Thoughts on Used People

    On Tubi over the weekend, I watched Used People, a 1992 movie directed by the British politician and director Beeban Tania Kidron (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar) starring Shirley MacLaine as a Queens Jewish widow named Pearl Berman in 1969 whose husband had just died after 37 years of marriage, and an old Italian man (Marcelo Mastroianni) named Joe, who had briefly met her husband in 1946 when he was at a crossroads in his life, shows up to ask her to coffee and to court her.

    Pearl’s daughters Bibby and Norma (Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden) are each divorced, and Bibby struggles with being treated as a homely smelly weirdo by her mother and the community, being undermined by her mother constantly, while Norma, whose baby died three years prior and is struggling with grief from the loss of her child and marriage, dresses up as famous movie stars, like Marilyn Monroe and Faye Dunaway, to feel glamorous to get out of bed.

    I liked this movie, it was often centered on the women in the family, and focused on how judgmental and gossipy a lot of the local community could be, including two nosy old women in their family, played by Jessica Tandy and Sylvia Sidney, who were some of my favorites in the movie. And the title is a commentary on how women back then who were widowed or divorced and older than being youthful types were seen as “used goods,” in a sexist, old hag kind of way.

    I liked how it was about finding love late in life, fearing getting re-married to possibly being hurt by being widowed again, and how both daughters were hurt by the trauma their mother inflicted on them, while Pearl refused to take any real accountability for her actions, and how the trauma and grief affects her grandson, who thinks his grandpa’s ghost will keep him from any bodily harm, testing his luck with dangerous stunts.

    I’m glad I came across this, it was definitely the kind of movie about old people that I like.