"Now, Voyager" is preposterous but entertaining.
Beleaguered frump Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) traipses off to a sanitarium and in a few weeks she's transformed bodily and socially into well... "Bette Davis; Warner Bros star!" But there she is... a person with a supportive upbringing isn't as poised or as verbally deft as she is after her short retreat; It'll make you long for a lifetime of parental terror followed by a few days of elocution lessons. Anyone with Charlotte's debilitated will (so late into adulthood) will take longer than a week away from mom to repair. We're talking a decade or two; but hey, that's unfilmable. The first two thirds of this is pretty good stuff. The payoff comes when Davis, (never softer than here) returns home to her awful dowager-mother who's determined to destroy her new confidence. Will Charlotte succumb? Well... the movie cleverly delays the gambit, but happily, No! Davis uses her new polish to Oh-so-politely twist the knife into Mom and her overbearing plans.
Unfortunately, the ending is pants! After a time, Charlotte returns to the sanitarium, and just happens to meet a girl much like her former self (mousy, dejected, self-loathing) who just happens to turn out to be her unrequited love's daughter. Golly, what luck for the sentiment our film-makers were hoping to wring. The last third of the movie is belabored, unsubtle ham, with that (the worst coincidence ever filmed), a truly dreadful over the top performance by the much too old, much too intense gal playing Tina, and the most squealingly icky sub-plot, in which Tina (a frightening head case) develops a way-too intense crush on Charlotte that we're meant to find uplifting but, 60 years on, is creepy beyond belief. It's taken through some absurd convolutions and eats up at least 45 minutes of running time. It does NOT belong in this movie. Rarely since, has 2/3rds of a decent movie, ever been sandbagged by its own ludicrous 4th act.
Beleaguered frump Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) traipses off to a sanitarium and in a few weeks she's transformed bodily and socially into well... "Bette Davis; Warner Bros star!" But there she is... a person with a supportive upbringing isn't as poised or as verbally deft as she is after her short retreat; It'll make you long for a lifetime of parental terror followed by a few days of elocution lessons. Anyone with Charlotte's debilitated will (so late into adulthood) will take longer than a week away from mom to repair. We're talking a decade or two; but hey, that's unfilmable. The first two thirds of this is pretty good stuff. The payoff comes when Davis, (never softer than here) returns home to her awful dowager-mother who's determined to destroy her new confidence. Will Charlotte succumb? Well... the movie cleverly delays the gambit, but happily, No! Davis uses her new polish to Oh-so-politely twist the knife into Mom and her overbearing plans.
Unfortunately, the ending is pants! After a time, Charlotte returns to the sanitarium, and just happens to meet a girl much like her former self (mousy, dejected, self-loathing) who just happens to turn out to be her unrequited love's daughter. Golly, what luck for the sentiment our film-makers were hoping to wring. The last third of the movie is belabored, unsubtle ham, with that (the worst coincidence ever filmed), a truly dreadful over the top performance by the much too old, much too intense gal playing Tina, and the most squealingly icky sub-plot, in which Tina (a frightening head case) develops a way-too intense crush on Charlotte that we're meant to find uplifting but, 60 years on, is creepy beyond belief. It's taken through some absurd convolutions and eats up at least 45 minutes of running time. It does NOT belong in this movie. Rarely since, has 2/3rds of a decent movie, ever been sandbagged by its own ludicrous 4th act.