This is my second time watching Autumn Leaves and I can't figure if I like it or not. Like, no? Lol. It's mad...like it's a shitty movie. Or the themes are. Idk, it could be worse. But what saves it are my baes Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson. I think both of them elevate a fairly questionable script with their individual talents.
Joan was like a true movie star, looking mad glam and bright in roles that call for her character to be sort of plain and dusty and regular degular. It's almost always like a really awkward, jarring dichotomy in Joan's movies. Especially since she so often plays pathetic woman. That's what I will call the genre she often mired in, "Pathetic Women". Joan's character stayed lusting after that bs. Obsessing over ugly ass Van Heflin, or letting Veda and Bette Davis get into that ass - no ma'am! And it's so crazy because you know Joan was That Bitch in real life, so to watch her play all these weak, damp ass damsel in distress types is super disconcerting. But thankfully most of them are also kinda mentally deranged, and that wears well on Joan. No shade but all shade, let's keep it real.
So Joan here plays some broad named............goddamn Millicent Wetherby. Smh. So I guess Millicent is kind of a loner, spinster-type? #same. She makes a living...I think typing up screenplays or books or some shit at home? There's like a professional name for that but I am having an ADD brain thing and can't remember it. Transcribing? Is it ADD or a tumor? Either way, we are all going to die. And that's just wonderful.
Millicent has some landlord all in her business and there's a conversation about how Millicent needs a bae. Something about how she can't stay home all the time doing work. And why is that? Lol lee the bitch alone. But whatever, I guess Millicent is lonely. She goes out to a concert and the movie is mad extra and highlights how ALONNNNE she is. Like why a bitch by herself can't be enjoying the Brahms or whatever without internally screaming about how single and unmingled she is? Like it was just doing the most. And then after the concert Millicent goes to a crowded ass restaurant and awkwardly sits by herself at a booth. BUT WHO MAKES IT EVEN MORE AWKWARD IS, Burt Hanson, played by Cliff.
He come in the restaurant and there's no tables for him, so his rude ass see Millicent sitting by herself and walks up and kind of gives off this entitled ass attitude, like, oh, because you're sitting here alone and there's no more seats I should be able to sit here with you so I can eat. Um, no?? It would be nice of Millicent to offer her seat, but who the fuck would do that? Who the fuck tryna eat with some random nigga, even if he is suspiciously roughy-haired Cliff Robertson?? And like, in Burt's defense, he didn't get mad or whatever when Millicent declined him sitting at the table, BUT HE DID KEEP STANDING THERE! HE DID KEEP DOING THAT!!
Millicent was like .....uhhhhhmmmmmmmm are you gonna move? Like lol why would he keep standing there? Like she said she didn't want to eat with you, so go wait up by the front? It got so awkward with him standing there she was basically forced to say he could eat with her. And so begins their awkward ass romance.
Their romance is awkward because, I guess, Millicent is OLD. Idk how old she's supposed to be, or how old Burt is supposed to be, but they make it seem like he's quite young and Millicent is an old maid, which was prob like thirty in 1956. But it's also awkward because, the movie sort of emphasizes that Burt and Millicent get together because they are lonely. Millicent is OLD and HUSBANDLESS and Burt is new in town. So they get together on, I guess some not ideal common ground. Or the movie makes it seem like two people connecting because they are lonely is pathetic and doesn't bode for a stable, long-lasting relationship, because loneliness is finite. Or that's how the movie makes it seem. But lol, no. Like, aren't most relationships spun from loneliness? People connecting and warming each other's cold, dead hearts? Or am I just such a mess and that's not even the case? Lol and smh.
But whatever. I disagree their situation is tragic because...of how it started, or the reasons. So what if Millicent is old, or they were both lonely as fuck and just trying to find companionship? At the end of the day, they made a good connection and chose to be together, and when they don't want to be together anymore, they won't. It's not that serious. Or I should tell Millicent that, because she was acting like it was a big deal that she was older or that they both met when they were lonely like girl you just looking for excuses to be a spinster at this point.
But anyway, I think their relationship could have been sweet and nice had Burt not been, you know, INSANE. Just as looney tunes as he could be, bless his sweet heart.
Just a goddamn mental case. Turns out, Burt used to be married to Vera Miles. But she smashed his daddy and Burt walked in on it, so he snapped. Lol okay. Kinda dramatic, just take your ass on Maury or something and call it a day. But Burt gotta be extra and have a complete mental breakdown. Drama. Queen.
So...I felt like the shit with Vera Miles and Burt's daddy makes this a bad movie. It was very B-movie to have them turn up on some villainous shit. We could've been good just with Burt being crazy, you know? But it's like I can see the machinations of the writer of this movie's mind, like, How are we going to ~reveal~ Burt's lies?, and then shit just got outta control lol. The daddy fucking his son's wife and them trying to get his crazy ass to sign some paper so some land could be released to them deal was a total thumbs down for me.
Also another thumbs down was Millicent basically being in an abusive relationship but the movie kind of glossing over that because Burt has a mental illness. How progressive but in like the wrongest way lol. IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN, Burt threw a goddamn typewriter on this bitch's typing hand!!!! AND ALSO DID HE NOT SLAP HER A BUNCH OF TIMES?!!?!?!?! Is this movie nuts?! HAS THIS MOVIE LOST ITS GODDAMN MIND?! Because lol!!!! Then we have Millicent showing up at the end AT THE GODDAMN LOONY BIN SHE HAD TO SEND HIM TO, TO FUCKING, LIKE, PATHETICALLY SAY GOODBYE TO HIM BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT HIS TREATMENT WOULD MAKE HIM NOT WANT TO BE WITH HER ANYMORE!! LIKE SHE WAS THE BAD SEED IN THEIR SHITTY ASS RELATIONSHIP LOL SMFFHFHFHFHFHFHFHFHFH
I hate this movie lowkey like it's honestly ugly. I just like hate...how they wrote for Joan's character. Why was she so thoroughly pathetic? Feeling like...almost like she didn't deserve Burt. Ha! She was ride or die for this crazy nigga, and I...sigh, I guess applaud Millicent for having her man's back or whatever while he going through a trying time, but the first time a nigga hit you, it's a wrap, yeah? Idc if he in some ~manic state~ or whatever you wanna call it, once their shit start spilling over and black-molding your ass, it's time to bounce. I'm not co-signing a gotdamn thing that happened...even before the slaps. The minute Vera showed up like lol anyway I'm his wife, it's a wrap, endgame. But golf clap for Millicent for being desperate and thirsty as fuck and the movie tryna make that seem noble. Like Millicent was out here looking like Elephant Man and should be grateful for her scraps. Bitch, Joan Crawford was on the board of Pepsi, and it wasn't her first time at the rodeo! Miss me!!
But anyway, what's up with this movie being called Autumn Leaves? Was...was it supposed to be autumn in the movie? I couldn't tell because it just looked like a studio backlot. *Autumn Leaves by Nat King Cole gears up over my sarcasm*
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