‘Pelican’ Grief!

How is it that Hollywood can transform a clever, cunning intrepid woman into a hapless, quivering femme caught up in events beyond her control? The young law student developed by author John Grisham not only never made it to the screen, she croaked when director Alan J. Pakula set foot on the set (“The Firm of Julia, Denzel . . . ,” Calendar, Dec. 17).

When I heard “The Pelican Brief” was going to be a movie, I thought, finally, a female character on the big screen who is smart and attractive, in that order. I had long ago found that the Hollywood portrayal of women was continuously one-dimensional. Either smart or sexy, never the two hand in hand. It seems that any role in which the woman was attractive and seemingly intelligent resulted in her sexuality overcoming her brain, at which point she ends up sleeping with her murderous clients or otherwise being duped by some male character.

Even Demi Moore’s character in “A Few Good Men” was made to look incompetent in the courtroom, although according to the story line she was the experienced trial attorney assigned to assist Tom Cruise in his first trial. This particular scene added nothing other than to make the male lead look smarter.

An elderly woman once counseled me not to exhibit too much savvy or intelligence in the company of a man I might be interested in, for it would intrude on his manhood. I thought this advice was archaic and passe. Now I wonder if this woman had been raised by, married to or given birth to a film director.

Julia Roberts, through trembling lips, is barely able to express herself, and is repeatedly shown in episodic trances of “what’s happening?” She’s seen sitting in the fetal position and, disgustingly, wrapped in bedding barely able to respond to a suggestion she leave town to save herself.

Those who have read the book won’t recognize Pakula’s version of the heroine who, by the author’s account, goes head to head with the intelligence community and the bad guys. For those who have not read the book, you once again have been subjected to “Pretty Woman.” Only now she’s a law student relying on a smart, stoic, gutsy male reporter to help her.

Get out in the real world, Mr. Pakula, and take your peers with you. Better yet, stop directing women roles; you don’t know anything about them.