Miramax Films
Screenplay: Mark Herman
Based upon the stage play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" by Jim Cartwright
Directed by Mark Herman
Starring: Michael Caine, Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Ewan McGregor, and Jane Horrocks as "Little Voice"
1998 was the Year of the Writer-Director, and Mark Herman's contribution, Little Voice, based upon Jim Cartwrights's play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" stands as one of the year's best.
Little Voice (or "LV" as she is usually called) earned her nickname because she hardly ever speaks, and when she does, it is in a whisper. Not so her mother Mari (Brenda Blethyn), who is a bellowing cow in heat who might have stepped out of a Monty Python sketch. Brassy, intimidating, and vulgar in the extreme, Mari has two main joys in life. She prowls for a man to replace her dead, mousy husband, and she tries to stay one step ahead of her neighbors, particularly her friend Sadie (Annette Badland), who is slightly more prosperous, but not nearly as commanding as Mari.
LV's response to this raging and bellowing is to hide in her room and sing along with the record collection which she inherited from her father. LV not only knows the lyrics, she also knows the inflections and gestures of her musical idols -- Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Bassey, and Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, LV's impersonations of her dead father's singing idols positively annoy Mari.
Mari becomes particularly annoyed when LV decides to sing when "gentlemen" are in her home, such as telephone installers George and Billy (Philip Jackson and Ewan McGregor). Mari becomes absolutely furious when any of her gentlemen callers take a fancy to her, only to have their flirting interrupted by LV and her records. It never occurs to Mari that LV herself might be found attractive by anyone (such as young Billy).
When Mari finally meets the man of her dreams, theatrical promoter Ray Say (Michael Caine), LV's singing interrupts their love-making and Mari explodes. It is then up to Ray to rebuild the bridge between mother and daughter; what he finds is a gold mine.
LV, after years of singing with her idols on records, can mimic them perfectly, and even speak and sing in "their voices" -- but only to the extent of their recorded performances. She cannot improvise or act spontaneously. LV is the night club act par excellence, but she is also emotionally crippled, a fact which neither Mari nor Ray Say view as an obstacle to their getting rich off LV's eerie ability.
Ray goes out on a financial limb to pay for what he promises LV will be only one performance at the local nightclub, run by hack comedian and master-of-ceremonies Mr. Boo (Jim Broadbent).
When the night of LV's performance arrives, she is a nervous wreck, and promptly fails miserably, singing random snatches of old songs to a jeering audience. LV's emotional problems have finally caught up with her -- she cannot perform unless she feels loved and secure, and only her dead father can provide her with the emotional security blanket she needs to perform in public.
Through coaxing, cajoling, pleading and threatening, Mari and Ray manage to persuade LV to give the performance which she had promised and failed to deliver. This time she finds her muse and wows the audience at Mr. Boo's, shifting effortlessly from one performer's voice and act to another's. LV becomes an instant sensation, and Ray Say's sleaziness and amorality, which had been showing every now and then, come to the fore -- he wants LV's talents (and the money that they will bring) for himself alone.
What no one had counted upon (except phone repairman Billy, who sees LV as a kindred spirit) is that LV cannot be forced to perform. She had promised one show, and one show is all she intends to give.
Recognizing that they stand to risk all of their own hopes and dreams if LV doesn't keep performing, most of the rest of the characters go for each other's throats, each trying to be the one person for whom LV will agree to perform again. Faster than you can say Treasure of Sierra Madre, their infighting causes disaster and the expropriators become expropriated.
Aside from Jane Horrock's uncanny ability to mimic LV's idols, there is nothing truly original in Little Voice -- we have seen it all before, in bits and pieces from other stories. To that degree Little Voice is no more original than last summer's Armageddon (or "Argh, My God! if you prefer), which ripped off plot points and characters from more than a dozen movies, by this reviewer's count. What separates a gem like Little Voice from a corprolite like Armageddon though, is craftsmanship and polish. Little Voice has it; Armageddon doesn't.
Yes, we've seen shrewish English widows before, but rarely have we seen them portrayed with such vividness and depth as Brenda Blethyn supplies Mari. Sleazy agents and "Industry" types are a dollar a dozen in Hollywood films, but few have ever achieved Michael Caine's level of persuasively greasy glamor as Ray Say. Fade-into-the-furniture friend characters? They are everywhere, but few can manage to upstage Oscar¨, Emmy¨, and Golden Globe winners and nominees such as Brenda Blethyn, Michael Caine, and Ewan McGregor just by being upstage of them, but Anette Badland, reprising her stage role as Mari's friend Sadie, does just that. And, of course, Jane Horrocks is wonderfully uncanny as Little Voice.
In any other hands, Little Voice's cast of theatrical, cinematic, and television giants would have been overwhelming, but writer-director Mark Herman masterfully blends the diverse talents of this amazing cast into a single, well-crafted gem of a movie. I give Little Voice my highest rating: W8 -- Worth $8.00.