The Grifters

Friday, May 2 - Sunday, May 4, 2014

High-definition digital projection

“The title refers to con artists like Roy Dillon (John Cusack), who makes a living palming dollar bills in bars, or Myra (Annette Bening), the feisty drifter who tries to steer him to the big time after a petty scam lands him in hospital. But the most ruthlessly survivalist is Roy’s mother Lily (Angelica Huston), employed by the Mob to work a ‘playback’ scam at racetracks, and liable to be beaten up or have a cigar stubbed out on her hand just to teach her a lesson. Lily is perceived as a woman of great tragedy, still possessed of the maternal instincts she needs to try to save her long-neglected son, imbued with a toughness that helps her overcome constant terror and loneliness, and sufficiently tainted by life to both desire and finally destroy her offspring… Anjelica Huston is quite astonishing; as Thompson is a kind of dime-store Dostoievsky, so Huston’s Myra seems straight from the pages of Euripides and Sophocles.”

 

• Country USA
• Rating R
• Year 1990
• Running Time 113 minutes
• Director Stephen Frears

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