California Sour

Another of my recent movie watches off the DVR was the ensemble comedy California Suite, which TCM showed during 31 Days of Oscar because of Maggie Smith's Oscar win.

The movie is basically an anthology of sorts, based on a Neil Simon play which is actually a series of four one-act plays set in a hotel in Beverly Hills, those four stories being:

Visitor from New York, starring Jane Fonda as Hannah, a divorcée visiting her ex-husband Bill (Alan Alda) in order to get custody of their teenaged daughter for the summer;

Visitor from London, about a British actress Diana (Maggie Smith) up for an Oscar who comes to the ceremony with her gay husband Sidney (Michael Caine). The two bicker along the way.

Visitor from Philadelphia, about a man Marvin (Walter Matthau) coming to LA to see his son's bar mitzvah. He's come a day early, before his wife (Elaine May); Marvin's brother Harry (Herb Edelman) decides to use that extra day to procure a prostitute for Marvin.

Finally there's Visitor from Chicago, about two doctors who are best friends; Dr. Gump (Richard Pryor) and Dr. Panama (Bill Cosby). They've brought their wives with them for a joint vacation, but arrive to find there's only one room reserved for them instead of two.

There are obviously differences between the movie and the play (which I haven't seen; I'm going off the Wikipedia synopsis). One is that the movie can open things up more since it's not just on a stage. This works best in the Fonda/Alda scenes, as they visit a beach among other places while learning to be civil to each other. The Chicagoans' troubles also begin before reaching the hotel, as they have problems with their rental station wagon.

But there's another change which doesn't work at all. Everything I read about the play implies that it's separate acts, like the play and film versions of Plaza Suite, or the way most anthology movies work. The movie version of California Suite, however, makes it look like it's going to be more of an ensemble movie with a bunch of different storylines, like Dinner at Eight or The VIPs. This is where the big problem comes in: in California Suite, the storylines never intersect. So you just go from one couple back to another, for no particularly good reason.

It doesn't help that two of the stories (the Philadelphia and Chicago stories) are fairly week, with Cosby and Pryor in particular having cringe-inducing material. They try their best, and I don't think the film's failings are the fault of any of the cast. Indeed, Fonda, Smith, and Caine all put in very good performances. It's just that it's all in service of decidedly subpar material.

Still, I know other people have different opinions, and this one did win an Oscar for Smith, after all. So you'll probably want to watch and judge for yourself.