weak comedy about a universal problem
“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” should be able to coast on its concept, one so identifiable and conflict-making that you would think the comedy would write itself. Hell, you could probably remake this movie several times within the last 40 years and it would still be relevant. It’s all about inflation and quite unbelievably, “Living” turns this very good idea into an uneventful, leaden exercise in quirky, girl-power heist picture.
It stars Susan Saint-James, Jane Curtin, and Jessica Lange, all playing some manner of housewife in a quaint little town in Eugene, Oregon. James is a recent divorcee named Linda trying to move on with a new man, yet her child support payments are too low and her father (Eddie Albert) has just moved in with them after her mother decided to become a lesbian. Curtin’s Elaine has just been dumped by her husband, emptying the bank accounts along with him, and Lange’s Louise is being sued by her own husband over money that, and this is not exactly clear, was either loaned or given to help her start an antique shop that isn’t turning a profit.
Along the way they’re faced with rising bills, gas prices, and so on. Yet, inflation doesn’t seem so much their problem as the fact that they don’t have much money at all. These women have never really worked and now that they’re on their own, having a garage sale or doing porn really seem like the only options.
Or pulling a big mall heist featuring one of those moneyballs where the money floats around like a snow globe. The women get the idea and figure they can use a tunnel they discover within the floor, drill a hole at the bottom of the ball, and suck the money out with a vacuum cleaner. It’s so clever it just might work.
And, really the movie should. Hijinx should ensue as the women try to steal a getaway canoe or equipment from a hardware store but both come up as far more feeble attempts at comedy than they should. Of the actresses, the only one who seems game to really go for the comedic jugular is Curtin, who has the sardonic wit to make some of her iffy lines sound better than they are and she, later, gets the film’s best joke, which is actually more of a striptease meant as cover for the heist, as well as what I guess you could call inflation performance art.
Other subplots barely register. Somehow, Dabney Coleman goes from nuisance-cop to charming boyfriend to one of the women; it doesn’t work at all romantically and he’s always better a foil anyway. Saint James’ dealings with her new boyfriend or her misogynistic dad are both too cutesy and sitcom-ish to ever feel there’s any real conflict there, and worst of all are the shouting matches between Lange and Richard Benjamin, playing the husband like an obnoxiously always-horny idiot.
The movie is too light and fluffy to be a social commentary on the state of things but also never zany enough to have us laughing throughout the character’s exploits. Maybe some of the wisecracks about money, sex, children, and marriage work but it’s not enough to excuse the overall feeling of apathy that permeates a movie that should be way more high energy.
Still, i’d say there’s room for improvement and for a remake. Things have only gotten worse. Now, we barely even have malls for comedic stripteases anymore.