Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 05/14/2002
Dubbed: English
Distributor/Studio: Kultur
A group of classmates from Mount Holyoke College meet for an informal reunion circa 1978, some seven years after graduation. Designated "uncommon" because they were predicted by friends to be "amazing" before they were 30, we seein flashbacks how these women conducted themselves in their senior year, what their goals were, and how they were set -- or not -- on the path to achieving them. Seventies feminism found its most acclaimed dramatic voice in this first play by
Wendy Wasserstein, which seems to be trading in stereotypes, but only because the kinds of characters it deals with -- collegiate feminists -- became such a commonplace and predictable stereotype of popular culture in the years that followed. The 1978 production from the Phoenix Theater in New York was originally broadcast on public television.
~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Written in the mid-1970's,
Wendy Wasserstein's
Uncommon Women And Others now seems like almost as much of a period piece as such late 1930's works as
George S. Kaufman's and
Moss Hart's
The Man Who Came To Dinner -- a paean to the sensibilities of and believers in what one might call first wave feminism, it's steeped in what now seems a hopelessly insular collegiate milieu, every bit as separated from the reality of most women (forget most people) as were those collegiate comedies of the 1930's. The settiong, characters, and subject were obviously elements to which Wasserstein was reacting, and which were real out of her own life, and so on that level it has the ring of truth and honesty, and it is affecting to watch on that level -- in much the same way that, say,
Woody Allen's
Annie Hall or
Manhattan (which date from approximately the same year) is an honest reflection of the universe that Allen knew and understood at the time. It's possible to watch a young
Meryl Streep,
Swoosie Kurtz, and
JIll Eikenberry and their characters, acting out a vision seen through Wasserstein's eyes, and be moved by it. At the same time, when one considers the sensibilities on display, it's possible to see the early sprouting of the seeds that would endanger the feminist ideals that are espoused there -- while winning over players and even many movers and shakers in the northeast intellectual world, feminism was losing (and being ignored by) even the ordinary woman on the street in the northeast, forget the rest of the country; it succeeded as an intellectual movement, but was defeated in devastating fashion as a political or popular idea; the very fact that a play of this sort is as familiar in its sensibilities, images, and characters to this New York-born and raised critic reveals the limitations of its subject. Having said that, the performances are all involving and often touching, and they show an honesty that is every bit as beguiling in the twenty-first century as they were in the 1970's; the direction keeps things moving briskly and the camera is always taking us someplace interesting dramatically.
~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
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