[Film Review] Days of Wine and Roses (1962) 8.1/10
Tackling alcoholism head on, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is an adaptation of J.P. Miller’s 1958 teleplay, and director Blake Edwards’ capacity of handling a simmering drama is put to test, and the result is quite propitious, unlike Billy Wilder’s excellent solitary toper misery in THE LOST WEEKEND (1945), here the situation is a classic case of folie à deux.
San Francisco PR agent Joe Clay (Lemmon) is a man of principles, yet he is often saddled with the seamy job of recruiting female companions for his company’s affluent clients. Under that premise, he first meets Kirsten Arnesen (Remick) and unceremoniously assumes that she belongs to the escort bracket, and only later to his discomfiture, realizes that she is a secretary, nonetheless doted by her affluent boss because of her prettiness.
Not so much a meet-cute as a romance precipitated by misapprehension, Edwards nimbly crafts an “elevator pitch” to sell a righteous Joe to a miffed Kirsten, who initially brushes aside his gesture of peace-making. To Joe’s obfuscated delight, after he lashes out on her for being too uppity to please and “secretary” is just a glorified designation for some gal with a pretty face , Kirsten takes an about-face and reconsiders the option of a date with him (talking about a girl’s illogical mutability), Joe’s “principles” finally convince Kirsten that he is the marry kind, they wed soon after and have a daughter, yet during their very first date, Joe has unwittingly sowed the seed of alcoholism to a hitherto teetotal Kirsten, which in time, will tear their family apart.
Every time before a snifter of hard liqueur goes down the hatch, Joe utters “magic time”, as if it is a mojo to invoke the liquor’s magical power to make him feel good, but that magical potion has severe sequelae, it destroys his career, put on a strain in his marriage and worst of all, indirectly pushes Kirsten down the same vicious circle of an inveterate heavy drinker, and she becomes an even worse case.
While the story tactfully soft-petals Joe’s incontrovertible responsibility as partially the scourge of Kirsten’s piteous self-abandonment (as Kirsten’s dour-looking father, Charles Bickford finally nerves himself up and gives Joe some piece of his own mind near the end, but that comes a shade too late), the script unavoidably smacks of sexism by granting Joe an ideal role model of an AA participant who finally gets the better of his jones, at the same time nudging Kirsten to the abyss of self-denial and diminishing willpower. This is the only gripe one can lay claim to the otherwise fairly outstanding script, probing strenuously and effectively to the nexus of the ubiquitous issue of alcohol dependency.
Beyond the shadow of a doubt, DoWaR boasts one of Lemmon’s most phenomenal performances, Lemmon wades through Joe’s journey with substantive lived-in commitment, running the gamut from gentlemanlike courtship, fanatical desperation to pathos-driven plead, not to mention the utterly visceral impersonation of delirium tremens when confined in a straitjacket, which can knock this reviewer dead stone cold. Remick, on the other hand, heftily retains her side of extraordinariness to limn Kirsten’s slippery slope with stern disillusion and inveterate helplessness, even though she is lumped with the short end of the stick in the dichotomous gender design. A cogent cautionary tale powered by two copacetic performers, and a slap on the Edwards’ back to his aptitude in orchestrating it in its finest order, not least for that bodacious final shot, a man and his anathema are superimposed in the same frame when a woman’s hope fizzles out despondently.
referential entries: Billy Wilder’s THE LOST WEEKEND (1945, 7.9/10)
