Movie Review Love Liza

Love Liza (2002) 

Directed by Todd Louiso 

Written by Gordy Hoffman

Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Stephen Tobolowsky 

Release Date January 14th, 2002 

Published June 2nd, 2003 

In this age of Prozac and less well-known antidepressants, it is becoming odd to see people express real sadness. In Love Liza, Phillip Seymour Hoffman takes sadness to profound depths. Portraying a man whose wife has taken her own life, Hoffman is a revelation in sadness in an award-worthy performance.

Directed by Todd Louiso, Love Liza stars Hoffman as Wilson Joel, a software designer living somewhere in the mid-south. When we meet him, Wilson is returning to his home with an obviously distraught air about him. As he falls asleep on the floor outside of his bedroom, we are certain that something very traumatic has happened. The film slowly reveals Wilson's wife has killed herself. Liza Joel had gone into their garage, locked herself in the car with the engine running.

What we, Wilson, and Liza's mother Mary Ann (Kathy Bates), don't know is why she did. Wilson has a clue, a suicide note that he can't bring himself to open. Mary Ann is pressuring him to open it and bring some small bit of closure to her daughter's death. Mary Ann's prodding and Wilson's attempts at returning to a normal life at work finally get the better of him as he becomes fascinated with Liza's last moments on earth. Having killed herself suffocating on gas fumes, Wilson begins to huff gasoline to get a sense of her final moments. The gas also provides a distraction from real life, and a temporary escape from the sadness.

The role fits Hoffman like it does no other actor; not only because Hoffman is a brilliant actor, but also because his brother Gordy wrote the script. Director Todd Louiso is also a close friend of the Hoffman brothers, which likely helped bring together a chemistry necessary to carry off this film which was shot in a mere 25 days.

As great as Hoffman and his supporting cast--Bates, Stephen Toboloski, and Jack Kehler--are, the rushed production did take its toll on the finished product. With script changes coming at the last minute, it's Bates's character who is hurt the most. Her character's motivations that lead to the film's third act are a contrivance that likely came only as a way of giving her character more screen time. As the filmmakers explain in the DVD commentary track, the character of Liza's mother was beefed up to get Bates in the movie.

Many critics called Love Liza oppressively sad and they were right. But that's the point. Of course it's sad. It is about grief to an extreme degree. This is not meant as an examination of grief on a grand scale. Love Liza is an examination of this character's grief and as played by Hoffman it is a powerhouse.