I think I may as well lump these all together into one review. I was actually lead to believe that these were somehow all intended as a trilogy, like from the same company or something, but looking at the IMDb I can’t find a name connecting them all (lol edit: of course, apart from Amy Fisher … but you knew what I meant …). Weird, then, that they do come over as ever so slightly different from each other despite their huge similarities. I always loved the quote I first heard in the Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture,

“There are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently.”

This line kinda appears in “The Amy Fisher Story”, I think something kinda along the lines of, “his story, her story, and the truth”. The truth being a little difficult to nail in this case, at least at the time the movies were made, so soon after the fact (in fact, weirdly so), we have here Amy’s story, Joey’s story, and the media’s story. Each movie kinda crosses into other territories but they’re actually surprisingly focused. I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been another movie though – between the three sides of the story, with the addition of hindsight, I’m pretty certain there’s a great movie here somewhere. Maybe something will come of Amy Fisher’s 2004 book, “If I Knew Then” (yeh, I’ve kinda gone nutty looking all this up online, lol), which I definitely intend to read next year following these movies.

I definitely suggest to anybody wanting to watch any one of these movies to do as I’ve done and wait till you can see them all close together. Taken separately, they’re as cheesy, cheap and TV-movie-ish as you’d expect. Together, though, they really give you the impression you’ve seen the full story. Drew Barrymore, Alyssa Milano and Noelle Parker play Fisher pretty much the same way which is sort of a let down, I guess … to me, they all seem to have drawn their inspiration from Sofia Coppola in Godfather III. I’d love to say Drew Barrymore is my favourite, because I love her, but overall I liked Noelle Parker more, just as I liked that movie a little more than the other two – nothing to do with the viewpoint it takes, more to do with how consistent it is. Something in me wants to say almost that it’s the most cinematic of the three, but I’ll have to see them again to say that for sure. Barrymore’s version is good, but knowing how much better she can be, it’s just … not. Milano’s is the most grating performance, but it too has its moments. Like I say, you really need to watch them all side by side to get the full effect I think. Somewhere in the 4 1/2 hours is a great movie.

“Casualties of Love” is the cheesiest, but even it has its moments … you kind of ‘get’ what the series of movies is going for in the fullest sense during a scene where Joey shows Mary Jo the extent of her wounds, takes her to a shower, all while ultra-cheesy Hero Music plays in the background – oh, look at the big man confronting the horrors of reality and boo hoo hoo … okay, actually it’s probably the most moving moment of all three movies. The weird thing about Casualties… is how violent and, well, for want of a better word, manly, a character Joey is portrayed as, even though it’s “his” side of the story and he still comes over better than he does in the other 2 movies where he’s practically a gentleman by comparison.

I really didn’t know a lot about the Amy Fisher story before I saw these movies. I’d probably heard more of her as a punchline in sitcoms, and I ‘got’ the joke; but like Gary Coleman gags, though I ‘get it’, I know about as much about Fisher as I’ve seen episodes of “Diff’rent Strokes”. I think it’s a big credit to these movies that they really sparked my interest in the story. I want to read more about it, starting with Fisher’s, “If I Knew Then …” They’re none of them great movies, but as a threesome of viewpoints they make a really interesting study. Anyway, I’ve had this entry on and off as a draft for too long now so I’m posting what I have. I could go on and on about this though. I will be watching all the movies again for sure.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 17th, 2006 at 8:07 pm in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.