Before there was Beverly Sutphin, Serial Mom’s murderous matriarch, or Joanna Kerns in Mother Knows Best, there was steely social striver Lisa Carter (Bibi Besch) of Doing Time on Maple Drive (1992). So obsessed is she with making the right impression that you’re forgiven for wanting to shout “Don’t go in there, she has a knife!” at son Matt (William McNamara) when he ventures into the kitchen following a bruising family fight.
Though she’s only preparing dinner, Lisa’s so incandescent with rage over Matt’s broken engagement to Allison (Lori Loughlin, poignantly pretty, with the depth of a thimble), the wealthy daughter-in-law of her dreams, that you half-expect her to stab him. “You’re just going to let him get away with it?” she challenges husband Phil (James Sikking), a rigid military man turned restaurateur. “With embarrassing us? With humiliating us?” Who knows how she’d react if he wore white after Labor Day.
The problem isn’t just the social embarrassment of canceling a wedding after the invitations were sent. Lisa has also been confronted — for the second time! — with Matt’s homosexuality, a subject she’s almost physiologically incapable of acknowledging. Unmoved by the suicidal torment wrought by his stint in the closet, and seemingly indifferent to the alcoholism of elder son Tim (Jim Carrey), she’s consumed only by what others will think of her. Besch’s portrayal of narcissistic parental denial is unnervingly true to life. If it’s not a bravura performance, it comes awfully close. Outside of Mommie Dearest, The Grifters or Ordinary People, you don’t encounter many movie moms like this.
So unyielding is Lisa that even Phil is taken aback, and his mistreatment of their children — at home and on the tennis court — echoes The Great Santini. You might doubt, as some critics did at the time, whether a man so stubborn and sanctimonious, who complains that “[gay] is a perfectly good word that’s been destroyed,” would accept a homosexual child. But it takes a paucity of imagination (or experience) to question whether gruff, macho dads are capable of loving gay kids. Screenwriter James Duff (Betrayed: A Story of Three Women) obviously knows the type, because Phil’s concern about his ability to defend Matt, and Matt’s ability to defend himself, is touchingly realistic.
If it seems that I’ve focused on Doing Time on Maple Drive’s parents to the exclusion of its children, that’s because Matt, Tim, and perfunctory sister Karen (Jayne Brook of Chicago Hope) are far less interesting characters. Tim, a drunken truth-teller more sensitive than his siblings, imbibes in front of his disapproving father “Because I think it’s what you deserve.” He’s the opening act for Matt’s big reveal, pointedly asking Phil questions like “Why couldn’t we have just told Mom I flunked out of school? […] What’s gonna happen? What’s gonna happen if we just sit down and say it out loud, Dad?” Carrey, two years away from mega-stardom, already possessed mawkish tendencies and wasn’t afraid to use them.
Golden child Matt, a chisel-jawed Yale undergrad and Best Little Boy in the World who ditched his long-term boyfriend (Bennett Cale) in a futile attempt to go straight, is more emotionally remote than his brother — he can’t afford to be in touch with his feelings. McNamara sells his desperation and immaturity when Allison gently breaks things off, and he’s affecting in a pivotal third-act scene with Besch. But it’s a TV movie performance in a film that’s written, and was mostly directed (by thirtysomething’s Ken Olin), like a stage play. I was left with more unanswered questions about Matt than any other character in Doing Time on Maple Drive. Foremost among them: If he didn’t want anyone to know he was gay, why did he wear a turtleneck and checkered sport coat to his bachelor party?
Streaming and DVD availability
Doing Time on Maple Drive is out-of-print on DVD but can be purchased secondhand. It’s also free on YouTube.
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… But wait, there’s more!
Andrew Tobias is nearing 80 and Doing Time on Maple Drive premiered 31 years ago, but let’s not pretend that Best Little Boys in the World, or families like the Carters, are entirely relics of the past. I’m married to the hyper-overachieving lesbian daughter of strict parents who once rejected her on the basis of her sexuality. We have plenty of gay friends just like her, in their thirties and younger, who’d fit right in with the Tobiases, and Matt Carters, of decades past. Academia’s still rotten with ’em.
Of course, some homophobic families eventually relax. I was reminded of that late in Maple Drive, when Matt has an uncomfortable conversation with Lisa, whose recipe box is in the background. It’s the same one I inherited from my paternal grandma — it’s where I stash observations and story ideas. In the early ’80s, this staunchly conservative grandma flipped her lid when she learned my teenage aunt had a girlfriend, even threatening to have her institutionalized. And so my aunt tried for years to be straight, and did all the things her mother expected of her, right up until the day she couldn’t take it anymore and left her husband for a woman.
That was three decades ago. My grandma struggled for years to accept it. Then I came out as a teenager, which was just the tip of the iceberg — all told, three of her five grandkids are gay. And just as Grandma came to love and accept my aunt’s partner, so she came to accept the rest of us, eventually hosting family dinners where we outnumbered the heterosexuals 8 to 5 if we all brought our partners. Her personal politics, I admit, remained galling to the end, but she RSVP’ed to my same-sex wedding before the invitations were even sent.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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