gloria (1980) dir. john cassavetes
Gena Rowlands as Gloria, shooting first asking questions later, chain smoking cigarettes, running from the Mob around New York City in designer garments and high heels, protecting a stubborn, newly-orphaned kid, both trying to figure out their new worlds with a shared, tangible fuck you attitude.
Because of her unmatched gravitas and screen presence we hang onto her every movement, her every word, especially the frequently used gun pointed “OKAY!” that rivals Tony Montana’s delivery. It’s no matter that we don’t understand exactly why she takes on the task, knowing her adversary intimately, as her almost oracle of an uncle in the bus scene hints at, we are in it now, leave the incessant thirst for everything explained at the door. There’s only one thing we need to understand about her character: her strong-headed, unshakable resolve, it’s her way or the highway.
John Adames as Phil, the kid now forced into Gloria’s care, is, in the words of my mother, “something else”. He has this unique innocence of a kid that’s seen too much, too early. He knows more than he should at his age but he thinks he knows it all. His feelings have that prepubescent back in forth, as he tries to wrap his head around this ordeal and its outcome, as he pokes and prods and plays a pain in the ass toward the one person trying to help him in the world, while also unveiling his childlike vulnerability, asking about how the world works, about love, familial, platonic and romantic. He tries to live up to his father’s last words, “You’re the Man”, so clearly at the core of his struggle to come to terms with Gloria.
What could seem a regular antiheroine action movie has those cassavetesisms baked in, flashing when you least expect: a dialogue on masculinity, on loss, on “mothers” and their sons as Gena’s character scoffs at the thought that all women are mothers. Its exciting to see the one Woman up against the Mob but the meat and potatoes is the unwanted but accepted and later cherished relationship between a woman hardened by her own brushes up against the underworld and a kid who has had his normalcy snatched from him, who has had his idea of family crumble before his very eyes. Gena Rowlands is everything they say. In fact, they need to say more.
5/5 Escape
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