The movie generates little suspense and no relief.Īnd yet it is worth seeing as a chamber piece, an exercise in which two great actors expand their range and work together in great sympathy. We quickly sense that hopelessness is a condition of this movie, that since alcoholism has been accepted as a fact of life, none of the other facts will be able to change.

It is probably a fault of the film that it contains so little drama. It is not much on plot, and even when something dramatic happens - when the Nicholson character returns home after many years to face his family - the scene is played for the silences as much as for the noises. “Ironweed,” directed by Brazilian Hector Babenco, whose familiarity with the human sewers of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janiero made “ Pixote” one of the best films of 1981, is a movie of moods, locales and voices. Streep’s guilt is less dramatic she let herself down, or that is what she believes, for she does not understand that it is not her own fault she is a drunk. He left home soon after and dropped like a stone until he hit the gutters of Albany, his hometown, where he still lives. He dropped and killed his baby son years ago and has never forgiven himself. Nicholson plays a man haunted by guilt from his past. But there is not much visible “acting” in this movie the actors are too good for that. Nicholson and Streep play drunks in “Ironweed,” and actors are said to like to play drunks, because it gives them an excuse for overacting.

Ironweed book review