Debby (Uma Thurman) drives an 84 blue camaro and in the few snippets here and there throughout the romance-drama Hysterical Blindness (2002) where the camera follows as she drives, it’s evident that Mira Nair knows how to capture the way various tools and accessories are both important to and a part of people’s everyday life.
Yes, you read that correctly — after releasing her sumptuous, critically and commercially acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding (2001), Mira Nair shifted gears to helm the HBO TV movie Hysterical Blindness. Along with her best friend Beth (Juliette Lewis) and her mom (Gena Rowlands), Debby is doing her best to live life and manifest a meaningful connection with a guy named Rick (Justin Chambers) who would really rather just drink beer, play pool, and have a one-night stand.
Maybe it’s the New Jersey accents, maybe it’s the 80s hair and fashion, but nearly every scene without Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara has the tone and pacing of what could be an SNL sketch featuring Kristen Wiig and a guest host. In desperation to catch the eye of and then prolonged interactions with Rick, Debby smiles, dances, seduces, and invites him over for filet mignon. The secondhand embarrassment is suffocating.
I came across this film a year ago at a used media goods store and bought it on a whim because of the 80s hair and makeup. I hadn’t even realized that Mira Nair directed it until I looked at her IMDB page over the weekend when I re-watched Monsoon Wedding for the first time in many years. Mira has a gift for exploring the routines and disappointments of daily life, rites of passage, and special occasions. Her ethnographic storytelling sensibilities coupled with her attention to the automotive presence at gathering spots leads me to wish she’d make a roadtrip movie in the vein of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, but with less snarky humor. It should be called Boats, Bikes, and Barefoot and details the misadventures of two soon-to-be college graduates who have to travel halfway across the country to accomplish a task and their modes of transportation consist of boats, motorcycles, and walking.
Hysterical Blindness can be hard to watch in those scenes where Debby is just trying so, so hard, but it demonstrates Uma Thurman’s talents for expressing those character traits and suffering from “hysterical blindness,” which is a form of temporary psychosomatic vision loss. It also has a great soundtrack, including this song which plays in the first bar scene Chez Ollies.
The DVD comes with English, Spanish, and French subtitles. I watched it with French subtitles and was thrilled that I understood most of it. I also learned some more phrases and vocabulary that I don’t remember learning in high school. Par exemple, “who cares?” = “on s’en fiche.” Google translates went with “on s’en fout,” which is consistent with “je m’en fou,” or “I don’t care.”
En Espagnol, “on s’en fiche/fout” = a quién le importa
En Italienne = on ci importa
En Portugais = ós não ligamos
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