Midler similarly tones down her trademark brassiness to play Nickâs wife, Deborah, a successful headshrinker and book-writing person (thatâs fancy publishing-world speak for âauthorâ) celebrating the 16th anniversary of their marriage with a trip to the mall before joining friends for sushi. The day begins with the Fifers in a state of far-too-perfect domestic bliss. They marvel at how their marriage has managed to outlast all their friendsâ unions (this is Southern California, after all), send their kids away, and even try to engage in a little premall canoodling. The sight of an amorous, ponytailed Allen trying desperately to rip off Midlerâs gray spandex leggings in a fit of carnal passion will take years of therapy to purge from my memory.
At the mall, however, the coupleâs façade of matrimonial contentment begins to shatter when Nick confesses to a passionate affair with the 25-year-old wife of one of his clients. Deborah initially maintainsan air of poise and restraint, but before long, sheâs upsetting the narcotized calm of mall life with angry outbursts. She demands a divorce, only to admit later to an affair of her own with a loving, caring, sexually skilled doctor played by Mazursky.
Between all the confessions, breakups, and impromptu reconciliations, the couple somehow finds the time to sneak into a screening of
Salaam Bombay!
where Nick attempts to win his wife back by going down on her in a theater. (Incidentally, if this Case File accomplishes nothing else, Iâd like it to at least introduce âseeing
Salaam Bombay!
â as a euphemism for cunnilingus.) Judging by Deborahâs orgasmic glow exiting the theater, itâs safe to say that Nick is the undisputed king of seeing
Salaam Bombay!
For the wealthy power couples of
Scenes From A Mall,
drinking in the misery of street urchins from Bombay is just another consumer choice in a pop world teeming with them. As the day progresses, the tension and resentments bubbling under the surface of the Fifersâ marriage burst into plain view.
At its best,
Scenes
captures how the mundane details of a long-shared history can pull a couple together while simultaneously tearing them apart. Nick longs for the freedom and excitement of single life yet is reluctant to leave the security and comfort of the nest. But it ultimately doesnât seem to matter whether these self-absorbed suburban monsters break up or stick around to torment each other for decades to come.
Itâs easy to see why
Scenes From A Mall
failed. Its characters run the gamut from unlikeable to vaguely monstrous, and itâs hard to muster up sympathy for smug adulterers.
Scenes
also falls victim to the Parental-Sex Rule: Unless youâre a 17-year-old newly adopted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, you donât want to imagine your parents having sex, especially if theyâre Woody Allen and Bette Midler. We want to imagine our parents as perfectly asexual, as devoid of genitalia or sexual impulses as Barbie and Ken.
Late in the film, Nick, his surfboard, Deborah, and Fabio all squeeze into an elevator together while a frustrated Deborah sexuallyviolates Fabio with her eyes. In moments like this,
Scenes From A Mall
almost gets by on novelty value alone. And there are quiet, subtly powerful moments sprinkled throughout, as Midlerâs and Allenâs faces reveal the extreme psychological and social cost of dissolving a marriage, however troubled.
Scenes
never gains any traction as a comedy or drama, as an antiâWoody Allen movie or a Woody Allen movie of a different color. The coupleâs dark afternoon of the soul is more like an extended shrug. Yet the film retains the same strange morbid fascination as Allenâs sad little ponytail, that telltale symptom of a man immersed in a midlife crisis. The
Scenes
DVD is depressingly spare, but Iâd like to imagine that Mazursky shot at least one scene of Allen riding the
At the mall, however, the coupleâs façade of matrimonial contentment begins to shatter when Nick confesses to a passionate affair with the 25-year-old wife of one of his clients. Deborah initially maintainsan air of poise and restraint, but before long, sheâs upsetting the narcotized calm of mall life with angry outbursts. She demands a divorce, only to admit later to an affair of her own with a loving, caring, sexually skilled doctor played by Mazursky.
Between all the confessions, breakups, and impromptu reconciliations, the couple somehow finds the time to sneak into a screening of
Salaam Bombay!
where Nick attempts to win his wife back by going down on her in a theater. (Incidentally, if this Case File accomplishes nothing else, Iâd like it to at least introduce âseeing
Salaam Bombay!
â as a euphemism for cunnilingus.) Judging by Deborahâs orgasmic glow exiting the theater, itâs safe to say that Nick is the undisputed king of seeing
Salaam Bombay!
For the wealthy power couples of
Scenes From A Mall,
drinking in the misery of street urchins from Bombay is just another consumer choice in a pop world teeming with them. As the day progresses, the tension and resentments bubbling under the surface of the Fifersâ marriage burst into plain view.
At its best,
Scenes
captures how the mundane details of a long-shared history can pull a couple together while simultaneously tearing them apart. Nick longs for the freedom and excitement of single life yet is reluctant to leave the security and comfort of the nest. But it ultimately doesnât seem to matter whether these self-absorbed suburban monsters break up or stick around to torment each other for decades to come.
Itâs easy to see why
Scenes From A Mall
failed. Its characters run the gamut from unlikeable to vaguely monstrous, and itâs hard to muster up sympathy for smug adulterers.
Scenes
also falls victim to the Parental-Sex Rule: Unless youâre a 17-year-old newly adopted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, you donât want to imagine your parents having sex, especially if theyâre Woody Allen and Bette Midler. We want to imagine our parents as perfectly asexual, as devoid of genitalia or sexual impulses as Barbie and Ken.
Late in the film, Nick, his surfboard, Deborah, and Fabio all squeeze into an elevator together while a frustrated Deborah sexuallyviolates Fabio with her eyes. In moments like this,
Scenes From A Mall
almost gets by on novelty value alone. And there are quiet, subtly powerful moments sprinkled throughout, as Midlerâs and Allenâs faces reveal the extreme psychological and social cost of dissolving a marriage, however troubled.
Scenes
never gains any traction as a comedy or drama, as an antiâWoody Allen movie or a Woody Allen movie of a different color. The coupleâs dark afternoon of the soul is more like an extended shrug. Yet the film retains the same strange morbid fascination as Allenâs sad little ponytail, that telltale symptom of a man immersed in a midlife crisis. The
Scenes
DVD is depressingly spare, but Iâd like to imagine that Mazursky shot at least one scene of Allen riding the
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