the grifters, 1990

produced by martin scorsese
based on a novel by jim thompson

very plot oriented.
roy doing his small cons - bills, change. gets socked in the stomach with a bat by one bartender when caught.
flashback to when he first learned - gentleman, dressed in white (like his mother; no allusion to his father existing in the movie at all) - to grift. it seemed about the thrill, competition, matching wits with everyone. and loneliness - b/c the ultimate con would be your partner, who's been thru it all with you - matching wits with him/her and beating them. and he advised against the long con.
myra appears to have gratuitous sex. she does a lot of frontals. bodies are interesting.
lilly appears. haven't seen each other in years. she notices that roy's not doing well healthwise, and he gets rushed to the hospital. lilly tries to be nice, but roy is abrasive. lilly and myra rub each other the wrong way. wallflower nurse gets flustered.
b/c lilly was in LA, helping roy out, she misses what she's supposed to do at la jolla. i actually don't know what she does. places bets on horses with odds stacked against them, and they usu win? and then she gathers the used tickets after? i didn't know she was bilking money from bobo until myra went after it. doing it from her car in plain sight (relatively) doesn't seem too smart. and lilly seemed smart. so bobo appears - mafia. he does buy into the story about her son. doesn't beat her with oranges, but burns his cigar into her right hand. just wrong - submissive, but not seeming so lilly - she walks away in a raincoat even tho he didn't beat her. she gets to compliment him on his suit. just sick.
roy decides he and myra should take a vacation to la jolla. on the train ride there, myra catches on that he's a grifter. she shares story about how she and cole did the long cons - suckers who invested in a scam of a nonexistent company. roy arrives in la jolla and gives lilly back 4000 to pay back hospital bills, and she doesn't want it. myra follows lilly to race track, spying and finds out about the stash of money in the trunk of the car.
roy and myra head back to la. myra wants roy to do the long con, but he doesn't want to - train, then in his aptmt (red dress). exchange with roy asking myra to leave. roy calls lilly and says he just wants to talk. she agrees, and he drives down.
lilly gets a tip that bobo knows that she's been skimming a lot of money from him [which she admitted before during the exchange on balcony], and she starts running. with myra tagging her. end up in motel in phoenix. myra tries to strangle her, but eats her 9mm instead. of course we don't know that. roy gets to lilly's hotel room but she's not there, and he's upset. he's called to phoenix to id the body - just naked so you can't really tell. but checks the hand, without a cigar mark.
lilly is dressed in the red dress, passes as myra into roy's aptmt. rummages thru it, searching for money. finds it, and going to run with it. roy comes home (good timing). have discussion about getting out of the grift, lilly says he doesn't have the guts for it. didn't see it, but he's holding up the glass of ice water, she swings the suitcase, breaks the glass, lacerating his left carotid. and he bleeds to death. quickly. she emits a really soul-wrenching series of cries. but continues to stuff about 1/2 the money into the suitcase, exits, and drives off in his car. and that's the end - her driving away into the night, some random jaywalker making a dash across the street.

roy = john cusack; he looks young, facial tone seems plastery. dunno if it's the make-up or youth. bushy hair, but definitely dated style. again, cusack plays ultimately a decent guy. left the house when he was 17, and independent since. chip on his shoulder about his ma, disturbed by it. some oedipal complex elements, but he chooses to not act on it (he'd be 25, she'd be 39). at the end, hoping that this will encourage his 'ma' to get out of the grift, and he's already thinking about it. didn't fall for the long con with myra, which was good. the scene where he really rejects her was uncompromising which was nice to see. him slapping her twice was not. though he may not have the stomach for being a grifter, he didn't die a coward, being someone he wasn't.
lilly = angjelica huston; looks old, esp with the very platinum blonde dye job; but she's the tall, elegant type; she seemed like she sincerely wanted to make up for being a 'rotten' mother - reflexively pulling all the stops when he was hemorrhaging, fine with him coming over at short notice. but when she's scared, feel like her life is on the line - she won't think of anyone except for herself. shook her up to have killed myra.
myra = annette bening; she does a good job playing a bubblehead with a bod and a soul of pure selfishness. interesting that some people, no matter how selfish ultimately really work with a partner. i don't think she was convinced roy was the one, b/c she was probably hung up on cole (her previous partner of 10 years; criminally insane - psychotic, schizophrenia; getting all these movies with some unexpected component of psych in it), but close enough. obviously could get her feelings hurt, b/c she immediately ratted on lilly. or just wanted to take her money. i had no problems with her getting bumped off the plot.
wallflower nurse = lou hancock? imdb search didn't really get very far.

setting -
mostly CA. lilly's boss was based in baltimore. roy hung out in los angeles. race tracks were in la jolla.
low set buildings, palm trees, new but blah backdrop of southern CA.

run time = 114 minutes; doesn't feel like it

comment:
supposed to be about this culture of grifters. people who make a 'living' conning. sort of like the mafia in that you get hooked, have run in's with the law, get beaten a lot. there's a certain lingo (that 'tat' you had with the sailors, said myra). but they don't seem evil. just trying to get away with as much as they can, with the primary incentive being money. lilly couldn't run away without money. like she said, she's never had a legit job in her life. obviously only certain people, notably attractive people, could do it. whether it be roy's likable face, lilly's cool collected presence, myra's flirtatious cuteness. it's obviously a lifestyle that doesn't last long. you either die, go mad, or become heartless/empty.

film i watched a while ago (high school?) - i think one that ed rented. remembered there was something about the glass of ice water. and the scene betw cusack and bening was included on cusack's interview with terri gross on "fresh air".
went to guilderland just to fetch the movie today. watched with sq, along with port and garlic 'bread'. nice relaxing evening.

- posted by B @ 8:20 PM