Review of Little Voice (1998) by Edith N — 12 Dec 2010

Another Cringe-Worthy Opening Which Gets Better.

You may have noticed that we haven't been doing a lot of actual movies actually starting with "l" just now. I apologize for this; it's dreadful. However, we're also coping with the fact that it's just slim pickings right now. This week, I only brought home three. Not even any documentaries which don't count as feature films but still work as things to review. I brought home this, some movie about Salvador Dalí starring That Poor Boy, and [i]Live Flesh[/i], an Almodóvar movie I mostly lost track of. Also an [i]American Experience[/i] about germ warfare and I believe it's a [i]Nature[/i] about lizards. That kind of thing. I do have three benefit concerts starting with "live," so I guess that's something. I think we're going to start picking up again soon; "love" is coming up, after all. But the hazard of this kind of project is that the library's catalog doesn't care if you're trying to write a review a day.

In one of those obscure towns in Northern England which are so perfect for this type of movie, there lives Mari Hoff (Brenda Blethyn) and her daughter, called Little Voice or LV (Jane Horrocks). She's called that because she is the quietest, shyest girl around, but she spends all her days and nights singing along to or in imitation of old records. At the beginning of the movie, her mum gets a phone put in, and LV meets Billy (Ewan McGregor), himself shy but immediately drawn to her. I believe it is that same night that her mum finally draws the attention of the man she's been chasing for some time, Ray Say (Michael Caine). He used to be a music promoter, and when he hears LV sing, he knows what he's hearing. Unfortunately, she's extremely shy and has a mother who is not merely domineering but painfully unpleasant. It's possible she'll open up for Billy, but the movie never really gives us a chance to be sure. She will open up for her father, but he's dead.

Michael Caine is really ideal for this sort of role. He's a seedy guy from a seedy town. He used to be a big shot, and now, he's only really important to the kind of boozy skanks down to the pub which are best represented by Mari. (And no, girls in [i]The Class[/i], "skank" doesn't mean "prostitute" to me; it means something much more akin to "slut.") He has no favours left to draw on except from the, let's face it, equally hard-up Mr. Boo (Jim Broadbent), who fortunately does own or at least manage the kind of performance space Ray is going to need in order to launch LV's career. The issue is at least in part that Ray is used to having the trappings of someone who really matters, but he hasn't actually done so in years. It's probably at least in part why he's willing to put up with the odious Mari, even after she makes it quite clear that she's a bad mother and not a very nice person. Mari sees him as being a real catch.

And it isn't just that she doesn't respect her daughter's interests, though that's certainly an issue. When first she brings Ray home, she yells at LV to have consideration for the neighbours and not play Judy Garland at that hour, but she promptly tries to cover it up with Tom Jones. The outcome almost certainly would have been different if she had just let LV see Billy. Encouraged it, even. But I don't think she ever really wanted to have a daughter. When she first shows Ray around the apartment, she points out just about everything in the room and throws in "my daughter" last. Not even with a name; I actually missed hearing anyone call her much of anything through the movie (I thought Little Voice was just a stage name), and it took IMDB to tell me that her actual name was Laura. Which I have to tell you feels as though it ought to be a [i]Glass Menagerie[/i] reference, though of course it might not be. Oh, Mari is quite a different bad mother from Amanda Wingfield, but they are both women trying to push their daughters into the life they think the daughter should have, not the one the daughter wants.

And really, that's the issue. The theme of the movie--and presumably the play it's based on--might well be the idea of "it'd be a funny old world if we was all alike, innit?" (Or insert colloquialisms of your choice.) There is the dreadful snorting Sadie (Annette Badland), who almost seems chosen for Mari to befriend for the same reason Ray associates with Mari herself. There is George (Philip Jackson), who is really better suited to Mari and knows it. He and Mari could mock Billy and LV together, even! LV can do a spot-on Judy, Marilyn, or just about anyone else from her collection of records. At heart, though, the problem is that she can't be Laura. She's trying to find Laura in a world full of people so unlike her that there is no mirror for her to look into. No, we aren't all alike, and no, we shouldn't be. On the other hand, there is a wistfullness to her which reminds me of my own wish, when I was young, that there would be somebody at least a little like me.