It’s amazing that the film is centered wholly on Parker, since the director apparently had a hard time selling it as a straight biopic of her, saying, again to the NYT: “A period biography of a literate woman is the least desirable box on the board game.” “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” 1919, Robert Benchley & Dorothy Parker “Lips that taste of tears, they say, are the best for kissing.” “Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.”īut even with the huge cast, the film is resolutely focused on Dorothy Parker and Jennifer Jason Leigh - especially with the black-and-white poetic asides that film cuts to, reminding viewers of Parker’s acerbic wit, depressive poetry, and rueful humor. Benchley and Parker have a deep platonic friendship and unresolved romantic relationship that forms the spine of the film. Director Alan Rudolph noted in the New York Times: “It’s a period piece with something like 60 characters of which 32 or 33 are major principal actors.” Campbell Scott plays humorist Robert Benchley and Jennifer Beals is his wife Gertrude Matthew Broderick plays playwright Charles MacArthur Martha Plimpton is Jane Grant and Sam Robards plays Harold Ross, the two founded The New Yorker Lili Taylor plays novelist Edna Ferber Nick Cassavetes is playwright Robert Sherwood Gwyneth Paltrow is artist Paula Hunt Wallace Shawn portrays the maître d’ at the Algonquin Hotel the list goes on. In some ways, this is a giant ensemble film because there are so many characters and recognizable actors playing all these famous writers and artists. “I’m not a writer with a drinking problem, I’m a drinker with a writing problem.” The movie is a meandering biography, mostly true, recounting Parker’s life, loves, writing, and socializing that centered around her friends known as the Algonquin Round Table. Jennifer Jason Leigh was at the height of her ‘art house darling’ days in ’94 when she made this film, studying Dorothy Parker’s writings and audio recordings of her voice so she could inhabit the character. Combine literary nerding, alcoholic binging, a little bit of sex, and incredibly charming 1920s clothes (especially hats), and you get Mrs.

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