ThompsonвЂ™s fatalism is summed up in that kiss. вЂњI want that money, Roy,вЂќ she whispers, pressing her lips against his. Needing money to escape from Bobo, Lilly first tries to steal her sonвЂ™s cache and, when caught, tries to seduce him. SheвЂ™ll go to any lengths to survive, as the filmвЂ™s violently unsettling climax attests. Hiding her pain, Lilly talks flirtatiously to this pig. Frears and his actors вЂ“ Cusack and Bening are splendid as well вЂ“ bring out the threats beneath the flip humor as this darkly brilliant thriller grows progressively more vicious.ДЇor her good deed, Lilly misses a track date and gets brutalized by her boss, Bobo Justus (a ferocious Pat Hingle), who grinds his glowing cigar into LillyвЂ™s hand and then helps her on with her coat. вЂњSame as everybodyвЂ™s,вЂќ says Lilly, deadpan. вЂњWhatвЂ™s your objection to Myra?вЂќ asks Roy. вЂњIf not, IвЂ™ll have you killed.вЂќДЄt RoyвЂ™s bedside, Lilly meets her sonвЂ™s girlfriend, Myra (Annette Bening), a scamming sex kitten whoвЂ™s kissed too many frogs in her search for a prince. вЂњMy son is going to be all right,вЂќ she tells the doctor. Lilly rushes him to the hospital, where she proves remarkably persuasive. While trying to pass off ten spots as twenties, Roy got bashed in the stomach with a bat now heвЂ™s hemorrhaging. Roy isnвЂ™t pleased by her visit his platinum-haired, spike-heeled, tight-skirted mom makes him nervous.

On a job in Los Angeles вЂ“ which she pronounces вЂњLos Angle-eesвЂќ вЂ“ Lilly drops in on Roy (John Cusack), the son she had at fourteen and hasnвЂ™t seen in eight years.

HustonвЂ™s Lilly Dillon is a grifter (con artist) who has misspent most of her life working racetracks for the Mob she bets on long shots to lower the odds. ItвЂ™s the perfect backdrop for characters whose morals are rotting in the sun along with the palm trees. Even the opening credits, featuring stark cityscapes, have a toxic allure. Westlake, British director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons) has brewed the strongest cup of Thompson yet вЂ“ itвЂ™s served black, scalding and definitely no sugar.ДЄbounding in suspense, eroticism and dark comic twists, the film updates the story to present-day Los Angeles, but cinematographer Oliver Stapleton (Prick Up Your Ears) and production designer Dennis Gassner ( MillerвЂ™s Crossing) give it the look and feel of a classic film noir. Working from a pungent script by mystery novelist Donald E. Thompson is enjoying a cinematic renaissance this year вЂ“ After Dark, My Sweet and The Kill-Off have already been released вЂ“ perhaps because the lowdown scam artists of the Forties and Fifties who were his subjects seem to fit in just fine in the Nineties. The source material is a 1963 book by Jim Thompson, the pulp master who turned out twenty-nine uncompromising and uncommercial crime novels before his death in 1977. HustonвЂ™s radically unsympathetic role in The Grifters is her biggest gamble yet. Every role was a challenge that she met triumphantly. SheвЂ™s still proving it, most notably as the neurotic mistress in Woody AllenвЂ™s Crimes and Misdemeanors, the Polish concentration-camp survivor in Paul MazurskyвЂ™s Enemies, A Love Story (another Oscar nomination) and the high-camp sorceress in Nicolas RoegвЂ™s Witches. Then, working for the last time for her ailing father in The Dead, she played Gretta Conroy вЂ“ an Irish wife haunted by a lost love вЂ“ and proved them wrong. Some wrote her off in PrizzвЂ™s as a one-shot oddity. Though the film starred Nicholson and was directed by Huston, she took the Oscar for playing the malevolent Mafia princess Maerose. But the public saw her only as John HustonвЂ™s daughter and Jack NicholsonвЂ™s love until PrizziвЂ™s Honor, in 1985.

Nearly a decade later she started inching her way back in small roles (The Last Tycoon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, This Is Spinal Tap, The Ice Pirates). The thirty-nine-year-old Huston was a teenager when she made her screen debut in her fatherвЂ™s film A Walk With Love and Death, a medieval clinker that prompted a prudent career switch into modeling.

Meryl Streep gets the press, but itвЂ™s Huston вЂ“ in film after film, in large roles and small вЂ“ who keeps astonishing us. This tall, sharp-featured, soft-eyed daughter of the late director John Huston confirms her position as the most exciting actress now working in movies. Huston does more than her best acting to date in The Grifters. For whatever itвЂ™s worth in this postfeminist age, Huston plays the hard case.ДЄnd what a hard case. One role is passionate, tender, overwhelmingly romantic the other is cool, callous, savagely pragmatic. ItвЂ™s doubtful that youвЂ™ll see two bolder screen performances this year than those given by Anjelica Huston in The Grifters and GГ©rard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac.

Cyrano de bergerac film script