Amazed at Critics’ Surprise

Isn’t it about time we all stop using terms like “surprising” and “unexpected” when a film by and/or about women makes a splash at the box office? “Unexpected” was used in “ ‘Ace’ Cashes in With $40.3-Million Opening” (Calendar, Nov. 13) to describe the success of “Now and Then,” just as the first weekend report in the Aug. 7 Calendar expressed “surprise” that “Something to Talk About” opened as well as it did.

After the success of “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The Joy Luck Club” and others, why are we surprised? There seem to me to be two reasons. The first is that the reviews of the films “Something to Talk About,” “How to Make an American Quilt” and “Now and Then” are generally written by men, and more importantly, by men who do not seem to have any feel for women’s stories.

The only good review of “Something to Talk About” that I saw was written by a woman. Maybe the men are so used to and accepting of the straight ahead narrative (medium explosion-kill people-explosion-kill more people-big explosion at the end) of male action films that the intertwined rhythms of the women’s films are beyond them.

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The Times is not alone in this problem. The reviews of “Something,” “Quilt” and “Now and Then” in Variety were all mediocre and were written by three men.

The second reason we are surprised is that the films have generally been marketed very badly, which sets up poor expectations within the industry. Was there a worse campaign this year than the one for “Something to Talk About”? You would have thought somebody would have mentioned in the ads that it was the first screenplay by Callie Khouri since her Oscar for “Thelma & Louise.” “Quilt” is being sold as a Winona Ryder vehicle, although the picture is clearly an ensemble piece, and the audiences going to it on thebasis of the ads are being misled and probably dissatisfied with the film. “Now and Then” has the best ad campaign of the lot, making it clear it is an ensemble film, which is one reason the film is doing so well.

(On the other hand, as much as the ads and the title sequence try to clarify which little kid grows up to be which actress, I still got confused in the film. It seemed to me that the little round-faced girl should have become Rosie O’Donnell and not Rita Wilson, and the girl with the strong jaw should have become Wilson rather than O’Donnell. I think my version makes it a more interesting film, but that’s not what they intended.)

Now that there are female producers, writers, directors and crew members (a good half of the people listed in the end credits for both “Home for the Holidays” and “Now and Then” are women), perhaps it is time for more female critics and more women in the marketing departments of the studios.