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B8 z THE LIVING

Review/Film Michelle Pfeiffer in a Tale Of Interracial Friendship

By JANET MASLIN

"Love Field," a gentle, involving film about interracial friendship, be- gins with a very broad stroke in the form of Lurene Hallett (Michelle Pfeiffer), a blond bombshell who feels a special psychic bond with Jac- queline Kennedy. The year is 1963, the President has just been assassinated, and Lurene feels duty bound to take the bus from Dallas to Washington to attend the funeral. "What I want is to go to that rotunda and file past that Adam W. ['poems caisson or cortege or whatever it is Michelle Pfeiffer and pay my respects," Lurene says, savoring the important-sounding words that make her think she has a mission. Love Field For Lurene, feeling closely in- Directed by ; written by Don volved in this national tragedy Roos; director of photography, Ralf Bode; amounts to a kind of character trait. edited by Jane Kurson, music by Jerry Gold- smith; production designer, Mark Freeborn; produced by Sarah Pillsbury and Midge San- ford; released by Orlon Pictures. Running time: 104 minutes. This film is rated PG-13. A woman boards a Lurene Hallett Michelle Proffer Paul Cater... lone!' Stephanie McFadden bus in Texas to Ray Hallett Brian Kerwin attend J.F.K.'s Mrs. Enright Louise Latham funeral.

Defining herself visibly in terms of Mrs. Kennedy's appeal, she boards the bus wearing :a homemade laven- der suit in the 'Kennedy style and sporting a bouffant hairdo that hap- pens to be platinum blond. "Love Field," which opens today in New York and Los Angeles and will be seen in the rest of the country in February, takes its title from the Dallas airport where Lurene turns up, early in the story, to catch a glimpse of the Presidential plane. A character this flamboyant would risk sinking any film. But Ms. Pfeiffer, again demonstrating that she is as subtle and surprising as she is beautiful, plays Lurene with re- markable grace. Her only problem, if

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is to you could call it that, is looking like a cross between the young Mrs. Ken- nedy and the of "The Misfits." It isn't easy to believe that a pastel vision like Ms. Prelifer's Lur- ene could pass through so many sleepy Southern towns without caus- ing more of a stir. •

Lurene does get a rise out of Paul Cater (Dennis Haysbert), a fellow passenger on the bus, but she com- mands his attention for the wrong reasons. A quiet, serious black man traveling with a little girl (Stephanie McFadden), whom he introduces as Jonell, his daughter, Paul has little patience for the chat tery Lurene, who insists on befriending him. Lurene's sweetness is real, but her self-image includes a bit too much of Lady Bountiful. When she insists on telling Paul that President Kennedy "did a lot for the Negro," Paul partic- ularly bristles. "Hey, you want this?" he asks dryly, offering Lurene a mag- azine. "I'm finished with it. It's got lots of pictures." As the film progresses, Lurene per- sists in finding ways of attaching her- self to Paul and Jonell. Jonathan Kap- lan ("The Accused"), a director ca- pable of uncommonly delicate treat- ment of difficult issues, carefully con- breathe these people to life. Mr. Hays- veys the context in which this friend- bert is warm, sturdy and impressive ship is formed. in conveying Paul's mixture of exas- This modest film actually covers a peration and attraction to Lurene. lot of ground, touching on the racial Ms. Pfeiffer has a much showier role. and sexual attitudes of its time while Once again, she manages to be qui- also filling in the particulars of its etly spectacular, revealing the ways characters' earlier lives. Lurene's Lurene's inner desperation contrib- unhappy marriage clearly has a lot to utes to her outward gaiety. "I just do with her eagerness to reinvent kind of ran it together: don't know herself in such dramatic ways. Paul's why!" she exclaims nervously, trying constant watchfulness around white to explain how she got that name out Southerners and his occasional angry of her original Louise Irene. outbursts at Lurene's unwitting "Love Field" is finally a shade too gaucheness on the subject of race are polite. It moves cautiously in develop- also carefully drawn. ing its central relationship, perhaps So are the limits placed on friend- as a reflection of the restrictive world ship between a black man and a white in which the characters live. But that woman in rural Southern society. world is outstandingly well evoked When Paul comforts Lurene by through the series of quiet, desolate touching her arm, a white woman Southern settings through which Paul looks on disapprovingly. When Lur- and Lurene pass. ene is ostentatiously nice to Paul at a At a remote farmhouse, an elderly bus station, a black woman registers white woman (Louise Latham) har- similar dismay. And when these two bors these two once they become fugi- finally give in to temptation, there is tives, and displays a grudging aware- a long pause before anything hap- ness that the world is changing. And pens. The camera watches both Paul in another small town, when Lurene present the first performance this and Lurene think things over before tries to tell a black mechanic of Presi- season of Wagner's "Walkiire" to- they kiss. dent Kennedy's good deeds regarding morrow evening. The cast includes • racial equality, the man says: "Take Gwyneth Jones as Briinhilde, Jessye As written by (who also a look around, ma'am. Look like he Norman as Sieglinde, Hanna Schwarz wrote "Single White Female"), done much here?" as Fricka, Gary Lakes as Siegmund, "Love Field" brings remarkably few • James Morris as Wotan and Aage preconceptions to the telling of its "Love Field" is rated PG-13 (Par- Haugland as !funding. James Levine understated story. The characters ents strongly cautioned). It includes conducts. information: (212) 362- transcend stereotypes, but what real- brief violence, mild sexual sugges- • 6000. ly matters is the actors' ability to tiveness and slight profanity.