Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean
Bottom Line
In a Woolworth’s, in a small town not far from where film star James Dean shot Giant, his fan club reunite for an Altman-esque exploration of life, love, hope, and fear.
The film is based on a Ed Graczyk’s 1976 stage-play and Altman plays close attention to the source material. The dialogue sparkles while being oddly unbelievable in the way that we tend to accept people talk in plays but never do in real life. For his set, Altman created two 5 & dime stores—one in the 1950s, one twenty years later—separated by a two-way mirror and this simple visual trick also serves to cement the film’s theatrical feel.
Naturally the performances are top-notch, with Cher proving once and for all that she can be more than Cher, the ‘star’. But somehow it doesn’t quite work. Maybe it’s the predictable nature of the revelations. Maybe it’s the curious balance of the quirky and the mundane—practically Altman’s trademark. Or maybe it’s the sexual violence which seems out of place in a film that pitches itself as a comedy.
Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean is a good film. Not a great film. But it comes with a fist-full of delicately-judged performances and a heavy-dose of nostalgia which will appeal to many.
Paula Hammond - Features Editor
