She hired you for me to fuck

The Grifters (1990)



As The Grifters begins we see a line from the song "The Lady Is A Tramp", "As I hitched and hiked and grifted too, from Maine to Albuquerque", the wonderfully playful score of Elmer Bernstein's begins and we treated to what appears to be still photographs of fifties LA. We are then immediately introduced to the three grifters of the title. We look up at Lilly (Anjelica Huston) as she strides confidently into a race track, we look down at Roy (John Cusack) as he strides from his car and we look down at Myra (Annette Benning) as she enters a jewelers. They all seem confident, but immediatelly the placement of the camera tells us how this story is going to play out. The angle of the camera informs us the angle the characters are coming from (and where they are going to). The path will be tough, but Lilly will somehow survive these games, whereas Roy and Myra will fail. As the story continues, we are introduced to each of the characters more intimately and the opening scenes confirm our suspicions.

Of course there are other signs that the women will more than likely survive whereas Roy will not. They are both confident women (they have to be, they're con artists!). The fact that they are both permed blondes should not go unnoticed as they conjure up an LA of an earlier era, even though the film is set in contempary times (and there are also cars, costumes and architecture which add to the fifties feel) and this creates an almost mother/daughter mirror image of each other that recalls Vertigo and in the film's most surreal touch, Lynch regular Frances Bay confuses Myra for Lilly. Hitchcock is quite important to this film, actually, as the relationship between Roy and his mother conjures up memories of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother in Psycho and the subconscious becomes downright conscious as Lilly and Myra both check in to what appears to be the Bates Motel in the third act!

All three characters are trying to survive their respective cons as they "grift" through life. They take tremendous risks: Lilly with her employer, Roy with his cockiness and Myra with her unrealistic ambition. Lilly at least understands that to play the game, you can't make it personal, you have to play it cool. As they make clear in the special features (perhaps too clear), although Lilly survives, she's going to hell anyway - the color red is introduced only as the film progresses, the color of dresses and apartment walls and in the film's least subtle moment, Lilly leaves after accidentally killing Roy and descends in the elevator in her red dress.

Jim Thompson wrote his pulp novels in the fifties (which explains the periodness of this contempary film) and this is possibly the finest of his adaptions to the big screen. Donald Westlake, who adapted the screenplay, has himself written pulp articles, novels and screenplays, so he was ideally suited to translate this to the big screen. An unusual choice initially for Martin Scorsese (he narrates the opening), as a producer he later hired englishman Stephen Frears to direct. Frears brings a deft, economical, unflashy touch which I don't think Scorsese could have brought to the table. Frears provides Cusack with his first significant adult role, and he replies with an impressive performance that shows off an edginess not immediately apparent in his earlier comedies (such as Better Off Dead). Frears would go on to collaborate again with Cusack on the wonderful High Fidelity. Huston is incapable of giving a bad performance, and this earned her several awards (although not an Oscar). Her highlight scene is with the indomitable Pat Hingle, as she is terrified he is going to beat her with the oranges, but instead lights up the biggest cigar you've ever seen. Bening is the real surprise here, a firefox vixen pixie who comes across as a cracked mirror bizarro version of Lilly. Her nudity appears to be gratuitous at first, but is completely right for the playful minx character she plays.

Frears and Scorsese peppers the supporting cast with some wonderful players. The aforementioned Pat Hingle is suitably menacing in his brief appearance,
Stephen Tobolowsky continues his aim to become the new Kevin Bacon (IMDB lists his appearance count at 169), tv veteran Henry Jones is wonderful in his brief role as Simms, Roy's apartment manager (watch for his speech about folding towels!), Demme regular Charles Napier is given the almost silent role as (wait for it!) Gloucester Hebbing and there are brief shining moments from J.T. Walsh and Xander Berkeley. John Cusack's pal Jeremy Piven (One Crazy Summer, Say Anything) is given a brief role as a sailor and they would continue to work together in films such as Grosse Point Blank and Serendipity.

Elmer Bernstein provides one of his finest scores of that period. His credits had been considerable since the fifties, but the eighties saw him slumming it with John Landis comedies. His collaborations with Scorsese (which also included the Cape Fear remake and The Age Of Innocence) enhanced an already impressive body of work.

The Miramax Collector's Edition is solid enough, but there are missed opportunities. The commentary by Frears, Westlake, Cusack and Huston is fantastic and the Making Of and Jim Thompson Story provides some ok background on Thompson and the film, but where is Bening in these extras? There isn't even archival press of her. Secondly, the stills gallery provides a tantalizing glimpse at several deleted scenes from the film not included, the first below in which Juliet Landau plays a young Lilly and the second where Cusack's character appears to be trying to go legit and work for Steve Buscemi! Frears briefly refers to the Landau scene but doesn't go into much detail.