I've only very recently discovered the films of director Joan Micklin Silver, having just seen both this film and Hester Street in the past week or so. While I haven't been completely won over by either film, there's something very interesting in both, helped by the fact that Silver has a knack for assembling a great cast of people who feel perfect in their roles, whether they are the leads or supporting players, or even (as is the case here) part of a large ensemble that doesn't spend too much time focusing on just one character.
What you get here is the story of a small Boston newspaper that is poised to be taken over by a big business. The writers all have various strengths and weaknesses, and various fluid relationships between one another, and some already have dreams of moving on to bigger and better things. Some have a great book waiting to be written, some have a move to another city planned, and some think that they can use their place in the paper to make themselves into a revered writer worthy of far more than the relatively meagre paycheck that the paper can afford to pay them.
Written by Fred Barron and David Helpern, two people I am even less familiar with than Silver, Between The Lines is most interested in showing newspaper work as an unglamorous and slightly shambolic. It's a lifestyle, a skewed work/life balance, that will actually feel familiar to anyone who has spent time in any industry where they made firm friendships, and substitute family units, be it a writing job, hospitality, a small boutique business, or even factory/warehouse work. The work may differ wildly, but what keeps you getting through every day is the same, it's the connections made with other people and the idea of having something else on the horizon.
Silver does well in allowing the whole thing to feel so loosely assembled and frantic, presenting the characters and story in a way that could best be described as Altman-esque (I know, I know, that's lazy, but sometimes I'm lazy . . . and you know what I mean), while always moving back to one or two characters just in time to give the feeling of a proper story arc for them. She's helped enormously by the fact that those characters are played by the likes of John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum, Jill Eikenberry, and Bruno Kirby.
I'm not going to single out any one performance, particularly when everyone works best while showing what they add and subtract from the group during any main sequence, but there's also room for performances from Stephen Collins, Lewis J. Stadlen (a bit of a standout as someone trying to keep an eye on the business side of things), Michael J. Pollard, Joe Morton, and Lane Smith, as well as a number of other familiar faces. As individual as each performer is, they make a wonderful addition, for better or worse, to the fluid group dynamic.
There's also now an undeniable romanticism about journalism that requires people to do more than scan social media for soundbites and write speculative pieces far removed from genuine news stories that result from hours of blood, sweat, and tears, and Between The Lines benefits from that romanticism. It's how you imagine the life of many writers to be, or to have been at one point, with these characters maintaining their erratic levels of energy thanks to bursts of creativity, numerous alcoholic drinks, and nicotine hits.
7/10
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