By Curt Schleier
There’s a very good chance you didn’t see TWO WEEKS during its brief theatrical run. Hell, there’s probably a very good chance you never even heard of TWO WEEKS. It was doomed for commercial failure from the outset, a stupid idea for a movie: Let’s watch a woman die. Not surprising to anyone except the folks who pumped money into it, TWO WEEKS earned a paltry $46,600 during its entire release a few months ago, probably less than the cost of developing the negatives.
Yet it is one of the most remarkable movies of the year –one that is unwavering in its honesty and unsparing in its depiction of a terrible, terrible subject. It is brilliantly acted by a gifted ensemble. And it comes exceedingly close to being a superb film.
Anita Bergman (Sally Field) is diagnosed with colon cancer. When she asks her oncologist what will happen to her he tells her “my intestines will clog up and I will puke myself to death.” So she fired him. “I figured at $275 a visit I deserve a better bedside manner.” So she cans him.
Clearly Anita is not going quietly into the night. She’s a tough broad who reminded me of the cowboys I used to watch on TV when I was younger. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. The kind that required only a shot a whiskey before they let the town barber dig a bullet out of their shoulders. She has four children, three boys and a girl, is divorced and remarried and though its never clear, is probably in her late 50s or early 60s.
The four kids come home for their mother’s end. The eldest, Keith (Ben Chaplin) is a filmmaker and presumably represents Steve Stockman, who wrote produced and directed TWO WEEKS based on events in his own life. Barry (Tom Cavanaugh) is a business executive whose mind is back at work. He’s the one who asks the representatives from hospice for a ballpark figure on when his mother will die. The daughter, Emily (Julianne Nicholson), as is normal in most families, has taken primary responsibility for her mother’s care – and is doing everything by the book. Literally. She purchased a copy of Caring for the Dying, and is following its instructions to a tee. Finally, there’s Matthew (Glenn Howerton), the youngest, the one who feels he’s most put upon and the one married to a woman no one else can stand.
Stockman does a number of interesting things. First he has Keith film an interview with his mother shortly after she is diagnosed, sections of which are interspersed throughout the film. It serves a couple of purposes. First it allows us to better understand the woman Anita was. But juxtaposed as it is, we see how far she’s deteriorated.
He also is true to family dynamics. The children are so focused on their mother they virtually ignore her second husband, Jim (James Murtaugh). At one point, he exclaims: “You people are like locusts. You come into my house and you take over.”
And the acting is superb, particularly Sally Field. In one of the special features, Stockman says he was confident this role would attract a top actress. And with good reason. First of all there aren’t that many good roles for women of a certain age. But, more important, this is the kind of part actors of any age would – no pun intended – die for. Awards voters love extremes – a bad guy, someone dying.
But it’s easy to go over the top on these roles. To her credit, if anything Field underplays the part to great dramatic affect. If this were a bigger film (award voters also like success) she’d be a shoe-in for a nomination.
What’s not too like? There are moments that are disjointed. Barry’s family appears out of nowhere; presumably that scene ended on the cutting room floor. Also, some of the conversation is too glib. Told that their mother will have the same hospice nurse as Gilda Radner, Keith wonders “Maybe if we’d taken mom to LA we could have gotten her a bigger star’s nurse.” Gallows humor is okay, but some of the conversation here sounds too practiced.
But those are tiny nits when considered in the context of this excellent film, an example of the true power of cinema.