Four years after a mysterious and ambivolent relationship towards The Grifters I have finally come to see what lies beneath its facade of Cusack and Houston. I don't remember what circumstances compelled me to purchase it, but I did and it had remained idly unwatched in my enormous disc hefter for the past four years; until Friday night.
Pulp. The kind that gags you with unneccessary nomial references in conversation. Let me give you an example of the dialogue:
Roy (John Cusack): Come on in, Lilly. Hi, Lilly.
Lilly (Angelica Houston): Roy. Long time no see
Roy: Eight years Lilly. I'm just making some coffee. Youwant some? Just instant.
Lilly: It'd be nice, Roy.
Roy:Come on,sit down, Lilly.
Lilly: Got a great view, Roy.
Roy: Glad to see ya, Lilly.
The short version: Lilly wanders around a race track, gets a call to do a job in California. She meets up with Roy an ambiguous lover/son? of hers. He obviously hates her. He is seeing Myra (Annette Benning), also a grifter, who wants him as her partner. Things go wrong, people are burned, shot, and jugulars are impaled with broken glass. The end.
The long version: The characters depth goes as far as their names. They are only names on a page. They aren't real people with feelings and motivations. They are badly rendered pulp cutouts. The opening scene is enough to establish Roy as a petty con man and that he lives, more or less, comfortably in an LA apartment. We meet Myra, a tacky, trophy wife-ish demeanor that
is the lust object of our protagonist. She is ditzy and a bit sketchy but overall inconsequential. When Lilly is sent to LA on a job for Bobo she makes her way to Roy's apartment. She introduces herself to the front desk as Roy's mother, a reference that is carried heavily throughout the plot. He is disenchanted by her visit which leads to a trip to the hospital and a confrontation of the two women. Lilly is obviously jealous but must keep up her motherly role and Myra begins to see that there is more going on. Eventually Myra owns up to being a con and tries including Roy in forays. She wants him in on a long con and he's a long con man. Meanwhile, Lilly visits Bobo who puts a cigar out on her hand and threatens to beat her with a towel full of oranges, probably because he knows she's been stealing from him. *Spoiler* In the end, Myra tries to strangle Lilly, but Lilly shoots her in the face and fakes her own death. She then tries to steal Roys money, but he finds her and then she hits him in the head with a breifcase while he's drinking a glass of water and the broken glass rams itself into his jugular. Myra= dead. Roy=dead. Lilly=off with Roy's money. Me= that movie was terrible
