Avalon (1990)
Screened and reviewed in June 2021
Director: Barry Levinson. Cast: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Joan Plowright, Aidan Quinn, Elijah Wood, Leo Fuchs, Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Pollak, Lou Jacobi, Israel Rubinek, Grant Gelt, Mindy Loren Isenstein, Ronald Guttman. Screenplay: Barry Levinson.

Photo © 1990 TriStar Pictures
It's funny how artists who are hitting their fullest stride right when you start paying attention retain a stature in your mind that you might not feel otherwise. I started following movies in the years when Barry Levinson was on his run from Good Morning, Vietnam through Rain Man, Avalon, Bugsy, and his big-deal bounce to television for Homicide. That Barry Levinson, who I admit was never an artist I revered, felt even more remote a month or two ago when, after reading Sharon Stone's memoir, I finally popped Sphere into the DVD player. Please note that Sharon says not one word about Sphere: a sign of her good judgment. Sphere is the kind of colossally bad movie, from skeleton to pores, that is impossible to write off as an unfortunate anomaly. It also presaged at least a decade of such blatant mediocrities that their blander-than-bland titles felt like attempts to stay hidden (Envy, Man of the Year, What Just Happened). The last Levinson film I saw was 2012's The Bay, and—

Well, what I'm saying is that it was a real treat to watch peak Levinson after feeling struck for so long by the depth and length of the valley. Avalon is handily the most interesting and accomplished movie he made during that heyday, and it certainly feels the most personal. I assume he seized his moment in the Oscar sun to get financing for his novelistic, family-inspired, potted mini-epic about mid-century Baltimore Jews. It's certainly not a movie Hollywood was built to generate even then, much less now, and its rigorous attention to temperament, togetherness, texture, and time stand out. Allen Daviau's cinematography feels antique and nostalgic without indulging most of the clichés that attach to such words. I imagine that the frame-skipped, patriotic, firework-lit flashbacks might have secured Daviau's Oscar nomination on their own, but the whole movie feels like a family album full of sensitive, well-framed shots, attuned to individual behavior and to group dynamics.

The effect of Daviau's lensing and of Randy Newman's score (lighter in touch than his usual) would be even greater if Levinson's direction were as polished and ambitious as his script. I'm not sure if it's a miscalculation or a quietly bold choice to make the extended Krichinsky family, across the board from tykes to elders, a shade less appealing than I'd anticipated, given the warm environment Levinson and his collaborators have created around them. Armin Mueller-Stahl, with his tundra-like stare, is never an easy actor to cozy up to. Aidan Quinn's and Kevin Pollak's quasi-fraternal bond might have deepened and flowered more with a bit more room in the screenplay. Elizabeth Perkins, who has to play the same exasperated note about 45 times (and in rather broad ways), and Joan Plowright (the source of that exasperation, a notch or two above the call of duty), reiterate a lingering issue that Levinson is rarely as attuned to actresses as to their male co-stars. The big family scenes, often perched on a precarious edge between bonhomie and quarrel, are memorable and modulated, especially when the camera stays distant. Individuals never make the same level of impression, and the vocal and physical mannerisms by which so many non-Jewish actors "play Jewish" can get tiresome.

But where Avalon really thrives is in Levinson's writing, which offers everyone a firm foundation for good work. Its structure deftly balances enclosed vignettes with slow-build accumulations. Temporally, the film recedes into memory on a few striking occasions but doesn't overdo the flashbacks or use them as a sentimental crutch. A blaze late in the film feels like a climactic event, yet the story remains expansive enough that neither that fateful fire nor anything else seems intended as a capstone for such a richly sprawling whole. The departures of several characters, often with the soundtrack mixed low and the photography a little cool, pack a quiet emotional punch even when their time on screen had not always been a joy. Sound, image, plotting, perspective, and tone come together so evocatively in Avalon that I leave it feeling thrilled that Levinson got the chance to make it, and pining for an industry that might have allowed him more chances to stay in this groove. Stylistically, he's no Terence Davies, but you can see Davies from here. The fact that so many other Levinson joints feel so anonymous, even the solid ones, makes the personality of this one more precious. Grade: B+

Academy Award Nominations:
Best Original Screenplay: Barry Levinson
Best Cinematography: Allen Daviau
Best Costume Design: Gloria Gresham
Best Original Score: Randy Newman

Golden Globe Nominations:
Best Picture (Drama)
Best Screenplay: Barry Levinson
Best Original Score: Randy Newman

Other Awards:
Writers Guild of America: Best Original Screenplay
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