by Douglas Messerli
Steve Martin (screenplay), Mick Jackson (director) L. A. Story / 1991
Mick Jackson’s L. A. Story is primarily a vehicle for Steve Martin and Victoria
Tennant, and its humor, like Martin’s own stand-up comedian quips and his other
writings, taking easy pot-shots at contemporary culture—in this case, Los
Angeles-based—often falls flat. In his story of a “wacky” TV weatherman whose girlfriend (Marilu Henner) is in search of a voyage up
the social ladder, Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) takes a voyage as
Odysseys’ son to rechart the waters of a much longer voyage without his
father’s advice.
Clearly bored by his relationship and the attendant luncheons and
dinners at which he is forced to be present, Harris is quickly taken with the
strangely gouache Londoner who appears late at a Los Angeles luncheon party,
Sara McDowel, who has traveled to the US, apparently, to reconcile with her
slightly snobbish and—as it later becomes apparent—gay ex-husband, Roland
Mackey (Richard E. Grant).
Sara’s opening comments reveal nearly
everything about her, including what appears to be her gauche behavior:
Roland: Sara just got off
a plane from London.
Trudi: Oh, you must be
exhausted.
Sara: Yes, I’m shattered,
but it’s nothing that some sleep and
a good fuck
wouldn’t cure, as my sister used to say. Ha
ha ha.
[Everyone stares]
Roland: You’ll have to
forgive Sara.
Sara: Oh, it was just…a
figure of speech. I’ve been on a plane
for twelve hours
with a crying baby.
Drink orders, soon after, demonstrate the flat jokes of Martin’s Los
Angeles satire:
Tom: I'll have a decaf coffee.
Trudi: I'll have a decaf espresso.
Morris Frost: I'll have a double decaf
cappuccino.
Ted: Give me decaffeinated coffee ice
cream.
Harris: I'll have a half double
decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.
Trudi: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Tom: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Morris: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Cynthia: I'll have a twist of lemon.
Just as in most of L.A. films featuring rebels, Sara is a true eccentric
in a world of innate outsiders who define themselves most notably by trying to
“fit in,” parroting the inanity of a culture that has few true insiders. A bit
like Woody Allen, Martin scatters his Angelino snipes in all directions,
including Telemacher’s attempt to get a reservation for the outrageously pricey
restaurant, L’Idiot, where he is told he must wait days for a 5:30 dinner, and,
after being questioned by a Maître’d, a banker, and others, is allowed only a
few choices from the menu.
Harris: [calling the restaurant]
Hello, L'Idiot? Yes, I'd like to
make
reservations for two for Friday. Saturday? Sunday?
Ah good.
Eight-thirty. Five-thirty or ten-thirty? Um,
five-thirty.
Visa...I'm a weatherman... yes, I'm on TV!
Renting... I
just sold a condo... yes, in this "soft market"...
well, I don't
see how that's any of your... the low fifties.
When Roland later suggests the same
restaurant, he is able to obtain a reservation for the same night.
At moments, Martin actually reaches into the heart of the culture,
suggesting the complexity and difficulty of mining a world that is so
resplendently deserted.
Harris: There's someone out there for
everyone—even if you need
a pickaxe, a compass,
and night goggles to find them.
Compared with those around them, the wacky weatherman and journalist are
models of sanity, as they ridiculously attempt to hook up with the wrong
people, the interfering and bag-pipe-loving freeway sign offering advice and
moral insight. And why not? Hasn’t it been created to tell the masses what to
do—to slow down, to take alternate routes?
If Los Angeles is a paradise for outsiders—with little of permanence at
its core ("Harris: Some of these buildings are over 20 years old.")—then it is natural that
Harris and Sara were meant for one another, true Angelenos unable to fit into
anyone’s definitions of whom they should love and how life should be lived.
This is truly gentle satire from a satirist that we all know is quite
capable of crashing through the set if need be. And I recall the later parts of
this film as being shot in the light of glowing sunsets instead of the bright
crystalline sun that oppresses the city almost every day of the year.
The gay reference here is almost ephemeral and used to comic effect only
to help establish Sara’s former husband is a closeted gay man—just the opposite
of the mean-spirited and despicable AIDS reference to the villain of Eddie
Murphy’s comic vehicle Beverly Hills Cop—which leaves Roland’s ex-wife
open to Harris’ advances.
While her ex pictures a handsome male for himself, Sara envisions Harris. And so do the two slightly confused individuals of this film fall into
each other’s arms by film’s end.
Los Angeles, June 8, 2012
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2012).
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