400 Screens, 400 Blows - Disease of the Week Movie

Isabel Coixet's Elegy (92 screens) is a "disease-of-the-week" movie. I hate "disease-of-the-week" movies, but I really liked Elegy. I also liked Coixet's previous film, My Life Without Me, which was also a "disease-of-the-week" movie. Sarah Polley's beautiful Away from Her from last year was another excellent example. This begs three questions: What is a "disease-of-the-week" movie? Why do I hate them? And what makes Elegy so good? The phrase "disease-of-the-week" was coined to describe a certain type of TV movie some decades ago, which had addicted housewives sniveling and crumbling up tissues at their TV tubes for two hours every seven days. But filmmakers quickly snatched upon the formula as a quick and easy way to weasel their way into film critics' hearts, and probably win an Oscar or two.

Disease is an unfortunate part of life, but it's a part of life that no one likes to think about. What usually happens when we get sick? We avoid going to the doctor! We hope it'll go away. So why do people like these kinds of movies, movies that acknowledge our own mortality and frailty? I think the secret is that the most successful of these movies play up the disease angle, but the real subject is the heroism of the others, the people who are not sick. That way, the disease gets center stage, and some "courageous" actor gets to show off, while the audience gets to identify with the other characters, the ones who stand by their friends and family. The ones who don't give up.

These days the Academy likes "disease-of-the-week" movies slightly less than they like biopics, literary adaptations, epics, costume dramas and war films. Conversely, they hate comedies, horror films, sci-fi films and action movies. But a quick look over the list of Oscar winners reveals a long list of "disease-of-the-week" entries. Ray Milland -- not the world's most interesting actor, Lord knows -- won in 1945 for playing an alcoholic. So did Nicolas Cage in 1995. Cliff Robertson (who?) won in 1968 for playing the "developmentally disabled" Charly. (See Tropic Thunder for further notes). Jon Voight was paralyzed in Coming Home. Dustin Hoffman was autistic, Daniel Day-Lewis had cerebral palsy, Al Pacino was blind (so was Jamie Foxx), Tom Hanks had AIDS, Geoffrey Rush had a mental breakdown, Jack Nicholson was obsessive-compulsive and Russell Crowe was a paranoid schizophrenic. Marlee Matlin was deaf, Holly Hunter was mute and Patty Duke was blind, deaf and dumb.

Perhaps not ironically, many of the co-stars who showed patience for these patients won Oscars as well, and the list is just as long, if not longer. Jim Broadbent won for Iris, while his co-star Judi Dench -- who had Alzheimer's -- did not. Jennifer Connelly won for supporting her husband in A Beautiful Mind. Anne Bancroft won for supporting Helen Keller. Brenda Fricker won for supporting her son in My Left Foot. Tom Cruise should have won for supporting his brother in Rain Man. These are the characters that we actually think about. We may come away with praise for the gimmicky, centerpiece performance ("wasn't it amazing how he actually looked sick?") but secretly hope that we can be as brave as the regular folks.

Moreover, these movies have a kind of built in importance that earns one a badge of honor. We recommend them to our friends, but what we're really doing is boasting of our own endurance and prowess; we sat through it and emerged intact. If you're as good as me, you should do the same. Long movies have the same effect. I was perfectly happy to brag that I sat through all seven hours of Bela Tarr's Satantango, but I make sure to mention the "seven hours" part. That's precisely how movies win awards. But what makes a really good "disease-of-the-week" movie? I guess it's one that develops a character, rather than a vehicle for the disease. You can analyze and argue all you want about how Daniel Day-Lewis gave a great performance in My Left Foot, but in the end, it was a gimmick that sold the movie, as opposed to a more genuine performance like -- to take some examples from the same year -- Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy, James Spader in sex, lies & videotape, Chow Yun-fat in The Killer, or even Michael Douglas in The War of the Roses.

In Elegy, Penelope Cruz has cancer, but this is not revealed until well past the first hour. Up until that time, we get to know her as "Consuela Castillo" and not as "cancer lady." She also gives an astonishing performance, not based on shrieking in pain and wearing sick-lady makeup, but because she shows how her character quietly thinks. You can see her rolling her dialogue around in her head, weighing it before she speaks it. It's true that the movie is really "about" David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) and that he eventually takes care of her, but we see him as a damaged human being rather than as a brave caregiver; he can't even offer comfort to his own son. To put it plainly, a good "disease-of-the-week" movie is not about the disease. It doesn't show off the disease. The disease is only part of the movie, a function of the movie, and a means to some other end.

By the way, none of this has anything to do with "movie cough," about which I'll write more some other day.