Blu-Ray Review: ‘The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond’ Revives Lost Play

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CHICAGO – Ever since Tommy Wiseau declared that his masterpiece of ineptitude, “The Room,” was “filmed with the passion of Tennessee Williams,” I’ve become considerably more weary of any film that makes such an inflated claim. Of course, “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” has a better defense, since it’s actually the adaptation of a long-forgotten work from the legendary playwright.

Watching the film is a curious experience, suggesting how a mediocre revival of a classic play would look on Broadway, with big-name stars straining to make archaic dialogue sound fresh and naturalistic. Actor-turned-director Jodie Markell respects her source material to such a degree that she seems blind to its inherent shortcomings. The play is hardly worth comparing to an essential masterwork like “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” though it’s easy to imagine Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in the lead roles, which are colorless amalgams of countless more interesting and memorable characters from Williams’s oeuvre.

Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

Bryce Dallas Howard stars as Fisher Willow, a spoiled would-be socialite whose attempts to blend into the upper-crust society of Memphis cause her to stick out like a sore thumb. When viewed from the right angle, Fisher resembles a Southern goth girl, with her pale face, dark eyes, and vaguely moody complexion. She yearns to be a part of the artistic culture in Paris, and has a tendency to hammer out operatic piano solos while under emotional duress. As she prepares to debut at a series of high-profile parties, Fisher hires handsome farm boy Jimmy (Chris Evans, the future Captain America) as her escort. The sexual tension between the couple is decidedly one-sided, since Jimmy is one of those pained, ambivalent straight-arrows who hardly has the will to give a damn about matters of romance, until he’s called forth to speechify.

Conflict arises when Fisher loses one of her $5,000 earrings at a party, and in a forced misunderstanding, leads Jimmy to believe he’s being blamed for theft. While Fisher is consoled by her friend Julie (Mamie Gummer), Jimmy finds himself drawn into the arms of Julie’s cousin Vinnie (regrettably not played by Joe Pesci). The best scenes in the picture involve Fisher’s encounter with Julie’s ailing Aunt Addie (Ellen Burstyn), who wishes to bring her agony to an end, and recruits her niece’s friend to carry out her final request.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on Sept. 7, 2010.
Photo credit: Screen Media Films

Slowly buy surely, Howard is establishing herself as rather promising, versatile actress, after being used as a human prop by M. Night Shyamalan. As Fisher, she initially appears out of her element, enunciating words with such precise diction that they sound memorized rather than internalized. Yet Howard grows more compelling as the film progresses, injecting thoughtful pathos into lines that carry a recognizable Williams touch, such as, “I don’t like people, but sometimes I like one person.” Evans does a surprisingly decent job with his frustratingly underwritten role, while Jessica Collins resembles a young Joan Allen as the quietly vengeful Vinnie.

Yet despite the efforts of a first-rate crew, including the gifted cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, the film never rises above the level of an average “Masterpiece Theater” installment, complete with self-consciously theatrical lighting and claustrophobic staging. The story itself is of very little consequence, and the film’s final scene is so jarringly unsatisfying, it’s as if Markell misplaced the last few pages of the late playwright’s script. Yet what nearly saves the film is Burstyn’s marvelous third-act performance. While her co-stars struggle to hit their notes, Burstyn has clearly mastered the music of Williams’s words, and their tangled layers of wit, truth, sorrow and biting observation. The play may not be a diamond in the rough, but Burstyn, like Williams, is a national treasure.

“The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” is presented in 1080p High Definition (with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio), and includes a few lackluster extras, the best of which is a 13-minute interview with the director, who clearly feels a personal connection to Williams’s work. She says that his plays spoke to her as a girl, since they focused on characters whose creativity led them to feel out of place in their uptight societies. The play was said to have relieved Williams of his writer’s block in the late ’50s, though not much else is known of the playwright’s opinion about this unproduced work. The anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio was meant to evoke the look of ’50s melodramas, while Mark Orton’s subdued score was careful not to compete with the melodic rhythms of Williams’s language.

The disc’s 12-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, “Tennessee Comes Home,” is particularly weak, consisting of aimless footage and random observations (none of which involve Tennessee). Co-production designer David Stein briefly discusses his collaboration with the great Richard Hoover (“Twin Peaks”), and admits that many of the film’s Louisiana locations barely had to be altered to fit the period. There’s one fairly revealing moment when Evans, looking like a jock trying out for drama club, bursts out laughing while running lines with Howard (it makes one wonder how often he was suppressing a giggle when the cameras were rolling). Two super-brief deleted scenes call into question the degree to which the original Williams script was tampered with for this big-screen adaptation, since they both contain a lighter and funnier tone that’s largely absent throughout the final cut.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com