From my column for The Woman’s Papers: It’s summertime. Sometimes the best plan is to avoid the heat and sing your heart out at home!
GRACE OF MY HEART is director/screenwriter Allison Anders’ musical tribute to the ‘60s. Illeana Douglas stars as “Denise Waverly,” an aspiring singer and gifted composer of pop melodies. Jennifer Leigh Warren plays the girl group diva (Diana Ross?), Bridget Fonda wears the big hair (Leslie Gore?), and Matt Dillon’s the mad genius who fronts a surfer band (Brian Wilson?).
After writing hit after hit for the stars of her day, “Denise” finally cuts her own album (an homage to Carole King’s TAPESTRY). Through all their career highs and lows, plus romances, marriages, pregnancies, and divorces, “Denise” and her friends run through a fabulous array of period costumes and hairdo’s that are almost as much fun as the nostalgic music.
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Our “haiku” from the FF2 Database: Tuneful film loosely based on the career of singer-songwriter Carole King, from the Manhattan of the ’50’s to the California Beaches of the ’70’s. As fashions change over time, so do opportunities for women, enabling our heroine (Douglas) to move to the foreground in both her art & her relationships.
