Featuring: Julia Sweeney
Director: Julia Sweeney
Producer: Rana Joy Glickman
Screenplay: Julia Sweeney
Cinematography: John Hora
Based on the stage play directed by: Greg Kachel
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
Monologues are, by their nature, inherently non-cinematic. There's no doubt that this form of entertainment, which features one person addressing an group and telling stories nonstop for 90-or-so minutes, works a lot better live, when the star of the show can form a rapport with the audience. Nevertheless, from time-to-time, a director decides to attempt to capture the energy and charisma on film. Sometimes it works, but, more often than not, it comes across as stilted and dull. It's like the difference between being at a comedy club and watching the same routines on TV. Without the live audience and the associated electricity, the jokes aren't nearly as funny.
The best-known monologist is arguably Spalding Gray. I've seen a number of his solo films - Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, and Gray's Anatomy -- and, while they're undeniably entertaining, they all seem a little too long. For an hour, Gray is brilliant. Add another 20 to 30 minutes to his time, however, and he starts to wear out his welcome. I was expecting something similar with Julia Sweeney's God Said "Ha!", a no-frills adaptation of her one-woman stage show. Yet, surprisingly, it didn't happen - restlessness didn't set in. In fact, when the end credits started rolling, I blinked, surprised that 90 minutes had already passed.
Although it's probably considered heresy to say this, I think Sweeney may be a better storyteller than Gray (possibly because she's not as glib). A comedienne who is best known for a stint on Saturday Night Live, a starring role in the disastrously bad It's Pat, and as a good buddy of Quentin Tarantino's (he executive produced God Said "Ha!"), Sweeney shows a different side of herself here. She tells a deeply personal story that intersperses comic vignettes with moments of genuine, almost heart-wrenching pathos. Her descriptions are vivid - characters come alive through her vocal inflections. By the end of the film, we feel that we have met her mother, father, and brother, Mike, even though they never once appear on screen.
God Said "Ha!" is a comedy about tragic events. It takes a gently humorous look at the absurdities of life without losing the human aspect of the story or turning the events into a farce. Sweeney never forces any of her jokes - that approach would have felt wrong and painfully awkward. When she's funny (and she frequently is very funny), we laugh, but there are times when we're just a hair's breadth away from crying. It's easy to empathize with Sweeney because, to one degree or another, her experiences are universal. It doesn't require a big stretch to understand what she's talking about. All we have to do is examine our own lives.
Sweeney relates events that happened to her starting in 1994, after she had left Saturday Night Live and re-located from New York to Los Angeles. She bought a house, which, in her words, was intended to be a bachelorette pad (following a recent divorce, she was not interested in any long-term relationships). It was then, when her life was settling into place, that God said "Ha!" Her brother, Mike, was diagnosed with an advanced case of lymphoma, a form of terminal cancer. She offered to care for him full-time, and he moved in with her. Soon, her parents arrived from their home in Washington state, and joined the extended, unplanned family reunion. For Julia, it was like going back home - returning to the not-so-happy days of high school. Her mother, a woman who combines a series of disconnected thoughts into a single idea, began to slowly change things around the house while her father spent hours on end listening to NPR. Sweeney was forced to accept "the surreal nightmare that life had become" while coping with her feelings about her brother's failing health and dealing with yet another cruel blow dealt to her by fate.
Throughout this film, Sweeney speaks conversationally, as if we're intimate friends that she's confiding in. She paints amazing pictures with words, creating three-dimensional characters that come to life in our minds. How much of our own mothers and fathers do we recognize in Sweeney's impersonations? Her affection for her family is real, even though she ruthlessly satirizes them for nearly 90 minutes. Her tone speaks of her love, even as her words provide a parody. The intimate setting - a simple stage with a few objects of furniture - offers the perfect backdrop. Eventually, we lose track of everything except Sweeney's face, body language, and, especially, her voice. Opening up this stage show would not have worked, and Sweeney wisely didn't attempt it. Most importantly, this is the kind of genuine tale that each member of the audience can relate to on his or her own terms. Everyone's life story may contain the content to develop a film like God Said "Ha!", but there aren't many who possess Sweeney's style - and, in this case, it's the style that gives power to the substance.
© 1999 James Berardinelli