There’s a quiet dignity to the way Joanne Woodward instigates a catfight with Lindsay Wagner at her straying husband’s funeral in Passions (1984). Catherine Kennerly, her patrician homemaker, doesn’t want to engage in fisticuffs, but what else is she to do when Wagner’s Nina Simon, the other woman, has the temerity to attend his church service and dab her eyes in front of God and everyone? Confronting Nina in private, a seething Catherine exclaims “You are filth!” — and still her rival persists, asserting her right to be there.
“I think you’d better leave before you make a fool of yourself,” the younger woman coolly replies. Having silently choked on her anger throughout the priest’s eulogy (“He was that rare individual who really cared about his fellow men, and acted upon his feelings”), Catherine is thrilled to have a living target for her rage. Then Nina drops a bombshell: she was with Richard (Richard Crenna) for eight years, and they have a six-year-old son together. The widow launches herself at the stylish marital interloper almost automatically, propelled as much by grief as fury.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.