Veteran actor Elizabeth Pena passed away last week at the unfortunately early age of 55. Older listeners will probably remember her roles in films like La Bamba and Jacob’s Ladder while younger listeners would recognize her as Gloria’s mother on the TV show Modern Family or as the husky, exotic voice of Mirage in Pixar’s The Incredibles. Pena worked steadily over the last thirty five years, working on all kinds of projects - big Hollywood blockbusters, sitcoms, animation, and even a Lifetime made-for-tv movie called Suburban Madness. She easily moved back and forth between film and television, comedy and drama. Whatever role she played, Pena always managed to simultaneously exude both steely intelligence and emotional vulnerability. It’s a unique combination that not a lot of actors can successfully convey, but it was always present in Pena’s work.
Nowhere is this more true than in John Sayles’ 1996 film Lone Star. The film stars Chris Cooper
as Sam Deeds, the sheriff of a small Texas border town and son of local legend Sheriff Buddy Deeds played in flashbacks by a young Matthew McConaughey. In many ways, Sam Deeds is a typical Western hero. He works to bring law and order to the community but isn’t sure he wants to stick around and be part of what he saves.
as Sam Deeds, the sheriff of a small Texas border town and son of local legend Sheriff Buddy Deeds played in flashbacks by a young Matthew McConaughey. In many ways, Sam Deeds is a typical Western hero. He works to bring law and order to the community but isn’t sure he wants to stick around and be part of what he saves.
The story centers around Sam’s investigation of a skeleton discovered in the desert outside of town. It turns out the bones belong to Charlie Wade, the violent, corrupt sheriff who preceded Buddy Deeds back in the sixties. Everyone thought Wade had taken some extortion money and fled to Mexico, but he clearly didn’t make it that far. Sam Deeds spends the movie trying to figure out who put the bullets in Charlie Wade and what his father Buddy had to do with the murder.
Elizabeth Pena plays Pilar, a local school teacher and Sam’s high school love. In flashbacks we see that neither Buddy nor Pilar’s mother approved of the two of them dating and put a swift, forceful end to their relationship. As adults, the two of them tentatively move toward rekindling their romance. Pena, as ever, is smart, watchful, and nobody’s fool. She doesn’t play Pilar as a helpless girlfriend or just as an accessory for her male counterpart. On the contrary, she’s is a fleshed-out human being who stands on equal footing with Sam and every other character in the movie. In a recent interview, director John Sayles pointed out that Pena was so successful in the role because her combination of intelligence and sensuality was utterly believable. As viewers, we believe that this is a woman Sam Deeds would be in love with for a couple of decades.
Besides the great performances (including a wonderfully off-kilter cameo by Frances McDormand as Sam’s ex-wife, Bunny), Lone Star is a brilliant example of what makes movies movies. There are some scene transitions involving really smart staging and editing that could only happen on film. You could never achieve the same effect on stage or in a novel. I don’t want to ruin any of the pleasure for you by describing it too much, but as the story shifts back and forth between the past of Buddy Deeds and Charlie Wade and the present of Sam and Pilar, the way Sayles manages to move the film across decades while clearly showing the connectedness of the past and present is so cool and smart, it’s worth seeing the movie just for that.
This review was originally broadcast on Q90.1, Delta College Public Radio. Learn more about the station at www.deltabroadcasting.org
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