Spotlight on Rosanna Arquette’s film documentary

Rosanna Arquette probably maintained her highest Q-rating just around the time she starred in Desperately Seeking Susan, a critically admired 1985 film that not only introduced Madonna to the film world but also announced Arquette as a strong new female actor. While she never emerged as a major box-office draw, she did appear in a variety of intriguing and eclectic projects, including Scorsese‘s After Hours and his segment of New York Stories, Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction, and David Cronenberg‘s Crash.
Of course, in the Logan’s Run-esque worldview of Hollywood, a woman’s appeal and effectiveness as a screen presence pretty much ends somewhere around the age of 35, and scores of incredible actresses are “put out to pasture”, so to speak. A few survive, of course, but the plum roles, the “hot” scripts, and the media attention moves on to the next hot young thing du jour.

Arquette, clearly on the receiving end of this treatment, grabbed a video camera in 2001 and decided to ask fellow actresses of her generation for their thoughts of what it’s like being a woman in Hollywood. How do you balance the responsibilities of family versus a career? What do you do when the offers start to dry up, when acting is all you’ve been doing for two decades or more? And when the crappy script gets thrown your way, do you take it because it’s your only opportunity in the pipeline, knowing full well that you’re accepting an idiotic part in a piece of exploitative junk?

The fulcrum of her thesis is Debra Winger, the once in-demand actress (and still quite sexy) who, between 1980 and 1984, starred in a series of box-office smashes and critical darlings that made her one of the most renown and recognized actresses of her time. Right around the mid-1990s, Winger pretty much dropped off the map entirely. One of the most talented and appealing actresses of the last few decades was suddenly nowhere to be found.

The result is Searching For Debra Winger, a 100-minute documentary in which Arquette interviews two dozens actresses about the experience of being an aging woman in an industry entirely fixated upon looks and image. Included in this film are such diverse talents as Salma Hayek, Vanessa Redgrave, Diane Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Theresa Russell, Terri Garr, Samantha Mathis, Ally Sheedy, Kelly Preston, Robin Wright Penn, Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, Jane Fonda, Laura Dern, and Sharon Stone. Eventually the titular Debra Winger makes an appearance halfway through the film. Arquette has assembled some of the most memorable actresses from the last twenty years, the type that makes you sit up and wonder why in hell some of these great talents aren’t getting more work and exposure. Their thoughts and shared experiences about being a woman in Hollywood, while not exactly devastatingly revelatory, controversial, or insightful, still provide for some generally interesting perspectives.
It’s a shame that the second half of the film doesn’t measure up with its compelling opening half, because when the film works, it works beautifully.

Source: dvdtalk.com