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Stunning period film with timeless appeal! 
by .. Macdonald ()
Jodie Markell has created a period piece with timeless appeal! This never-before produced screenplay by Tennessee Williams came to light at the right time and in the right hands. Markell's insightful direction and Bryce Dallas Howard's brilliant performance transport the viewer to 1920's Memphis with its juxtaposition of high-class southern charm, architecture and posh parties to the inner turmoil brought about through the accompanying societal expectations. Howard's portrayal of a "fallen" southern belle, Fisher Willow, is both heartbreaking and breathtaking. The high-value teardrop diamond earring she wears which is lost represents Willow's desperate struggle to hold onto her inheritance at all costs -- monetary and personal. The viewer is seamlessly transported into Willow's world of truth vs. lies, genuine vs. fake, awake vs. asleep... as she is forced to face her past and present demons on the journey of discovering her true self (and true love, ie Chris Evans) in the process. You don't have to be a Tennessee Williams fan to get swept away by this film!
A Bejeweled Masterwork by .. Brian Morgan (New Orleans)
Tennessee Williams is the heart, mind, and voice of the South, and Jodie Markell has made an extraordinarily beautiful film of his screenplay, "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond." Exquisite in its detail and dramatic force, the director does not shy away from Williams's view of a rotting, decadent, romantic Gothic Southland. And in Bryce Dallas Howard (with alabaster skin and raven-black hair) and Chris Evans, she has possibly the most handsome cinematic-couple since Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun." This film is a great achievement, not to be missed.
Something Old and Something New from Tennessee Williams 
by .. Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond"
Something Old and Something New from Tennessee Williams
Amos Lassen
It has been a long time since we have heard from Tennessee Williams and that is because he has been dead for quite a while now. Recently the script of "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" was found and a movie was made and we have a new Williams production with the same themes for which he was so famous. His voice has called to us across the years since his death and in "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" is a prize with a wonderful performance by Ellen Burstyn as Aunt Addie but more about that in a few.
Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a disliked Memphis debutante in the 1920's. She loves to shock and insult those around her and has no patience for those with narrow minds. When she returns from Europe, she falls in love with Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans). The son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother and he, himself, is down on his luck. She attempts to tell her spinster Aunt (Burstyn) that he is from the upper-class as her aunt controls her family fortune. But then she loses a family heirloom, a priceless diamond earring and a series of betrayals and accusations begins that could ruin her future. This is a story of seduction and loss set against the old South and is typical Williams fare--soft summer nights, the river, rich Southern girls, a poor honest boy, drug addiction, etc.
Burstyn as Aunt Addie plays her part from her sick bed while at the same time a debutante party is going on downstairs. She calls Fisher to her room and asks her to give her pills that will take her life. Downstairs is Jimmy, a good-looking guy that Fisher has hired to bring her to the party. His family has fallen on hard times and Addie senses that not all is going well on their date and she has discovered that Jimmy did not want to kiss Fisher and Addie suggests that she return to Europe where she can be free.
Howard as Fisher plays an impulsive, emotionally unstable heiress recklessly defying the hidebound conventions of 1920s Memphis high society. She is a typical wounded Williams angel but without the tragic dimension of Williams' greatest creation, Blanche DuBois. "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" is significant but not a great look at reclamation and redemption.
Fisher is rebellious, so much so that she cannot fit comfortably into any social niche. She studied at the Sorbonne, dabbled in painting, and flitted through European bohemian salons and she is a conspicuously cosmopolitan presence in the provincial kind of Southern society that Williams views with contempt. Her family name has suffered because several tenant farmers drowned in a flood that was caused by Fisher's father when he wrecked a levee. Cornelia (Ann-Margaret) controls the family fortune and she has left Fisher know that she will inherit nothing if she doesn't settle down and marry respectably.
Most of the story takes place at a Halloween party where Fisher loses an earring worth $5000 and had been lent to her by Cornelia.
Like in other Williams' works, the cast is replete with dreamers and poets who wander through life never finding their places and they are always misunderstood.
Lusterless diamond 
by .. E. A Solinas (MD USA)
"The Loss of a Teadrop Diamond" is being marketed as a "lost" play/screenplay by Tennessee Williams, although it was not so much lost as half-forgotten.
And honestly, I'm sure Williams would have preferred that it stay half-forgotten. While Jodie Markell does her best to bring to life a world of Southern mansions, debutantes and 1920s jazz bands, the movie drags like a ballgown train in a mud puddle -- and while Bryce Dallas Howard does a great job with her thin character, Chris Evans is just DREADFUL.
To stay in her elderly aunt's good graces (and will), Southern flapper Fisher Willow (Howard) has agreed to debut in the city of Memphis, even though most of the people hate her for something her father did. So she recruits Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), a poor young man with an alcoholic father and insane mother, to be her escort to the various parties. So she buys a tuxedo for him and trots him out every evening.
Additionally, she borrows her aunt's teardrop diamond earrings (for herself, not Jimmy!). But when she and Jimmy arrive at a Halloween party, Fisher discovers that one of her earrings is missing -- and when she cluelessly asks if it could have fallen into his pocket, he understandably thinks that she's implying that he stole it. Naturally, the rift between them threatens their budding romance.
"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" has all the hallmarks of a Tennessee Williams story (booze, drugs, melancholy, the South, madness and a woman half-broken by the world) and probably would have made an excellent short film... say, half an hour or so. But since the actual film is about an hour and a half long, it's a swampy, slow-moving affair with lots of deadwood that should have been cut away.
Director Jodie Markell does a pretty good job with the atmosphere -- big half-decayed Southern mansions, misty lakes, luxurious ballrooms and wild places dripping with Spanish moss. Sadly, she sticks closely to the original clunky dialogue -- which is NOT Williams' best or even middling work ("I'm poor, you're poor. And that's hard, 'specially for a beautiful girl. But you got a moral decision to make!").
And as the seemingly endless party grinds slowly by, we're treated to lots of scenes seem to have been inserted just to prop up the sagging storyline (Fisher visiting a paralyzed opium addict... what was this scene for?). Most embarrassing of all is a scene where Fisher chugs some opium-laced "medicine" and takes a trippy walk around the grounds, mumbling about having been in a mental hospital.
It also doesn't help that the characters of Fisher and Jimmy are pretty unappealing -- I couldn't muster up enough interest in Fisher to care what happened to her and Jimmy. The saving grace is that Howard is a simply brilliant actress, and she almost distracts us from the fact that Fisher is a greedy, rude, self-absorbed brat, and I couldn't find myself caring about people being mean to her. And Evans just stands around like an upright log, looking confused and drawling in a strained "Suthun" accent.
"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" has moments of beauty and a brilliant actress, but it feels like a short film was stretched out over an hour and a half. Not Williams' best work.
Lusterless diamond by .. E. A Solinas (MD USA)
"The Loss of a Teadrop Diamond" is being marketed as a "lost" play/screenplay by Tennessee Williams, although it was not so much lost as half-forgotten.
And honestly, I'm sure Williams would have preferred that it stay half-forgotten. While Jodie Markell does her best to bring to life a world of Southern mansions, debutantes and 1920s jazz bands, the movie drags like a ballgown train in a mud puddle -- and while Bryce Dallas Howard does a great job with her thin character, Chris Evans is just DREADFUL.
To stay in her elderly aunt's good graces (and will), Southern flapper Fisher Willow (Howard) has agreed to debut in the city of Memphis, even though most of the people hate her for something her father did. So she recruits Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), a poor young man with an alcoholic father and insane mother, to be her escort to the various parties. So she buys a tuxedo for him and trots him out every evening.
Additionally, she borrows her aunt's teardrop diamond earrings (for herself, not Jimmy!). But when she and Jimmy arrive at a Halloween party, Fisher discovers that one of her earrings is missing -- and when she cluelessly asks if it could have fallen into his pocket, he understandably thinks that she's implying that he stole it. Naturally, the rift between them threatens their budding romance.
"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" has all the hallmarks of a Tennessee Williams story (booze, drugs, melancholy, the South, madness and a woman half-broken by the world) and probably would have made an excellent short film... say, half an hour or so. But since the actual film is about an hour and a half long, it's a swampy, slow-moving affair with lots of deadwood that should have been cut away.
Director Jodie Markell does a pretty good job with the atmosphere -- big half-decayed Southern mansions, misty lakes, luxurious ballrooms and wild places dripping with Spanish moss. Sadly, she sticks closely to the original clunky dialogue -- which is NOT Williams' best or even middling work ("I'm poor, you're poor. And that's hard, 'specially for a beautiful girl. But you got a moral decision to make!").
And as the seemingly endless party grinds slowly by, we're treated to lots of scenes seem to have been inserted just to prop up the sagging storyline (Fisher visiting a paralyzed opium addict... what was this scene for?). Most embarrassing of all is a scene where Fisher chugs some opium-laced "medicine" and takes a trippy walk around the grounds, mumbling about having been in a mental hospital.
It also doesn't help that the characters of Fisher and Jimmy are pretty unappealing -- I couldn't muster up enough interest in Fisher to care what happened to her and Jimmy. The saving grace is that Howard is a simply brilliant actress, and she almost distracts us from the fact that Fisher is a greedy, rude, self-absorbed brat, and I couldn't find myself caring about people being mean to her. And Evans just stands around like an upright log, looking confused and drawling in a strained "Suthun" accent.
"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" has moments of beauty and a brilliant actress, but it feels like a short film was stretched out over an hour and a half. Not Williams' best work.