At the time the story opens, the grown daughter of one Ya-Ya — Bullock as New York-based playwright Sidda Lee Walker — has given an impolitic interview to Time magazine, describing her mom, Vivi (Burstyn), in terms better suited to “Mommie Dearest” than a Mother’s Day card.
The quotes drive a cruel wedge between the Walkers, threatening Sidda’s oft-canceled, seven-year betrothal to endlessly patient swain Connor (Angus Macfadyen). To rescue the situation, Vivi’s fellow Ya-Yas (Fionnula Flanagan as rich Teensy, Shirley Knight as quiet Necie and Maggie Smith as oxygen-tank-toting Caro) drug and kidnap Sidda, carry her back to Louisiana and educate her in the meaning of her past, complete with flashbacks.
Not to give too much away, Vivi was a colorful, brave, tormented lady (played by Caitlin Wachs as a child and Ashley Judd as a young woman) who led a disappointing life, despite her marriage to another endlessly patient Shep (James Garner), and, one dark night, committed the act that alienated Sidda and mystifies us.
The movie thrives on classic American archetypes, the damaged Southern belle and her eccentric friends, boozy writers, and serial confessions. It’s a likable movie with a great cast, and for about a half-hour or so, I was in its corner. Not too many big-studio pictures try to give us as big and as flavorsome a chunk of American reality as this one does — and not many crowd their landscapes with such wonderful casts and sparkly productions.
But “Divine Secrets” begins to lose its grip about halfway through, and it winds up closer to a second-string “Steel Magnolias” or “Fried Green Tomatoes” than anything by Tennessee Williams or Welty.
Part of the problem may simply be that Khouri has picked a project for her debut that’s too big and has too many pitfalls — not the least of which is its fractured, flashback-strewn structure and complex mix of tragedy and comedy. The cast, for the most part, can handle it: Judd is quite fine, Bullock quite appealing, and (despite their non-Southern origins) Flanagan and Smith are extremely funny.
But the direction begins to lack focus and smoothness — and some of the changes to the novel coarsen the material. Though most of the women seemed bitingly real or at least engaging, both Garner’s Shep and Macfayden’s Connor seemed fantasy figures: men who too willingly and easily let themselves be doormats for the neuroses and tantrums of their wives and lovers — just as women are all too often doormats in male-centered films.
Still, “Divine Secrets” gives us a lot to enjoy and something most studio movies don’t even try for: an attempt at the richness, density and sheer contrariness of life. It also gives us the Ya-Yas, and when Smith and Flanagan are cooking, that’s almost as good as gumbo.
`Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’
(star)(star) 1/2
Directed and written by Callie Khouri; based on the novels “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Little Altars Everywhere” by Rebecca Wells; photographed by John Bailey; edited by Andrew Marcus; production designed by David J. Bomba; music by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield; produced by Bonnie Bruckheimer, Hunt Lowry. A Warner Bros. Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:57. MPAA rating: PG-13 (mature thematic elements, language and brief sensuality).
Sidda ……………… Sandra Bullock
Vivi ………………. Ellen Burstyn
Younger Vivi ……….. Ashley Judd
Caro ………………. Maggie Smith
Shep Walker ………… James Garner
Teensy …………….. Fionnula Flanagan
Necie ……………… Shirley Knight
Connor …………….. Angus Macfadyen
