Lady in the Lake
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Its fitting the second episode ofLady in the Lakeopens with a sustained conversation about surrealism.
The year is 1947, and young Maddie is a budding journalist at her high school.
But Mrs. Durst isnt quite taken with the word.
Except, of course, Mrs. Durst is irked because she clearly doesnt approve of Allans dalliance with Maddie.
How will Maddie define herself?
How will she move away from the surreality of her marriage?
How will she take the reins of a life on her own?
In hopes of following Summers words to heart (Our dignity can never be taken from us.
she asks the politician to give her a job.
But wont she still film the very support she voiced at the meeting just the day before?
Shes sick of her choices.
She wont be a pawn for Summer anymore.
Crying and distraught, she leaves in embittered tears.
(So much for keeping her dignity.)
Best she just provides for her boys, especially her sickly one.
Cleos not the only one needing to make desperate choices given her circumstances.
After attending Tessies funeral (and being lovingly embraced by Tessies mother, a.k.a.
Allans wife), Maddie finds herself adrift.
Milton doesnt understand what shes doing.
Her teenage son, Seth, is irritable and perhaps rightly offended by her actions.
In a frantic montage set to (what else?)
Barbra Streisands Gotta Move, we see Maddie at her wits end.
And you understand why shes driven to do what she does next.
She stages a robbery in her new downtown apartment.
Thats how Ferdie ends up at her place, rightfully suspicious of her claims.
Speaking of shootings, thats what will close out the episode.
Cleo assures Gordon shell do what it takes to be in his good graces.
it does give Gordon the sense that Cleo is all in.
Its what drives Reggie, his right-hand man, to delegate a cash drop to her.
Will Gordon get found out?
Cleo runs away … is this why she was eventually killed?
is delivered oh so beautifully by Portman.
As Cleo literally runs for her life, Maddie figuratively drives off a cliff away from hers.
I bet people told you that you looked like Jackie Kennedy.
How lovely was that mannequin surrealist sequence during Cleos interview at Myrtle Summers office?
So simple yet so effective at showing us how Cleo sees others seeing her.
I seek only the high moments.
I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.
But I am not always in what I call a state of grace.
I have days of illuminations and fevers.
I have days when the music in my head stops.
Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture.
But while I am doing this I feel I am not living.
