November 12, 1999 | Natalie Portman certainly had her hands full with Darth Maul and other intergalactic bad guys in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. But the immensely talented young actress faces an even greater challenge in Anywhere But Here. Wayne Wang’s vividly detailed and richly amusing drama — based on Mona Simpson’s well-regarded novel — finds Portman vying for audience attention with the megawatt-radiant Susan Sarandon in the most compelling mother-daughter love-hate story since Terms of Endearment.
Sarandon plays Adele August, the kind of indefatigable free spirit who’s fun to watch in a movie, and hell to live with in real life. Chronically bored with small-town life in Bay City, Wisconsin, she abandons her insufficiently exciting husband and seeks rosier prospects in Beverly Hills, California. Ann (Portman), her 14-year-old daughter from an earlier union, would much prefer the stability of a traditional home and family ties. But mom overrules any protests: “I know what is best for you because that is my job.”
So Adele takes Ann along for the long cross-country trek in a spiffy 1978 Mercedes, and more or less demands that her daughter embrace the myriad possibilities of a brand new life. (“Now that we’re in Beverly Hills,” she coos to her appalled child, “maybe you could change your name to Heather.”) During the next two years of their often stormy relationship, Adele encourages Ann to be an independent-minded risk-taker. But she’s ill-prepared for the day when Ann really does decide to strike out on her own.
Sarandon is marvelously flamboyant as Adele, a self-delusional extrovert who occasionally forgets about practical matters — like paying the electric bill — while sustaining her joie de vivre through sheer force of will. The beauty of her performance is that, even while she encourages you to laugh at Adele’s frantic avoidance of the ordinary, Sarandon never lets you ignore the not-so-quiet desperation behind her smile.
Portman is much subtler, but equally affecting, as a natural-born realist who can’t help seeing through Adele’s impractical dreams, and who must sometimes provide maternal advice to check her own mother’s excesses. With her artfully calibrated mix of affection and annoyance, indulgence and impatience, Portman eloquently expresses the profoundly mixed emotions of a daughter who knows that, for better or worse, her mother wants to be her very best buddy.
