For a film that has a title like The Cemetery Club this film really isn’t about death so much as it is about living again after the death of a loved one. The central theme revolves around a trio of friends who have all recently been widowed. Their weekly visits to the cemetery followed by a visit to a deli for conversations about life and the many marriages of a fourth woman they all know, reveal a lot about each of the women’s foibles and neuroses. The film is billed as a comedy but it’s actually an introspective look at widowhood and whether a woman can still find happiness after her long-term spouse is gone.
The film opens on a Jewish wedding. Selma (Lainie Kazan) is on her third wedding, this time to an elderly man who can barely stand through the ceremony let alone break the glass under foot. Esther (Ellen Burstyn), Doris (Olympia Dukakis) and Lucille (Diane Ladd) are in attendance, making jokes about diminishing returns and the price of wedding donations. The three women live in the same Jewish community in Pittsburg and have recently all become widows. They socialize over their husbands’s graves and keep each other up to date on their lives at the local deli afterwards. Doris refuses to move on romantically as she is fiercely devoted to her late husband. Lucille, on the other hand, really wants to get back into the dating pool since her husband was an adulterer and she sees her new lot in life as an opportunity to get a semblance of revenge on him. Esther, however feels lost. She married out of high school and has never been without her husband since. She was completely dependent on him and is afraid of living without him after 39 years of marriage. She was dependent on him for nearly everything. She’s also afraid of moving on and dating again, too.
Enter into the picture Ben (Danny Aiello), a former police officer turned cab driver who is also a widower. Ben meets Esther in the cemetery and pursues her, eventually getting her to agree to dinner. Doris sees this as a betrayal of the late husband while Lucille is jealous because she herself has been struggling to find a good man and Esther managed it without even trying. The two opposite perspectives don’t help Esther as she is struggling to come to terms with things like her age, dependency, sex and the possibility of loving again.
The Cemetery Club has a lot to say about the realities of becoming single again late in life. The dating world is not the same as it was when these women were younger and navigating that world is daunting. It would be very easy to go the route of Doris and say those days are past and refuse to move on with life. It would also be a very lonely existence which helps explain her reactions when Esther starts seeing Ben. Doris fears losing her friend to another man. She has no use for men in her life since her husband’s death and freezes out all of them, even the friendly deli waiter who’s just trying to get the women to laugh at his cheesy jokes. Lucille, in contrast, is thrilled by any attention she can get from men as she got very little when she was married. Lucille is used to being on her own much of the time and wants that to change.
Esther is the most timid of the three. Aside from her granddaughter, Jessica (Christina Ricci), she has no close family to talk to and do things with. She misses her husband badly, breaking down at Selma’s wedding reception and needing to be comforted by Jessica. Later it will become apparent just how dependent she was on her husband. She married at seventeen and never even learned how to drive, always letting her husband do that. When Ben enters her life that is one of the things he pushes her to learn, taking her to a secluded area and getting her behind the wheel. He instills in her a sense that she can actually have a semblance of control over her life and not be totally dependent on someone else.
As with nearly all stories about blossoming love this one has its share of hurdles to overcome. Esther has a panic attack over her growing feelings for Ben. Doris and Lucille interfere in the relationship inadvertently breaking the two up rather than slowing down the pace as Esther wants. This leads to Esther finally making up her mind that she wants Ben to be a more permanent part of her life, getting behind the wheel of her late husband’s car and driving over to Ben’s home only to find him with another woman. This trope is the first genre cliché that really feels overdone here. Naturally she freezes Ben out and refuses to see him because he dared date someone else after they broke up.
Genre clichés aside, this film has enough to say about friendship, love, sex, and dependency to keep it going right up to the expected finale. There is more than enough emotional moments, too, to help smooth over the more obvious beats. One of the strongest scenes revolves around a moment where Jessica, played flawlessly by a young Christina Ricci, comforts her grandmother late in the movie. Christina was just seeing her star rise at this point in her young career and shows she has what it takes to succeed in the movie business. Up until this moment she was barely utilized in the film, serving mostly as a background character, but in this one scene she shows that she is more than just that. Later the same year she would appear in Addams Family Values followed by Casper and just kept on going.
The Cemetery Club is not genre defining in any meaningful way. But that’s not to say it’s not worth seeking out. It’s a comedy drama that downplays the comedy while emphasizing the different perspectives of three women navigating the changes widowhood has brought to their lives. All three perspectives are explored thoroughly and juxtaposed with Selma who relishes in getting married again and again. It is surprisingly poignant and refuses to take sides on whose perspective is right because there is no right perspective. Each woman has a legitimate reason for how they feel and each reason is right for the woman in question. It is heartwarming and thought provoking in just the right measures and throws in just enough comedic elements to feel organic to the story. It’s not ground breaking but it doesn’t need to be. It feels organic and will reach out to people who may be going through similar things in their own lives.
Release Date: February 3, 1993
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Olympia Dukakis, Diane Ladd, Danny Aiello, Lainie Kazan and Christina Ricci
Directed By: Bill Duke
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