PREVIEW FILM
COMEDY
Young at heart
After decades in the business, Goldie Hawn looks fresher and sexier than ever in her new movie, The First Wives Club. Hannah Fries hopes the actress will share the
secrets of the elixir of life.
Goldie Hawn is a knock-out. She's 50 and she looks 30. She swans about in blue shades and a fur coat and a skimpy top that keeps falling off her shoulders. She chats about Chinese medicine and meditation, waves her arms in the air and calls me ‘sweetie’. perfect in Absolutely Fabulous, except that Goldie isn’t acting. She‘s bubbly, bizarre and sexy for real. The actress is in town to promote her film The First Wives Club, in which she plays a middle-aged woman traded in for a younger model by her husband. Given Goldie Hawn’s apparent inability to ‘be her age’ either mentally or physically, one wonders if she
actually fears being left on the shelf.
‘I know, isn’t it weird!’ she shrieks at the suggestion that she isn’t growing any older. ‘My daddy always looked like a kid, so i come from good stock. And l’m a comedy actress, which has longevity. it's not like l’mjust playing the sex card. But it’s true that our society is youth obsessed, and the real culprit isn‘t Hollywood — it’s advertising. it’s all these fifteen-year-old models who say “use this wrinkle cream". and you go “Jesus Christ, this kid isn’t
She’d be
going to see a wrinkle for twenty years!” It penetrates society, and it penetrates the psyches of men and women as to what is acceptable.’
The First Wives Club is a comedy about revenge in which ex-husbands are rats and roads and deserve everything they get. lvana Trump has a cameo and utters the immortal line: ‘Don’t get mad, get everything.’ Most people will presumably be capable of enjoying the joke, although some tragically insecure Americans have protested about the film.
‘The movie really did hit some chords out there,’ says Hawn. ‘There are a lot of women who feel scorned and powerless. And I think the film
‘My daddy always looked like a kid, so I come irom good stock. And l’m a comedy actress, which has longevity. it’s not like
I’m lust playing the sex card.’
symbolises what is true about men and women and relationships, and how hard it is to grow old and still feel like you're sexually desirable.’
it’s all hypothetical to Hawn these days, however. Twice divorced, she now lives with her long-term partner, actor Kurt Russell, and she asserts total confidence in their partnership. ‘My relationship has worked because i don’t put demands on Kurt, except to be responsible and to be my friend and to be the man of my fantasy. Kurt and l have a real mutual respect for each other’s values and quests and privacy. I don’t always ask him what he does. I don’t want to know. i think it’s more interesting not to I. know. I don’t even demand that he doesn’t cheat. ldo ‘ know that if he has a moment when that little dress goes up and he goes "oh", then he just doesn’t tell me — and the same goes for me. I wouldn’t want to be with a man who didn’t look at other women.’
And then Goldie Hawn, foxy Hollywood babe, picks up four packs of Marlboro Lights and wiggles down the hall to get ready for a party. Whatever happened to the menopause?
The First Wives Club goes on general release on Fri 15 Nov and is reviewed on page 28..
Family truths
He’s already been showered with awards in llong Kong and Taiwan, but it’s taken his eighth ieature to bring ilong Kong writerdirector Vim Ilo to the widest international exposure oi his career.
‘ The Day The Sun Filmed cold has been sold to over 30 countries. It’s been bought by lsrael, Mexico, iran and all sorts oi places where you wouldn’t really expect a illm about Chinese society to iind an audience,’ reilects the 46-year-old graduate oi the london International Film School and iormer iiong Kong television stalwart. ‘I guess the sublect matter just has some sort oi universal appeal. After all, every living thing on this earth has a mother.’
Vim heard about the real-lite case
The Day ‘ihe Sun Turned Cold: Oscar nomination
on which the iilm is based - where a son tried to prove that his mother had poisoned his iather some ten years previously - irom iellow liong Kong moviemaker Ann ilui, and quickly rose to the challenge oi transiorrning a bare outline into a iully-rounded screenplay.
‘What I had to bring in was some understanding oi the motivation that brought an ordinary person to the depths oi tragedy,’ he explains. ‘I had to write in the motivation, so I asked myseli whether a son would turn against his mother out oi love or out oi hate. I came to the conclusion that he did it out oi a deep sense oi loss aiter his mother was taken away irom him by another man. As he then grew up, he eventually iound himseii in a position to do something about it, even ii the only way to get his mother back was to start suing her.’
that the actual son involved in the case (now a lieutenant in the Chinese
army) sat beside Ylm and cried when he saw the illm is vindication enough ior the director that his reading at the situation was a sensitive one. the illm’s Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category notwithstanding, it also marked ior its maker a newiound sense at purpose in a career oiten drawn between the commercial demands oi the liong Kong cinema and his own, not always complementary, instincts. ‘Fllmmaking’s a mind gne,’ he says,withtheairoionewhoknows. ‘ii you’re more mature up here, then you’ll make more mature movies. in my previous illms the tone has been very extravagant, but here the approach is better controlled, more oblective. It leaves the audience to come to their own conclusion.’ (Trevor Johnston) The Day The Sun hinted cold opens at the Fllmhouse, Edinburgh on Fri 15 Nov.
The List 15-28 Nov 1996 21