Despite being a lifelong Hoosier and having grown up on the rock music of the '80s, I have never been a John Mellencamp fan. But I liked the clips I saw of his 1992 movie "Falling from Grace" back around the time of its short and very small theatrical release. I missed it at the theaters but got the DVD recently. Having now watched it twice, I already rate it as one of my all time favorites and as real a movie as I've ever seen.
"Falling from Grace" stars Mellencamp who also directed - as music superstar Bud Parks. Along with his wife, Alice (played by Mariel Hemingway), and their approximately eight-year old daughter, Terri Jo (Melissa Ann Hackman), Bud flies from Los Angeles to his fictional hometown, Doak City, Indiana, for his paternal grandfather's 80th birthday. Grandpa Parks (Dub Taylor), who remains girl crazy despite his age and the accompanying ailments, and being married, provides some early comic relief with his crude but jolly personality. But the movie quickly becomes very serious and stays so almost the entire rest of the way.
Bud receives a hero's welcome from family and fans. But what is supposed to be just a three day visit of fun turns into something much more. The night of the party, his high school sweetheart and now sister-in-law, P.J. (Kay Lenz), invites him out on a walk, which is met with curious suspicion by his father, Speck (Claude Aikins). During the walk, P.J. says she has sex with Speck, which is met with shock and disapproval by Bud.
Speck, a successful poultry farmer, is shown early on to be a chauvinistic and dominating womanizer. He fathered an illegitimate son but his wife, Marian (Joanne Jacobson), stayed with him. Speck refers to himself as a sire and the women who bore his children as fillies. And as the movie progresses, he's continually revealed to be even more dominating, violent, exploitive and shameless.
Bud and Alice seem to have a good marriage and she is clearly very devoted to him. But shortly after learning of P.J.'s affair with Speck, Bud has sex with her, too. P.J. seems to view her sexual encounters as conquests and take pride in simultaneously having three Parks men as lovers. She also seems to view her promiscuity, and the need to keep it secret, as a source of excitement for a housewife and mother who resides in what she considers to be a boring town.
Soon, the three days turn into several weeks. Bud's feelings of both love and lust for P.J. are rekindled and he neglects Alice. And, already disillusioned by the music business and thinking about leaving it, he realizes that he's a small town man at heart and wants to stay in Doak City, where many of his relatives still reside. His anger toward his father over Speck's affair with P.J., sexual advance at Alice and lack of fatherly support over the years - also escalates.
Meanwhile, California bred Alice continues to love her husband but quickly becomes tired of small town life and his neglect. She suspects that he's cheating on her, which he doesn't deny. She decides to return to California with Terri Jo.
Shortly after Alice leaves, Bud tries to get P.J. back as the woman of his life. She reveals that she wanted that many years earlier but that he wouldn't make a commitment and it's too late now.
In response, Bud turns to the wild and reckless ways of his youth. And, as is often the case because of bad old human nature, it takes a traumatic and humbling experience to remind him what's most important in his life.
One mistake that rock star movies often make is turning the movie into little more than a music video. "Falling from Grace" completely avoids that trap. Throughout the movie, Bud is never shown in concert. And only in one brief scene on his father's porch is he shown playing guitar. And most of the music in the movie is performed by other artists. If you saw this movie and didn't know who Mellencamp was, you'd probably guess that he's a regular actor, not a musician.
Furthermore, a vast majority of the situations in the movie could easily happen to anyone in mid-America, not just someone famous. As I wrote above, this is as real a movie as I've ever seen. Every word of Larry McMurtry's screenplay, every character, every situation is completely believable and brought out to the fullest by Mellencamp's uncompromising direction.
Some might downplay Mellencamp's performance, saying that he is largely playing himself. And, indeed, he and Bud are very similar. Both are crass, cynical, modestly educated but very street smart, and bluntly honest. Two differences are that Bud is less arrogant perhaps the result of having such a dominating father and much better about signing autographs than is Mellencamp.
Still, even with the similarities, Mellencamp is outstanding in his role as is most of the cast. In particular, Aikins is chilling as the predator behind the smile is gradually revealed.
And to top it off, small town Indiana culture is portrayed with absolute perfection, right down to every detail the accents, figures of speech, personalities, values, scenery and more. This movie was filmed in Seymour, Indiana, Mellencamp's hometown. I grew up in Madison, a similar town just 43 miles away. Every character in the movie reminds me strongly of people who I knew during my childhood.
Those who aren't very experienced with Indiana culture probably won't appreciate "Falling from Grace" stylistically as much as I do. But anyone with much life experience should appreciate it substantively. What a shame that this movie has gotten so little publicity over the years and that it didn't start a big movie career for Mellencamp. It's a buried treasure worth searching for. 9/10.
