Heather Locklear Makes ‘Mind’ Matter

Multiple Personality Disorder is an actor’s dream. What player wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to portray a character who might, in a split second, slip into any one of dozens of personalities. It worked for Kim Stanley in “The Three Faces of Eve,” and for Sally Field in “Sybil.”

“Melrose Place’s” Heather Locklear has a go at the theme in tonight’s TV movie on NBC, “Shattered Mind.” The casting, obviously, is against type, but Locklear comes up with a thoughtful, gritty interpretation of Suzy Mitchell, a woman whose alternative personalities begin to emerge after the sudden death of her father.

Perhaps predictably, the script--reportedly inspired by a true story--calls up a colorful cast of Mitchell’s internal characters, ranging from a prostitute to a frightened child and an aggressive teenager. To her credit, Locklear makes the rapid shifts of persona entirely believable without falling prey to the easy option of going over the top with excessive emotional displays.

But her performance is severely hampered by a script (by Thomas Baum) and direction (by Stephen Gyllenhaal) that create constant confusion. Is Mitchell fantasizing an exchange with her dead father? Is it a flashback? Is she actually speaking to someone else and imagining him to be her father?

Scene after scene raises similar questions, largely because Gyllenhaal and Baum have made the unwieldy choice of attempting to present significant portions of the story from Mitchell’s point of view. Given the sudden shifts of time and place that are intrinsic to Multiple Personality Disorder, the result is story line chaos. It’s the kind of idea that probably sounded great in a production meeting but simply doesn’t play out in communicative fashion on the screen.

And the victim is Locklear. Her otherwise exceptional effort is persistently diluted by the need for the viewer to figure out what’s happening in any given scene before they can give Locklear much attention. If nothing else, she should be praised for a performance that somehow manages to survive the distractions.

* “Shattered Mind” airs at 9 tonight on KNBC-TV Channel 4.