Passion Fish.

John Sayles's Passion Fish is the sort of movie I want to call a masterpiece. It proffers the revelations of character rather than the surprises of plot, yet its story never meanders. It is humanistic and compassionate. There is a nice balance between scenes that unfold mainly through dialogue and others told more visually. The camera is always in the fight place and held there for the fight length of time. The beauty of the setting--the bayous of rural Louisiana--is gloriously exploited yet never overwhelms the dialogue or actors.

And the actors are marvelous. In a role that might tempt another actress to pull out all the stops, Mary McDonnell is refreshingly astringent as May Alice, a successful soap opera actress rendered paraplegic by a car accident, who retires in disgust to her large, deserted ancestral house in Louisiana. Alfre Woodard, as May Alice's nurse, Chantel, matches McDonnell in precision and tacit power. I know of few other films in which so much emotion is communicated by two actresses simply looking at each other with the camera shifting viewpoints at just the fight moments.

The theme of Passion Fish resides in that interchange. Chantel snaps May Alice out of her depression not just through professional competence but by inadvertently revealing her own painful needs. Nurse and patient heal each other by giving each other a future.

There is much else to praise (a perfect supporting cast, pungent dialogue, the elegant shape of each sequence) and I really wanted, still want, to love this movie. Why then do I merely like Passion Fish and why do my fingers refuse to type superlatives? Moreover, why, having been gripped by the film's first half, did I feel my attention wander in the second, and why did I even feel the first stirrings of boredom?

There is only one thing wrong with Passion Fish, but it is a grave deficiency. The film runs on rails to its predestined conclusion and those rails become all too visible in its final hour. Once it becomes clear that Chantel simply must keep her job with May Alice in order to win back custody of her daughter (which she lost temporarily because of a criminal episode involving drugs), and once we see that May Alice has become too attached to Chantel to leave her behind in order to renew her television career in New York City (where, for reasons I won't get into, Chantel can't accompany her), we know just how the film must end. It's a little too pat. And Sayles makes it all the more pat by satirizing, in the scene of May Alice's reunion with her former soap opera co-stars, the emotional brittleness of actors and the triviality of much of their work. By the time we are through laughing at the performers, we may feel that May Alice really isn't giving up all that much after all when she renounces an actor's life. But with her sacrifice thus devalued, the drama of her ultimate choice is lessened.

You can see what Passion Fish lacks if you compare it to a film it rather resembles in plot: Tender Mercies. Both films have show-biz protagonists who are forced to drop out of the fast-track lane, and who become emotionally involved with loving and needy people in rural locations. Unexpected opportunities to make comebacks then threaten to terminate their new, more modest lives. But by the time Mac Sledge, the country western singer played by Robert Duvall, must make his decision, you can't tell in which direction he will turn, and only in retrospect can it be seen that the choice he makes is inevitable in light of his developing character. And though the filmmakers, Horton Foote and Bruce Beresford, show the tawdry side of show business, they also strongly convey its true excitement and glamour. Consequently, we know that Mac will be making a real sacrifice whether he stays with or leaves his new, rural family. And that sense of impending sacrifice helps give Tender Mercies a dramatic excitement that Passion Fish lacks.

Nevertheless, the skill of this film's execution (especially its acting) almost mitigates the tameness of its conception. I recommend that you see it. But bring a little patience with you.