his youth, in roles like “Mr. Roberts’ ” Ensign Pulver, Lemmon seemed to gleam with concupiscence and near-demonic energy--and his long career has let him age and refine that character. He’s become a master at playing survivors of ambition: at hangdog melancholy and bitterness, through which the old impishness still shoots like shafts of ruined sunlight.

“That’s Life!” was shot with family and friends in the writer-director’s own home. The whole movie is conceived and executed in a scaled-down, highly personal way, and, this simpler canvas seems to have inspired Edwards and his actors--all of whom were apparently encouraged to improvise or create much of their own dialogue.

“That’s Life!” is filled with his patented gags. There’s a loony seduction scene between Lemmon and his real-life wife Felicia Farr (as an owlish, tipsy fortuneteller), and a hilariously crass crab-lice attack. But the gags are always counterpointed by darkness. The jokes have edge; the pain has a relief.

A few moments are as hard to swallow as the title’s exclamation point. But the rough edges of “That’s Life!” are often the rough edges of life itself--as seen by a keen eye. Everything in the picture --its humor, its sentimentality, its Henry Mancini music, its lapses and its triumphs--seem to belong especially to Edwards.

It’s the kind of movie you don’t expect these days from a major Hollywood director: a film that took considerable courage, love and craft to make. Watching it--accepting, enjoying and even, occasionally, forgiving it--is like having a real conversation with a human being, a rare enough gift for any current film to offer.