Reckless Movie Review

The Christmas season terrifies me more than anything that could possibly go bump in the night. The only reason I saw Reckless at THAT time of year was because, with Craig Lucas as the screenwriter and Mia Farrow as the star, I were reasonably sure that it would supply a strange and skewed take on the holidays. And it does. Mia Farrow is a blissful housewife with a wonderful life except for one thing: her husband has taken a contract out on her life. Guilt-stricken, he confesses the whole thing to his wife and urges her to jump out the window before the hired killer turns up. Farrow wanders around in the snow until she hitches a ride from Scott Glenn, who takes her home to his disabled wife, Mary-Louise Parker. Parker also pretends to be a deaf-mute so that Glenn will stay with her (no, I didn't get it either!), and the sweet couple adopt Farrow and make her feel right at home. So, Farrow creates a new life for herself at the non-profit organization where Glenn gets her a job and all is well until the next Christmas…. Poor Mia Farrow. Talk about the Perils of Pauline; this sweet, gentle lady has to put up with everything! She's great in the role, retaining the doll-like sense of innocent wonder that kept audiences rooting for her in Rosemary's Baby and The Purple Rose of Cairo. Scott Glenn, too, does a nice job in a rather whacked-out role (for him). And Stephen Dorff makes a brief but affecting appearance as Farrow's long-lost son. Reckless travels its own weird one-of-a-kind route with the prolific Lucas as tour guide. It isn't exactly a foolproof antidote for the cheery warmth we're supposed to be feeling the last six weeks of the year, but Reckless beats being anesthetized by the 10,000th broadcast of It's a Wonderful Life.

1995 (PG-13) 91m/C Mia Farrow, Scott Glenn, Mary-Louise Parker, Tony Goldwyn, Stephen Dorff, Eileen Brennan, Giancarlo Esposito, Deborah Rush; D: Norman Rene; W: Craig Lucas; C: Frederick Elmes; M: Stephen Endelman. VHS, LV, Closed Caption