Meg and her lovely daughter Sydney both court the bonds of holy matrimony, living in this temporary moment of bliss but must soon face the shell-shocked corpse of the past. George Cukor’s direction and blocking combined with DP Sidney Hickox’s grand camerawork make this stage-bound story move with life and energy. Cukor eschews close-ups and directs in medium and two-shot so the actors can use their whole body to emote and react which adds a sudden realism to the whole sad affair. This is Katharine Hepburn’s film debut, and her assertive performance holds its own against the legendary bluster of John Barrymore!
Meg (Billie Burke) has been divorced for many years because her husband Hilary’s mental illness, exacerbated by the trauma of the Great War, took him away from her both emotionally and physically. Institutionalized since his daughter Sydney (Katharine Hepburn) was a little girl, he now breaks free on the eve of both Meg’s and Sydney’s journey towards betrothment. But he is now a stranger in their lives in whom the past fifteen or so years doesn’t exist and demands all to be returned as it was. Meg is torn in two by love for her new fiancée and responsibility for her ex-husband Hilary (John Barrymore) while Sydney suffers the slings and arrows of her genetic susceptibility...for her and her potential children. The film offers no trite answers to mental illness, yet it doesn’t stigmatize it either: it’s treated as a physical illness (like it should be) and not a mental weakness or moral deficiency. In one heart-wrenching scene he falls to his knees and begs, no fucking pleads with all of his soul, for Meg to give him another chance. Her demeanor is both compassionate and distanced yet her inner struggle is captured in her eyes and subtle gestures and the shaking of her voice. Cukor doesn’t go for the reaction shot close-up like big teary eyes but films this entirely in medium shot so the physical and emotional supplication is presented unabridged and without edit. Barrymore may often teeter towards over-acting a part but here his performance is brave in its self-deprecation.
The film doesn’t have a happy ending as Meg is allowed to run-off with her new beau while Sydney, whose veins share the mad blood of her biological father, remains behind to care for him. Together their lives and mental health may forever be an unfinished sonata.
Final Grade: (B)
