"Awesome Alice"

"Alice in Wonderland" has earned almost a billion dollars! It is the highest grossing film of the year (as of May 2nd) and the 17th highest of all time. And, it is not only female-driven, but feminist to boot. Which only adds fuel to what I have asserted for years: feminist fare is marketable. Or, more alliteratively, feminist fare is a financial force not to be frittered away...

I mention this, not because marketability is what matters most to me, but because it is at the top of the list for the executives in charge of making (big studio) movies. I repeat the message twice, not because I like to fool around with consonants, but, because, in one maddening respect, suits with the power to greenlight, remind me of my daughter. They all seem to require endless repetition. I may have reminded my daughter to do something two thousand times, but, somehow, the very next day, she manages to forget, once more. (And she acts surprised that the reminder is coming, yet again!) So it is with the guys on top. Saying it once is never enough. They need reminding over and over that films like "Alice" are profitable, before they get made as a matter of course. Curiouser and curiouser.

The current movie version of "Alice" (based on the novels, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and "Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll) is adapted by Linda Woolverton (a credited writer on "Mulan," another surprisingly feminist Disney film). I saw "Alice" in 2D and in 3D and both times found little to quibble with script-wise. Woolverton's adaptation kept the tone and spirit of Carroll's old-fashioned tales, while embracing modern values, when needed. For example, the slayer of the beast in Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky," written in 1872, was decidedly male. In Woolverton's version, the slaying is appropriately accomplished by Alice, the movie's hero.

In fact, I'd go so far as to venture that the movie was a success because Woolverton created a more empowered protagonist. And audiences of all four quadrants --young and old, male and female-- seem to agree. Parents with sons as well as daughters (a rare phenomenon in films with female main characters) twenty somethings on dates, and people of all permutations of gender and age have flocked to and loved "Alice. "

Although I was initially skeptical about Alice as a 19-year-old rather than a child, I believe this change (and others) improved upon the orginial 19th century stories.

In the current version, directed by Tim Burton, the movie begins with Alice (played formidably by Mia Wasikowska) about to be married against her will. Early on, we see her mother carting Alice off to her own engagement party, an engagement Alice knows nothing about. A bit of the heroine's feistiness is foreshadowed when, on the carriage ride over, Alice refuses to wear a corset (much to her mother's horror).

Just before she is proposed to, Alice experiences a glimpse of the compromises and hypocrisies of the adult world. Her older sister counsels her to accept the proposal so that she will be "as happily married as she" and quickly, before her beauty fades. A few minutes later, Alice encounters her sister's husband snogging another woman in the garden. Alice's would-be groom is not unlike a squashed cabbage -- dull, averse to anything quirky or imaginary, suffering from a number of digestive ailments -- in short, already a stodgy old soul in a young person's body.

What to do? With this permanently life-altering proposition thickening the air, Alice makes a most sensible decision. She take five minutes to think it over. Fortunately for her, during this interlude, she finds and pursues a white rabbit in a blue waist-coat, and winds up falling down a very deep hole into Wonderland. Or, as we later learn, it is really (and more aptly) called, "Underland."

While in Underland, Alice gradually realizes that the dreams that have haunted her for as long as she can recall, were actually memories of her earlier voyage below, more than ten years before. All the people and creatures who knew her then are shocked to witness the change that has befallen her with her transition from child to teenager (something to which many parents can, no doubt, relate). Echoing a common trend described in late 20th century literature (see Peggy Orenstein's 1994 tome, "School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap"), the vibrant, plucky girl they remembered has lost her "muchness."

When the Mad Hatter (played by the inimitable Johnny Depp) informs Alice that she must don armor and slay the fire-spewing jabberwocky with a vorpal blade --she politely declines. The Red Queen (played by the sumptuous Helena Bonham Carter with a bulbous and over-inflated head) may be the cruelest of despots, but Alice is unwilling to kill anything, no matter whose lives are at stake. Unaquainted with post-feminist theories about life's cruel massacring of girls' innate spiritedness -- the creatures of Underland are perplexed and then, impatient. It is foretold in the Oraculum that Alice becomes their champion, and with her bravery in battle, liberates the land from the reign of Red. Why doesn't Alice get with the program?

"Alice," may evoke fond memories of Chesire cats with disappearing smiles and blue caterpillars smoking hookahs, but what it's really about is tyranny. Tyranny by unrestrained political rulers and tyranny by unchecked gender constraints. In this movie, the need to overthrow both types aligns. The creatures rebelling against the Red Queen need Alice to cast off the shackles of mind and society to regain her self-confidence, so she can take up arms against the taloned beast. In an awe-inspiring scene: Alice does just that. She reclaims her courage (and identity) by recounting a number of impossible things that happen each day.

Why not become a champion too?

Happily, when Alice returns to the "real" world above (weeks have passed in Underland but in England, only five minutes-- a concept that has proved endlessly fascinating to my daughter, who has seen the movie 3 times!), her transformation travels with her. Although severely limited by the options available to women in Victorian society, Alice has just made mincemeat of the jabberwocky and is no longer to be trifled with. She declines the offer of marriage. She warns her brother-in-law that he'd better shape up or have to reckon with her. And, to the father of her almost-groom, Alice makes a business proposal he cannot refuse. The movie ends with Alice embarking on a sea-faring voyage as explorer and apprentice -- destined for a life above-ground, as richly adventurous as the one below.

DAMAGED GOODS.

The third season of Damages, the FX drama about high-powered lawyers, starring Glen Close and Rose Byrne, came to an end this April. It is unclear whether this will be the series finale as well.

Although I initially loved the show, it's characters and premise, I came to like it less over time. I was particularly disppointed by the final episode. It's almost as if the writers forgot what was most compelling: the complexity and power of Patty Hewes (Glen Close) and her relationship with her young, mentee, Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne). By the conclusion, Hewes is reduced to an evil character --no shades of gray-- in the most misogynistic manner.

Briefly, I recap.

From the get-go, Patty Hewes is a powerful, successful, formidable and rightfully feared attorney at the top of her game. She takes on large class action lawsuits to fight for the little guys -- men and women by the hundreds who are screwed by seemingly impenetrable companies run by murderous, corrupt, but untouchable men.

Into her life comes a brilliant, ambitious, young associate, Ellen Parsons, eager to learn at the feet of the master. As the episodes unfold, Ellen becomes increasingly beholden to and disillusioned by her mentor. Patty is fascinating but incredibly flawed -- she advises Ellen to assuage her fiance's ego at her own expense, as she does her husband's -- or she will lose him. (Later on, Patty loses her husband, a philanderer, anyway. Perhaps her advice to Ellen was less than sound.) Patty's relationship with her son is among the most atrocious depicted on TV. She relies on questionably legal tactics to win cases -- the question always lingering: do the ends justify the means?

We are never exactly sure who Patty Hewes is, other than the show's chief asset --atypical, never a floundering victim, always five steps ahead of everyone else. She may have routinely broken the law but she could be extremely loyal. And most important, she had what it took to deliver justice to the hundreds of people damaged by her unscrupulous opponents. From time to time, it was also hinted, that she harbored a terrible heart-ache -- but this was only revealed in the last episode.

Ellen's alacrity and growing ability to match Patty's wily ways is fascinating to witness. We never knew whether Ellen is upright or corrupt, ultimately on Patty's side or plotting against her.

But, inexplicably, in the final episode, Patty's entire life and career are abjectly condemned, in black and white, unambiguous terms. Gone is the nuance -- her fortitude side by side with her compromises. In the opinion of the show's creators, Patty is by far the most atrocious monster imaginable. What could be worse, you might wonder, than her malevolent opponents -- men who knowingly poisoned the water of entire communities -- murdering children for profit? Or Lewis Tobin (a stand-in for Bernie Madoff) who destroyed the lives of millions of middle-class people. Or Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) who had Ellen's fiance murdered in a particularly cold-blooded and brutal way?

What did Patty do to earn first place in the Monster's Hall of Fame? When she was 19 or 20, with her whole life ahead of her, she went for a walk against her doctor's orders. Her advanced pregnancy miscarried. Patty left it all behind and went to the big city toward her future.

Ellen asks Patty, in the final moments of the show, if it was all worth it.
Patty's response? Silence.
The summation of this woman's exceptional life reduced to one thing only: unborn baby-killer.
The unflappable, unsinkable lawyer -- after a lifetime of defending others, unwilling or unable to defend herself.

If ever there were evidence of a double standard, this is it.

Had I known at the outset where the show was heading, I would never have tuned in.

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by LAURA WEINSTOCK of WEINSTOCK SCRIPTS
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