Susan Granger’s review of “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” (Paladin)
Discovering a new Tennessee Williams screenplay is a ‘find,’ even if it turns out to be only a minor work of the legendary Southern writer who died 1983. Apparently, it was written ‘on spec’ for director Elia Kazan in 1957 with hopes that Julie Harris would play the lead. That never happened, so the script was shelved until Memphis-born actress-turned-director Jodie Markell found it in an anthology of Williams’ works.
Set in Memphis in the 1920s, it revolves around an arrogant, sarcastic, impetuous heiress who loses a $5,000 teardrop diamond earring. At the insistence of her wealthy great-aunt Cornelia (Ann-Margret), Paris-educated Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard) has returned from Europe for the debutante season. To attend society parties, she needs an attractive escort to drive her yellow Pierce Arrow, so she gloms onto Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), the studly son of her father’s plantation caretaker; his father’s an alcoholic and his mother’s in an insane asylum but his grandfather was once Governor. And Fisher’s got her own problems. Not only did she have a nervous breakdown but her father recently dynamited a levee which flooded out and killed some downstream neighbors, so bad blood abounds. At a Halloween party hosted by a school chum (Mamie Gummer), where Jimmy flirts with an old flame (Jessica Collins), outspoken, rebellious Fisher bonds with elderly, bed-ridden Miss Addie (Ellen Burstyn), who was once an adventurer herself but was brought home after becoming addicted to opium in the Far East. And that’s where Fisher loses her aunt’s valuable earring.
While director Jodie Markell captures Southern Gothic atmosphere, particularly the capricious snobbery and class friction, she has little sense of scene development and cinematic pacing. As a side note, Bryce Dallas Howard’s father is director Ron Howard’s and Mamie Gummer’s mother is Meryl Streep, while Chris Evans’ claim to fame is as the Human Torch in the “Fantastic Four” franchise.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” is a sketchy, studied 6, geared to Tennessee Williams aficionados.
