ENSEMBLE, PART II: QUEENS LOGIC
While John Sayles' CITY OF HOPE is in the tradition of NASHVILLE, Steve Rash's QUEENS LOGIC is more in the tradition of DINER or THE BIG CHILL; movies about people reuniting (in the former, for a wedding, in the latter for a funeral) and taking stock of themselves. Rash's movie isn't as ambitious, but it's fun while still managing to be insightful. The opening sets the tone perfectly; a teenage boy climbs up to the Hellgate bridge via rope, while his friends below cheer him on, all to the tune of Louis Armstrong singing "I've Got the World on a String." We then cut to the grown-up version of that boy, Al (Joe Mantegna), driving his car and singing along to Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven when you Smile)," showing us this may be sentimental, but will contain honest sentiment.
As with DINER, this deals with an impending marriage. The marriage is between Al's cousin Ray (Ken Olin), a painter, and Patricia (Chloe Webb), who owns a hairdressing salon. Days before the wedding, Ray is starting to freak out. Patricia assumes the worst - "You're gonna leave me at the altar, aren't you?" she accuses Ray early on - but Al's not the stereotypical guy who doesn't want to settle down to one woman. Instead, he's not sure of his place in the world, and he doesn't know whether marrying Patricia, even though he loves her, will help or hinder him from finding it.
Al, meanwhile, discovers he has his own problems. A fish monger, he's married, as he says, to a wonderful woman, Carla (Linda Fiorentino), and has two daughters. But he's late for his anniversary dinner (he's helping Ray sell a painting to Jack (Ed Marinaro), the bartender at their favorite bar), and when he tries to come on to Carla as if nothing happened, she cold-cocks him, takes the kids, and leaves him. Instead of trying to find out what went wrong, he uses his usual bluster to try and get her back, and then to deflect any questions from his friends about what happened (he explains his black eye by saying he got hit by a frozen sea bass). Only at Ray's not-quite bachelor pary, where he connects Grace (Jamie Lee Curtis), a rich single woman he met at a grocery store, does he start to look inside himself.
As for the rest of the gang, Vinny (Tony Spiridakis, who also co-wrote the script with Joseph Savino) is a struggling actor who's trying to find love. Dennis (Kevin Bacon), the only one coming in from out of town, is a musician living in L.A. who uses a wise-ass demeanor to cover up how he's struggling in L.A., and for his feelings for Patricia. Finally, Eliot (John Malkovich), the only one who didn't grow up with everybody else, is Al's partner in the fish business and a gay man who hasn't found love yet either because, as he puts it to Vinny, "I am a homosexual who is not attracted to gay men."
Latest Articles