Drowning Mona

(This review originally appeared on Themestream.com)

Just sit right back and you’ll read a tale, a tale on a fateful tip, it’s all about this dumbass film that might just make you sick. Or hip. Huh?

I’m sorry, I’m still getting used to my new freeware the REVIEW-RIGHT 2001, an invention of my cousin Gerald, which is supposed to make this column profitable for me. I guess I shouldn’t expect much more from a kid who obsessively listens to the Digi-mon soundtrack.

Anywhoo, you’re supposed to be able to plug a few words relating to your movie into this program, and it will cough up an exciting review. All's I did was type ‘Bette Midler’ and, well, look to the first sentence to see what happened.

So, Drowning Mona, progenitor of a string of unfortunately named movies (see: Saving Silverman, Servicing Sarah and Finding Forrester) slithered its way into my VCR the other night, filling me with hope for the future. Then I hit the play button and it all went down the crapper.

Drowning Mona ain’t that bad, really, like a can of spray cheese and some Triscuits, but it doesn’t quite live up to its dark comedy aspirations.

Bette Midler plays Mona Dearly, a really horrible woman who makes life miserable for everyone around her, including her boy, his business partner, her husband and the rest of the town. Luckily she’s killed in the first minutes of the movie, but through a series of flashbacks, set to reveal her unknown killer, we get to see just how bad she really was.

William Fichtner shines above the rest of the half-interested performances as Mona’s long-suffering, half awake husband Phil. Is he the killer? Mona did regularly beat him with a cast iron frying pan…but seemingly everyone has reason to have wanted her dead. He-man Jamie Lee Curtis, playing an uber-white trash waitress, might be the one too; she was boffing Phil after all.

Casey Affleck and Neve Campbell are the young lovers, and Danny Devito underplays the intrepid sheriff investigating, who finally cracks the case by sheer happenstance.

There’s lots of good queasy stuff going on, and great vindictive nastiness. The inexplicably ‘70s centered soundtrack works beautifully in certain scenes, as well.

But don’t expect a rollicking good time, or deeply nuanced performances. Nevertheless, Drowning Mona is worth a rent for a rainy Saturday night after a couple of Bloody Marys.

REVIEW-RIGHT 2001

I Thought I had shut that thing off, but I guess not, so if any of you think this review is as half-hearted as I do, we can safely blame technology.