"As Gloria, that fine little actress, Jane Fonda, graduates into a fine big actress. If there is one thing wrong with the performance, it is the vestige of a Vassar accent; other than that, it is solid, untricky acting, squeezing all the juice out of the part but not churning up its rind. What impressed me most is that I did not really recognize Miss Fonda--and I don't mean the frizzed hair and other tricks of make-up, good as they are. I mean that the actress here gives an antipodal performance: there is none of the glitter, kittenish, or jollity that have been her specialties in the past. But even her hardness has (unlike in Spirits of the Dead) a lining of humanity, and there is something about her very toughness that repeatedly moves us. and there are even fortuitous benefits: Miss Fonda has fascinatingly long, spatulate fingers--hands that are bony and poignant without being aristocratic or beautiful. They show up splendidly in the two-shots on her partner's shoulders and appear to be the hands of both Death and the Maiden."
John Simon, National Review ?, January 1970
reprinted in Movies Into Film, p. 84
1 comment:
John Simon didn't begin writing for the National Review till the late 70's. I am not sure who he was writing for at the time of his review. New York magazine maybe.
Post a Comment