Marvin’s Room (1996)

Directed by Jerry Zaks. Starring Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwen Verdon, Robert De Niro, Hume Cronyn, Hal Scardino, Cynthia Nixon, Margo Martindale, Dan Hedaya. [PG-13]

Ineffectual drama strands its performers in a soup of distractingly beauteous photography and dysfunctional family clichés. Keaton fares best as the daughter of elderly stroke victim Cronyn who has cared for her father the last couple decades; as the other daughter (who’s ignored those family members most of her adult life), Streep is saddled with too many strident mannerisms to function very far beyond the borders of caricature. Their messy reunion is precipitated by Keaton’s character being diagnosed with leukemia, so cue the mail-order heartstring-tugging episodes (more restrained than average, but still on the rote side). In the supporting cast, Verdon steals most of her scenes as Cronyn’s sister, and Cronyn is surprisingly memorable considering he never utters an intelligible word the entire time, but De Niro doesn’t seem to know what to do with the mildly peculiar doctor he plays. Screenplay by Scott McPherson (adapting his own stage play), who died shortly after completing it in 1992. Soap actress Kelly Ripa has a bit part in her first film appearance…playing a character in a soap opera.

50/100