Stella

Short Cast List

Bette Midler	Stella Claire
John Goodman	Ed Munn
Trini Alvarado	Jenny Claire
Stephen Collins	Stephen Dallas
Marsha Mason	Janice Morrison
Eileen Brennan	Mrs. Wilkerson
Charles W. Gray	PTA Parent
Linda Hart	Debbie Whitman
Ben Stiller	Jim Uptegrove
William McNamara	Pat Robbins
John Bell	Bob Morrison
Ashley Peldon	Jenny (age 3)
Alisan Porter	Jenny (age 8)
Kenneth Kimmins	Security Guard
Bob Gerchen	Bartender
Willie Rosario	Dancing Waiter
Rex Robbins	Minister
Ron White	Tony De Banza
Matthew Cowles	Sid
Justin Louis	Cocaine Dealer

Reviews

From bathhouse chanteuse to Lemon Joy diva, from self-proclaimed queen of camp, sass and tactlessness to goddess of suds, sap and pap -- yes, you have come a long way, Baby Divine. Gone is the Bette Midler of "Clams on the Half Shell" and "Ruthless People," the better Midler, and in her place is this new middling piddler.

In "Stella," the second remake of a 1925 weepie, Midler makes her second bow as a big-screen sob sister. Last year she was at least brassy in "Beaches," a three-hankie Ivory Soap sudser that saw singer Midler adopt the daughter of dead pal Barbara Hershey. "Stella," which finds Midler single-mothering again, is basically "Beaches" without Hershey and the salt water. This insipid suck-face-athon provokes the gag reflex.

As Stella Claire, Midler evokes about as much sympathy as Mommie Dearest. She doesn't use a coat hanger on her daughter, Jenny (Trini Alvarado), the product of an affair with impossibly affable urologist Stephen Dallas (Stephen Collins); she just smothers her with selfless love. Midler imagines she's microwaving our cockles, but Stella comes off as a greedy, spiteful wretch who sacrifices Jenny's needs to her own wrongheaded principles.

She's too stubborn to accept child support from Dr. Dallas, who is more than eager to provide a better life for Stella and his daughter, and insists on raising Jenny in the squalor to which she is herself accustomed. "Let's mix some oil and water. Good idea," she sneers when dear, dear Dr. Dallas offers to marry her. This oil-and-water theme persists throughout the melodrama; once screenwriter Robert Getchell hits upon the motivation, he feels obliged to reiterate it. "When you mix oil and water," says Dallas to his daughter, "You mix and mix and mix and mix and you've still got oil and water." The dialogue sounds like a recipe for safe salad dressing.

Dallas is a classy guy -- to whom the heroine was wed in the 1925 and 1937 versions -- and Stella is one step up from a bag lady. But in an effort to liberate the 65-year-old hankie dampener -- and so dilute its impact -- she has been changed to a struggling single mother who sews Jenny's party dresses with her own hands after a hard day of hustling cheap cosmetics to suburbanites. "I love you, Jenny," she says, biting a thread. And Jenny, who would rather go live with her rich father and his perfect fiancee, Janice (Marsha Mason), in a big fine house, says, "I love you too, Mom." Dad prefers, "You are loved." The plot positively overflows with sophomoric sentiment, a veritable bubble bathos of vapid remonstrances and melodramatic posturing. Even Oprah's audiences are far too sophisticated for this preposterous goo.

Let's face it. Stella is an insensitive slattern who repeatedly humiliates her daughter with her Harper Valley PTA act. When nobody comes to her Sweet Sixteen party after her mother is arrested in a barroom brawl, Jenny takes up with the wrong crowd. Now Stella must give up the daughter she adores to assure her a better life with her father. She doesn't just say, "Look kid, you'd be better off with your father. But we'll spend lots of time together too." That way, she wouldn't get to be a sniveling martyr.

No, she pretends to drive the girl away so that she can at long last marry crude souse Ed Munn (John "I Just Can't Keep My Pants Hitched Up" Goodman). Jenny goes off to Dad's Manhattan digs to meet and marry a kindly preppie at Tavern on the Green. Outside, a blond hag in a plastic rain bonnet -- Stella -- smiles beatifically through her tears. Sniff and scratch.

Midler seems on the verge of breaking into song but never does, though she mimes a jokey striptease for a roughhouse audience in a Watertown bar, a scene that unfortunately recalls the prelude to the rape in "The Accused." After the dance, the good-looking Dr. Dallas, the sort of guy who tosses around adjectives like "puerile," begs the lantern-jawed Stella to go out with him. He chooses a night of German operetta. Why would he give this witch the time of day, much less the chance to hear a yodeling Valkyrie?

The elegant Alvarado seems to the manner born but looks a lot like the milkman. She and some of the bit players offer the film's only tolerable performances. Collins is as persuasive as a Gillette stubble stroker, and Goodman is without his usual lumpen luster. He manages to be thud dull under the guidance -- as are they all -- of John Erman, the Emmy Award-winning director of television melodramas such as "An Early Frost" and "Who Will Love My Children." Once a classic take on class struggle, "Stella" has become a cringing mummy's tale. It's a jeer-jerker.

Rita Kempley, The Washington Post

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