Drowning Mona (90 minutes) - by Amanda Kusek
During my thirteenth summer, I started a weekly newsletter where I wrote up reviews for all of the movies I was watching. I sent it around to every email address I knew (unsolicited) and even had my own star rating system. If you’ve read my About page, then you know it was the catalyst for this very newsletter you read now. I wish I could find copies of those original pieces to read and share with you. They’re lost to an old Hotmail email address (and I had no idea that I’d be doing this again 22 years later) but in place of that, I do remember one of the movies I wrote about…
And that’s Drowning Mona (2000, 90 min).
Set in the New York hamlet of Verplanck, a cruel, loud, vindictive woman named Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) dies after her brakes cut out and she plunges into the Hudson River. Once it’s determined that Mona was murdered, Chief Rash (Danny DeVito) sets out to solve the case. Only… it seems everyone in town has a motive to want Mona dead and Rash finds himself with more suspects than witnesses. This includes his future son-in-law Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck) who owns a landscaping business with Mona’s son Jeff (Marcus Thomas), Mona’s husband Phil (William Fichtner), and Phil’s not-so-secret girlfriend, Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis).
Drowning Mona was poorly received by critics and viewers alike in 2000 and soon after disappeared. This isn't a cult classic. Or a misunderstood but brilliant film. This is a movie that died. And I’m here digging up the grave as a hobby. I like this movie for what it could be, and what I hope it wanted to be. I am desperate for it to work even now and maybe that’s why I’ve remembered it for all these years: it’s the first movie I thought I could “fix”.
I don’t know if it got an entirely fair shake. Reading the reviews from 2000 feels as if we’re reading reviews from the 1950s. There’s a lot of pearl clutching about the tone, the character of the townspeople, and its crudest jokes. While some movies recover from initial reviews like this, Drowning Mona never did. Most likely because there are few redeeming qualities. Compare it to something like Dumb and Dumber that had a poor review from Ebert for similar tasteless jokes, but led him to call Carrey “a true original”). There isn’t a textbook breakout performance and the mystery that Sheriff Rash is trying to solve doesn’t hold our attention. The end resolution and grand reveal is lukewarm. It turns out no one cares about Mona, not even the audience.
The potential of this movie lies within the ensemble cast. Here you have Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Jamie Lee Curtis, Neve Campbell (as Sheriff Rash’s daughter Ellen), and a weird appearance of Will Ferrell (as a funeral director). A pre-Gilmore Girls Melissa McCarthy even has a couple lines. It should be comedic gold but this movie was released just before the Judd Apatow-ism of comedies. The cast is totally strangled by the mediocre script and the director (Nick Gomez) has held them prisoner there. We find ourselves wanting more from every character… well, more from everyone except Bobby (Affleck). It’s not that he isn’t good, it’s just that we spend an overwhelming amount of minutes with him when compared to all of the other interesting characters. None of whom, by the way, garner ANY sympathy from viewers.
As usual, William Fichtner is a standout as Mona’s husband Phil. He is a great example of playing the balance between being a victim of Mona’s and a not-so-great person. Phil takes every opportunity to direct Mona’s rage elsewhere, to make other people look small, and to think only of himself. But Fichtner does this in a way that makes me laugh most of the time. As the original New York Times review says, “His bravery as an actor is heartening.” Initial reviews were a bit unfair by generalizing and calling everyone in town dumb-- it appears to me that it’s mostly the men who aren’t so bright. Rash’s daughter Ellen, Rona the waitress, the town’s mechanic, and even Mona herself aren’t that dumb, but rather trapped in a dumb place with only dumb things to do and dumb men to date. I think anyone from a small town can relate to that. The following scene sums up my feelings toward William Fichtner and the predicament of the women of Verplanck:
It’s moments like those that make me question my stance. Maybe I actually do like this movie and what does that say about me as a person? I mean… I’ve seen the movie twice and yet, I’ve spent 22 years quoting this line to virtually anyone, hoping desperately to find anyone who gets it:
But then I remember the small annoyances and grievances I have. Like the Yugo car thing! Everyone in Verplanck drives a Yugo because (as shared in text before the movie begins) years ago the Yugo car company had used the hamlet to test drive their strange little cars. Screenwriter Steinfeld remembered this anecdote from his days working for Yugo and applied it here. But I don’t love it. Yes, it’s a quirky little tool to set up the town and its characters as isolated, broke, and a little strange but they end up being distracting. Other than being the method for drowning Mona, they serve little other purpose. I am rarely a realist, but today I feel I must be.
Speaking of being real-- the people of Verplanck were PISSED when this movie came out. And I guess I would be too. Everyone in Verplanck is depicted as dirtbags who are out to get one another. To me, a fake town name would have sufficed. Especially seeing as they filmed this in L.A. But what do I know? I’m just a doctor.
Well, I wanted to end today with a great revelation. And I am. It’s just not the one I wanted. It seems… I like this movie. For all its faults, and questionable choices, and terrible jokes, and disregard for the middle class, and stifling script, and poor mystery… it still lives rent free in my head. I am not sure what this says about my psyche but I do know that I would never steer you wrong. This isn’t a good movie. Not a masterpiece of cinema. But it is bizarre. And it stays with you, as it has with me. At the very least, the majority of this cast has moved on and maintained successful careers. I’d like to not let them forget what they’ve done to me! So if anything, watch it so they don’t get away with this.
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