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THE UNSINKABLE MERYL STREEP
Magazine / Source: The Boston Globe, September 1994 |
Is Meryl Streep a role model, or what? After watching her play Supermom in
"The River Wild," taking out a couple of bad guys, navigating rapids on a raft
and saving her marriage, you wonder why she didn't start doing action movies
years ago. She makes white-water rafting look easier than going to the mat with
all those accents over the years. She's so confident-looking, so on top of
everything, that you're convinced that she'd make hamburger out of
Schwarzenegger and Stallone, bake four loaves of bread and learn a few languages
en route. She's said to have done 90 percent of the stunts on the river in
Montana where the film was made. You'd swear it was 100 percent. She looks
strong. In fact, she's glowing with robust health, an outdoor woman from the
word splash. But first and last she's a mom, fighting to keep her world
together, not a testosterone delivery system.
In short, she's a more highly evolved kind of slugger, from the moment we see
her sculling sedately on the Charles, in contrast to what will come later. The
script - which calls for her to play a river guide's daughter who knows the
ropes and returns to Montana because she's had it with stuffy Boston and her
workaholic husband, played by David Strathairn - mostly just sits there,
modestly providing a pretext for Streep's prowess. When she and her young son,
played by Joseph Mazzello, are momentarily taken in by the easy charm of Kevin
Bacon and his "Deliverance"-like companion, John C. Reilly, you never really
worry, even after the river rats start waving guns around, reveal themselves to
be escaped felons and demand that she get them through the white-water obstacle
course to freedom.
It turns out that they've robbed a cattle auction of its proceeds and killed
two men and know that the Canadian border is being watched. But messing wth
Meryl is just not the way to go, even if the map tells them otherwise. Just as
you knew Jack Palance could never kill Joan Crawford in "Sudden Fear," you know
Streep is a force of nature they're never going to threaten seriously. In fact,
the best parts of the film come when she laughs at them after they fall into the
water. It seems right that she should do so. The fact that her seemingly wimpy
husband escapes with their dog only reshuffles the deck a little; it never
changes the outcome of the game.
Pro that she is, Streep goes along with the pretense that she's endangered.
But she's much bigger than any mere felon, or river, or marital
miscommunication. And it's more fun to watch her prevail than it is Stallone or
Schwarzenegger because she doesn't just stand there exuding macho superiority.
What she projects is awesome competence. Bacon at least projects initially
seductive charm even if menace is impossible, given the foregone conclusion. The
sterling and reliable Strathairn brings stoic dignity to the husband's role,
young Mazzello takes advantage of the chance to show more here than he did in
"Jurassic Park" and Curtis Hanson's direction is expeditious and unpretentious.
But "River Wild" is a Streeporama, and Streep at the flood tide is something to
see.
Copyright 1994 Globe Newspaper Company
Many thanks to Gaelle for submitting this article
