"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" seems to be more about undermining women's liberation than endorsing it. A movie about a remarkable, adventuring woman improving on a deadbeat marriage by arriving at a more ideal one is not exactly earth shaking. In fact, it seems far less about bravado than it dos about settling for less, both in terms of marriage (itself) and career.
Doubts about Scorsese's Alice occur from the get-go. The most striking thing to me is the hip vs square dynamic inside her working class family. The husband is a coca-cola truck driver, a moody handsome hunk, with rather torturing moods. Yet, given the alliance between his spirited wife and their precocious son, who regularly conspire against him barely veiled private exchanges, he might pass as an outsider in his own family. Yeah, they're too classy for the likes of him, but it's only his dangerous job that gives Alice the out she seems incapable of initiating on her own. So a smashed red truck in a tunnel soon means the open road for Alice and son. And they set off for Monterey, with Alice's singing career on the horizon, freedom and adventure in the mix, and with marriage object lesson #1 hopefully in tow.
For Alice is more than typically attractive to men. In Phoenix, to help fund her trip, Alice latches on to a singing job in a rather low end night club. Soon a young dude (Ben) spies her as a challenging catch, and marks her off for sex. She resists but mistakenly cites her older age as a deterrent, the perfect opening for this predator. The fling ensues, and only ends when his discarded wife shows up at Alice's to haplessly plead her case. The brute enters and assaults his oft-battered wife. He then flips the switch on his rioting machismo to sweet talk Alice as if he were breaking down a call girl. Object lesson #2 about marriage and the violent, two-faced nature of males. Then enters Scorsese to signal to his shocked heroine to cut out of town without nary a thought for the fate of macho Ben's stricken wife.
In Tucson, Alice, too exhausted to seek another singing job, settles for waitressing in Mel & Ruby's Cafe. Suddenly the misery and darkness associated with Phoenix goes bright and shiny inside the diner as a zany display of button-pushing, brashy comedy and melodrama take over. Alice and the her wait staff sisters now get to perform these antics and a gamut of female emotions--including true love, both for the TV-audience-type patrons, and for us movie goers who are assumed to have liberal reflexes. The somewhat off-camera star (a misfit in this diner) is Alice's new admirer, a wealthy rancher, who is fairly hip, sincere, sparkly-eyed and light in his pursuit. So, before Alice has any thoughts of her own, she is not only caught up in the celebrity waiter whirl but also in her new, more promising love routine, in which her adolescent son has as much or more to say about than she. Soon her expectations shrink from world to home, and Alice loses interest in singing for herself. Well, you can put a bow on the rest and present it in the grand finale to the cheering gratified audience in Mel & Ruby's. Needless to say, the marriage object lessons have ceased.
Doubts about Scorsese's Alice occur from the get-go. The most striking thing to me is the hip vs square dynamic inside her working class family. The husband is a coca-cola truck driver, a moody handsome hunk, with rather torturing moods. Yet, given the alliance between his spirited wife and their precocious son, who regularly conspire against him barely veiled private exchanges, he might pass as an outsider in his own family. Yeah, they're too classy for the likes of him, but it's only his dangerous job that gives Alice the out she seems incapable of initiating on her own. So a smashed red truck in a tunnel soon means the open road for Alice and son. And they set off for Monterey, with Alice's singing career on the horizon, freedom and adventure in the mix, and with marriage object lesson #1 hopefully in tow.
For Alice is more than typically attractive to men. In Phoenix, to help fund her trip, Alice latches on to a singing job in a rather low end night club. Soon a young dude (Ben) spies her as a challenging catch, and marks her off for sex. She resists but mistakenly cites her older age as a deterrent, the perfect opening for this predator. The fling ensues, and only ends when his discarded wife shows up at Alice's to haplessly plead her case. The brute enters and assaults his oft-battered wife. He then flips the switch on his rioting machismo to sweet talk Alice as if he were breaking down a call girl. Object lesson #2 about marriage and the violent, two-faced nature of males. Then enters Scorsese to signal to his shocked heroine to cut out of town without nary a thought for the fate of macho Ben's stricken wife.
In Tucson, Alice, too exhausted to seek another singing job, settles for waitressing in Mel & Ruby's Cafe. Suddenly the misery and darkness associated with Phoenix goes bright and shiny inside the diner as a zany display of button-pushing, brashy comedy and melodrama take over. Alice and the her wait staff sisters now get to perform these antics and a gamut of female emotions--including true love, both for the TV-audience-type patrons, and for us movie goers who are assumed to have liberal reflexes. The somewhat off-camera star (a misfit in this diner) is Alice's new admirer, a wealthy rancher, who is fairly hip, sincere, sparkly-eyed and light in his pursuit. So, before Alice has any thoughts of her own, she is not only caught up in the celebrity waiter whirl but also in her new, more promising love routine, in which her adolescent son has as much or more to say about than she. Soon her expectations shrink from world to home, and Alice loses interest in singing for herself. Well, you can put a bow on the rest and present it in the grand finale to the cheering gratified audience in Mel & Ruby's. Needless to say, the marriage object lessons have ceased.