Review of To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996) by Wendy S — 22 Nov 2008

Saturated with sacharine romanticism, To Gillian at times reads like a Gap ad replete with beaches, barefeet in the sand, khakis and sailboats - in this case, a Gap ad gone terribly awry since a fatal accident occurs.

Based on the stage play by Michael Brady, one could imagine the theatricality of having a dead character walk right onto stage in the flesh - thereby fermenting our lead David's 'very real' relationship with a dead woman made complicit by witnesses in the audience. The film version goes off the deep end (puns intended) with an overt romanticism of Gillian (played by the ridiculously beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer) who appears under moonlight by the beach - an effort, no doubt, to underscore David's romanticized point of view of his dead wife. Unfortunately, like David, the film fails to pull itself out of morose sentimentality and, but for a few strong performances, winds up manipulative and hollow.

Making the most of an underwritten part, Wendy Crewson's Kevin is a compassionate presence amidst the family drama, and Kathy Baker's Esther threads skilfully the thin line between self-righteousness and true concern. Together with Altman, the duo provide an honest and fascinating dynamic between a married couple seldom seen on film. But the film belongs to Danes, who wades through stilted dialogue and emerges as one of the most compelling characters in the film.

Not as fortunate is the distractingly good looking but inexplicably asexual Gallagher, whose David, as written, seems decidedly self indulgent even as he struggles to mine the part for all its levity. Coupled with his largely absent sexual chemistry with Pfeiffer (is that even possible?), the result is a missing emotional core. a fact made ironically clear when Rachel finally corrects David that it wasn't Gillian who held the family together, but him. This, however, comes too little too late, and by the time the floodgates are released and David's tears begin to flow, the final effect is ambivalence. Go for the far less schmalzy Truly Madly Deeply.