Natalie Wood is fifteen year old Daisy Clover, a feisty kid who lives in a shack with her dotty mother, Ruth Gordon, in 1936 Los Angeles. She comes to the attention of Christopher Plummer, owner of Swan Studios, who smooths the rough edges off her cygnet image, dresses her as Alice in Wonderland, and puts her in "major motion pictures" as "America's New Valentine." It's what Wood has always wanted -- fame, money enough to lift her mother out of poverty, and, mostly, self actualization. It's all expressed in the theme song we hear her sing -- "You're Gonna Hear From Me." An ambitious movie, it has some sizzling moments but they're constantly undercut by some incredibly unimaginative elements. Let me get them out of the way first.
That theme song. "You're Gonna Hear From Me." It's not badly constructed, it's appropriate to the story of Wood's rise to fame, her thumos, as the Greeks would have called it. But it's one hundred percent generic. It belongs in the same category as "Tomorrow" and "I've Gotta Be Me" and "The Impossible Dream." Worse, the orchestration, by Albert Woodbury, is thoroughly modern in its instrumentation and harmonies. I presume the motives were commercial. "You're Gonna Buy This Record." You get to hear it in all its prodigiousness three times.
And the narrative itself is rather like a soap opera. Wood is betrayed at every turn. The charming, extremely handsome, poetry-quoting Robert Redford first seduces her, then is forced by circumstances to marry her, then deserts her -- REALLY "deserts" her, leaving her alone, without transportation, in a shabby motel in the middle of Arizona -- for a male lover.
She turns to Plummer, studio owner, who offers her understanding and comfort -- then he begins schtupping her too.
Tragedy upon tragedy. Her beloved mother dies. Wood goes into a mute depression, delaying the picture she's making, until Plummer's patience runs out and he begins slapping her face while she mourns. By this time, the viewer aches more intensely than Wood herself for her luck to turn.
We don't get to see much movie making, only one scene of Wood doing a musical number about a circus, and it there is a complete absence of any sense of realism. According to the movie, the complicated scene involves singing and dancing and it's all shot in one take. In the middle of it, Wood walks up to a mirror and looks into it, and the director, Robert Mulligan, commits the stupidest move any director can be guilty of. Wood peers into the mirror but instead of looking at her own face, as she should, she's gazing obliquely into the glass and looks directly at the camera lens behind her. Isn't there SOMEBODY who's job it is to see that the audience isn't hit over the head with such a clumsy device that can only serve to undercut the suspension of disbelief? I mean, when is the last time you saw your face in a mirror by looking at the reflection from an angle of 45 degrees?
But there is some good stuff too. First, Natalie Wood gives what is probably her finest performance. She was never a Great Actress, but she shows more skill here than in anything else she's done, probably with help from Mulligan. She is into her cynical and determined character, but she's vulnerable too. She's no cutie pie here. And watch her face as Plummer introduces her to her audience and accompanies her down a long staircase. Half a dozen emotions -- happiness, satisfaction, fear -- all flit across her features second by second, colors across a frenzied chameleon. A marvelous scene.
And, here and there, Mulligan challenges the conventions of the genre, of films in general. Wood's breakdown during a looping session is well done. And there is a long scene in which Plummer explains Redford's treacherous character to a devastated Wood. She's been awake all night and is lying on a lounge next to the pool. Plummer's performance is a tour de force. And Mulligan shoots him from behind Wood's reclining figure. Her head is propped on her hand. She never utters a word. And not ONCE does Mulligan cut to a reaction shot. Through the entire scene we see nothing but her tousled hair. It take self confidence to do something like that, and it takes guts.
The skill and the buffoonery just about cancel each other out and what we're left with is a formulaic story of someone's rise to the top, the disillusionment that follows, and a couple of magnificent performances and well-stage and edited scenes.
That theme song. "You're Gonna Hear From Me." It's not badly constructed, it's appropriate to the story of Wood's rise to fame, her thumos, as the Greeks would have called it. But it's one hundred percent generic. It belongs in the same category as "Tomorrow" and "I've Gotta Be Me" and "The Impossible Dream." Worse, the orchestration, by Albert Woodbury, is thoroughly modern in its instrumentation and harmonies. I presume the motives were commercial. "You're Gonna Buy This Record." You get to hear it in all its prodigiousness three times.
And the narrative itself is rather like a soap opera. Wood is betrayed at every turn. The charming, extremely handsome, poetry-quoting Robert Redford first seduces her, then is forced by circumstances to marry her, then deserts her -- REALLY "deserts" her, leaving her alone, without transportation, in a shabby motel in the middle of Arizona -- for a male lover.
She turns to Plummer, studio owner, who offers her understanding and comfort -- then he begins schtupping her too.
Tragedy upon tragedy. Her beloved mother dies. Wood goes into a mute depression, delaying the picture she's making, until Plummer's patience runs out and he begins slapping her face while she mourns. By this time, the viewer aches more intensely than Wood herself for her luck to turn.
We don't get to see much movie making, only one scene of Wood doing a musical number about a circus, and it there is a complete absence of any sense of realism. According to the movie, the complicated scene involves singing and dancing and it's all shot in one take. In the middle of it, Wood walks up to a mirror and looks into it, and the director, Robert Mulligan, commits the stupidest move any director can be guilty of. Wood peers into the mirror but instead of looking at her own face, as she should, she's gazing obliquely into the glass and looks directly at the camera lens behind her. Isn't there SOMEBODY who's job it is to see that the audience isn't hit over the head with such a clumsy device that can only serve to undercut the suspension of disbelief? I mean, when is the last time you saw your face in a mirror by looking at the reflection from an angle of 45 degrees?
But there is some good stuff too. First, Natalie Wood gives what is probably her finest performance. She was never a Great Actress, but she shows more skill here than in anything else she's done, probably with help from Mulligan. She is into her cynical and determined character, but she's vulnerable too. She's no cutie pie here. And watch her face as Plummer introduces her to her audience and accompanies her down a long staircase. Half a dozen emotions -- happiness, satisfaction, fear -- all flit across her features second by second, colors across a frenzied chameleon. A marvelous scene.
And, here and there, Mulligan challenges the conventions of the genre, of films in general. Wood's breakdown during a looping session is well done. And there is a long scene in which Plummer explains Redford's treacherous character to a devastated Wood. She's been awake all night and is lying on a lounge next to the pool. Plummer's performance is a tour de force. And Mulligan shoots him from behind Wood's reclining figure. Her head is propped on her hand. She never utters a word. And not ONCE does Mulligan cut to a reaction shot. Through the entire scene we see nothing but her tousled hair. It take self confidence to do something like that, and it takes guts.
The skill and the buffoonery just about cancel each other out and what we're left with is a formulaic story of someone's rise to the top, the disillusionment that follows, and a couple of magnificent performances and well-stage and edited scenes.