Clara's Heart

Clara's Heart
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Mulligan
Produced by	Martin Elfand
Screenplay by	Mark Medoff
Based on	Clara's Heart by Joseph Olshan
Starring	Whoopi Goldberg Michael Ontkean Kathleen Quinlan Neil Patrick Harris Spalding Gray
Music by	Dave Grusin
Cinematography	Freddie Francis
Editing by	Sidney Levin
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	October 7, 1988
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$5,194,491 (domestic)[1]

Clara's Heart is a 1988 American film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Kathleen Quinlan and Michael Ontkean. It was directed by Robert Mulligan and written by Mark Medoff, based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Joseph Olshan.

Plot

The movie tells the story of a family in crisis. The mother, Leona (Quinlan), escapes to Jamaica to grieve the loss of her baby daughter. While there she meets kindly housekeeper Clara Mayfield (played by Goldberg). Clara pulls Leona out of her depression with a blunt, no-nonsense style. Leona is so taken with her that she brings Clara back to their home in Baltimore to be housekeeper and nanny to young son David, played by Neil Patrick Harris. At first he is resistant and sees her as an intruder, but as the parents are completely wrapped up in their own grief and dissolving marriage, David comes to trust Clara and to depend on her. Clara harbors her own dark secret, which when revealed, serves to firm the bond between these two very different, but loving, characters.

Production

Clara's Heart marked a return to the director's chair for industry veteran Robert Mulligan, who had not made a film in 8 years after the critical and commercial failure of Kiss Me Goodbye. Film editor Sid Levin describes Mulligan as being "a bit aloof" during their first meeting but coming across as "a caring, sensitive, decent man." Mulligan was tense during the shooting period, however, and grew angry when Levin expressed his concerns over the scenes involving actor Spalding Gray. Not until principal photography was finished was Mulligan willing to discuss alternative ideas with Levin in the editing room. They wound up finding common ground over one of the crucial scenes towards the end of the film, in which Clara confesses to David the truth about her son. When Mulligan realized that actress Whoopi Goldberg had improvised the sequence too negatively, Levin was able to edit the sequence in such a way to make it feel less dark.^[2]

Reception

The film had a chilly reception with critics. Roger Ebert, In a 1 1/2-star review for the Chicago Sun Times, praised Whoopi Goldberg's performance but panned the movie, writing, "Goldberg is magnificent. The character belongs in a different movie, even a different universe, from the rest of the ludicrous plot."^[3] Recent praise for the film has appeared in an online article by film professor Robert Keser, who writes, "Almost two decades after the release of Clara’s Heart, the film looks dated only in its virtues. As commercial cinema, it represents a classical control and modulation of storytelling, spinning its emotional threads patiently with no hammering close-ups and little pandering to the decoratively picturesque. Equally, the film seems sweetly unconscious of consumer culture that seeks to define us by acquisition and consumption: no brand names are touted, no recreational shopping montages display products to suggest meaning."^[4]

References

1. ^ "Clara's Heart (1988) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=clarasheart.htm. Retrieved 6 August 2011. 
2. ^ http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue11/clara2.html
3. ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19881021/REVIEWS/810210302
4. ^ http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue11/clara.html

External links

• Clara's Heart at the Internet Movie Database