Ga-Ga for the
Ya-Yas? (**) (pretty good-- for a chick flick)
Emily Ostendorf
You know what you’re bargaining for the moment you step into a theater
that’s playing a chick flick. Jumping on the bed, secret pacts, tears,
weddings, memories, rehashed pain, and “I love yous” in the end. And
that’s just what Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood delivers.
I watch chick flicks undercover. I don’t openly admit to liking sappy love
junk, I don’t have slumber parties, and I’ve never stripped while
riding in a convertible, but sometimes I wish I did. I watched the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
with my mom; call it bonding time. It was funny to sit in a theater of (almost)
all women, and to hear the ladies seated behind me share laundry tips. (Anyone
need to know how to remove the sour milk smell from clothes?)
Thank goodness for me, Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a whirlwind of mother-daughter therapy,
minus the sap. The opening scene introduces us to the Ya-Ya girls, who have
snuck out of their Louisiana homes in the middle of the night to
perform the ritual which will make them royal for life. And from this moment
on, the wild women, Vivi (Ellen Burstyn), Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), Caro (Maggie
Smith), and Necie (Shirley Knight), have a bond that helps them repatch the
relationship with Vivi to her daughter, Siddalee Walker (Sandra Bullock), a
Broadway playwright.
The conflict begins
when Vivi discovers an interview printed in Time magazine in which Sidda says
that she has gained her creativity as a writer from having a troubled childhood.
Vivi is incredulous, and impulsively (and comicly) severs relations with her
daughter. It’s up to the Ya-Yas to bring understanding to this relationship.
The women (oxygen tank included) travel to New York for an innocent meeting
with Sidda, but end up smuggling her back to her childhood home to help tell
the stories which have made her mother the woman she is. Through the help of
the Ya-Ya Sisterhood scrapbooks and old letters, Vivi’s memories are brought
to life for the daughter.
It’s really nice that the team of Rebecca Wells (who wrote the original
novel), Mark Andrus (adaptation for screen), and Callie Khouri (director) made
the flashback scenes smooth, linking the present to the past through a connection
of familiar objects and situations. For instance, in one smooth linkage to the
past, the grown Siddalee looks into the medicine cabinet to find a container
of a Noxema-like blemish crème. She smiles, and smears a single line
down her nose. The mirror closes to the younger Sidda, running from the bathroom
to a houseful of dancing girls, howling and gesturing like Native Americans
on pow-wow, with the younger Vivi (Ashley Judd) dancing among them and smoking
cigarettes.
Similar transitions,
as well as introducing a host of characters and their current life situations,
rattling people’s names like the audience knows everyone, makes it feel
as though we were dropped into these women’s lives.
Dragging to the surface all these old memories is almost enough to cause Sidda
to doubt herself, with the worry that she will become her mother: an incompetent,
abusive mother, and cold, distant wife. It becomes such a concern that she almost
breaks off her engagement to her man, Connor (Angus MacFadyen).
It’s a simple plot, but a story which so many of us can relate to: the
generational gap, anxieties about marriage and children, the need to milk wisdom
from women who’ve been there before. Granted, the men are a bit dreamy
and overly romantic compared to their real-life counterparts, but what else
are movies for if but not to dream? If this
movie is good for nothing else, it’s good for showing that the older generation
still has the fire of life in them, especially with conniving old women onscreen
who go as far as to put roofies in someone’s drink and also race each other
as they drive on the highway. It gives all of us a reason to wonder how feisty
our parents were. Maybe it motivates us to even ask them. I think it was endearing
just to see old women flock the local movie theater, easing down the aisles
as they picked up their walkers, put them down, each step. It was worth my $4.50
just to see the generations come together, onscreen and in real life.
Coming Soon:
It’s also nice that somebody in the powers that be researches chick flick
movie attendees. I felt really excited watching the previews. There is a nice
combination of chick-empowering flicks expected soon, including Blue Crush,
which is going to definitely make me want to become a surfer girl. Susan Surrandon
is also going to star in a couple upcoming movies, including one with Goldie
Hawn. The laundry tip woman in the row behind me gasped: “Goldie Hawn has
wrinkles! Ohmigawd! I saw them!” This, right after we viewed a preview
for Simone, a movie starring Al Pacino and the flawless digital superstar he
created. Makes girls realize that bodies aren’t all Cindy Crawford or Britney
Spears (gasp!) or even Simone.
But for now, if you need an extra dose of slumber parties and secret pacts,
head to the video store and rent Now and Then. After all, girls are friends
forever.