Mrs. Harris

Great character study, and it shows the lovely Ms. Bening at her best
Mrs. Harris is a film that has severely divided audiences and critics. There are those who have absolutely hated this film, which is based on a true story of the tragic death of Dr. Herman Tarnower (Ben Kingsley) - the Scarsdale Diet Doctor - supposedly by the gun of Jean Harris (Annette Bening). The murder and the proceeding trial was scandalous, after all, it had everything - sex, drugs, abuse, suicides all played out amongst the stuffy and wealthy Connecticut aristocracy.

This film, made for HBO takes a rather moribund look at the events with the director Phyllis Nagy inserting some dark, almost off beat humor into the proceedings. The movie jumps around a bit, combining statements from the trial and interviews with friends and family to launch into the retelling of events that lead up to that fatal outcome.

Was it murder or accidental death? The film opens with the drugged out Jean turning up to Tarnower's house one stormy night and shooting him, but was it...

Great rendition of a twisted tale
Since "what happens" is already known, this movie focuses on "how" it happened, via a series of mocumentry interviews, fantasy scenes,(one in a men's locker room is superb), and fashbacks. Some excellent scriptwriting ("Jean you really should be maried. Just not to me.") and even better acting especially by Ben Kingsley who plays the Scarsdale Diet author, and Annette Bening, who is superb as Mrs. Jean Harris. Bening is one of the best actresses I've seen who can dive into the role of an ambitious frump (think Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", with a less viscious dialogue, served at a lower room termperature) and emerge with a gem of a performance.

Courtroom drama that's not...
A courtroom drama that doesn't unfold in the courtroom at all. It is told through a story line with two different views on what happened that fateful night. It'll make you wonder what really took place.

Fine, fine performance by Annette Bening. Has she ever made a bad movie?Ben Kingsley usually always does well in his roles too (see the powerful movie 'House of Sand and Fog' or 'Death and the Maiden').

A well recommended movie.

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