January 19, 2001 | Making a fleeting appearance in theaters before fulfilling its destiny as cable-TV fodder, The Amati Girls is the kind of painfully sincere and stilted drama that can make a cast of well-seasoned professionals come off as a gaggle of flat-footed amateurs.
Written and directed by Anne DeSalvo, a veteran stage and screen actress who shouldn’t quit her day job, this indie effort plays like the unsold pilot for a prime-time dramedy about an extended Italian-Catholic family in Philadelphia.
Dolly Amati (Cloris Leachman), recently widowed after 47 years of marriage, is obsessed with making plans for her own funeral, much to the discomfort of Grace (Mercedes Ruehl), her deeply religious eldest daughter. Grace is an indefatigable optimist whose selflessness borders on masochism – in one of the movie’s creepier scenes, she proudly proclaims that she “surrendered” her own will to that of her thoughtlessly bossy husband (Paul Sorvino) – and who knows precisely what prayers should be directed to which saints during times of trial.
Christine (Sean Young), Grace’s sister, isn’t nearly so patient and prayerful. Indeed, she’s on the verge of divorcing Paul (Jamey Sheridan), her workaholic husband, because he neglects her and their adolescent daughter. Denise (Dinah Manoff), another sister, doesn’t think she has time for a husband, workaholic or otherwise, as she doggedly pursues a singing career. She will let nothing, not even her conspicuous lack of talent or a marriage proposal from a sweet-tempered Mr. Right (Mark Harmon), divert her from her dreams.
Dolores (Lily Knight), the mentally challenged youngest sister, has far more modest ambitions: She wants to have a boyfriend, just like “normal” girls do. Trouble is, when Dolores does find a soul mate, Dolly strongly, and very loudly, disapproves. Naturally, Grace doesn’t dare disagree with her mother. So she suggests that Dolores – yes, you guessed it! – pray for a miracle.
People who take matters of faith seriously are rarely treated sympathetically in contemporary films; more often than not, such characters are rendered as buffoons, hypocrites, virulent gay-bashers or, at best, priests intent on performing exorcisms. So there is an undeniable novelty value to The Amati Girls, which makes a game effort to offer a positive representation of religious folks.
Unfortunately, good intentions are never enough to compensate for bad moviemaking. As the banal plot lurches from domestic crisis to sitcom jokiness, from contrived tragedy to warm-and-fuzzy sentimentality, characters repeatedly pelt each other with inspirational platitudes about life, love and family values. (Imagine an episode of Sisters or Life Goes On written by Dr. Laura Schlessinger.) The dialogue rings false, the situations reek of clumsy contrivance – and the utterly shameless ending is torn from the pages of The Handbook for Lazy Screenwriters. Like far too many other filmmakers, DeSalvo obviously subscribes to the notion that there’s nothing like killing off a central character to make everyone else in your movie better appreciate life.
