The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008)
Average Rating: 4.4/10
Reviews Counted: 39
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 29
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 9
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.5/5
User Ratings: 68,231
My Rating
Movie Info
A rebellious socialite defies social conventions for a once-in-a-lifetime shot at true love, only to see her hopes for the future shattered after a priceless diamond vanishes into thin air in this romantic drama adapted from a long-lost Tennessee Williams screenplay. Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the debutant daughter of a wealthy Memphis plantation owner. She harbors a great distain for the narrow-minded elite who seem to worship the ground her father walks on, and takes great delight
Dec 30, 2009 Wide
Sep 7, 2010
$94.5k
Paladin
Watch It Now
Cast
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Bryce Dallas Howard
Fisher Willow -
Chris Evans
Jimmy Dobyne -
Ann-Margret
Aunt Cornelia -
Will Patton
Old Man Dobyne -
Ellen Burstyn
Miss Addie -
Mamie Gummer
Julie -
Jessica Collins
Vinnie
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All Critics (40) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (30) | DVD (2)
The characters and themes are redolent of earlier and better Williams works, and the story unexpectedly putters out at the end-but seeing it now, you can't help but treasure the simple, lyrical dialogue and sure-handed narrative thrust
Top CriticIf you are not already familiar with Williams's best plays and film adaptations, this musty magnolia of a movie won't encourage you to seek them out.
Even though Howard never quite gets it, never quite releases into the role and never quite convinces, she never makes a mistake, either.
It's minor Williams turned minor cinema, but there are nonetheless moments that resonate.
The script is half-a-fortune at best, and visually the picture is staid. But you stick with it, because it's Williams and because certainly no one since Williams has written this sort of embroidered dialogue.
It has been filmed in a respectful manner that evokes a touring production of an only moderately successful Broadway play. Understand that, accept it, and the film has its rewards and one performance of great passion.
The words drip with affectation (as do the actors) and Jodie Mankell's direction is dipped in southern gothic honey and glazed over with period sprinkles.
Beautifully photographed...Sadly, though, there isn't much else to recommend it.
A deservedly overlooked Tennessee Williams script set in the 1920s South, its plot makes little sense for contemporary audiences.
This is not the galvanizing, deep fried melodrama of Tennessee Williams at his height but rather, the low fat version.
As beautifully played by Howard, Fisher Willow appropriately resembles a china doll, with a pale face highlighted by bright red lips -- she is hard yet fragile, projecting something of an artificial quality that hides her pain.
Markell has valiantly created a mild bit of Williams ephemera that could have been more than a curiosity piece with a more dynamic actress at its center.
While it captures the Southern Gothic atmosphere, it's sketchy and studied, best geared to Tennessee Williams aficionados.
A clearly inferior piece of writing that doesn't have the emotional resonance of even previously acknowledged mediocre works by Williams.
a terrible and terribly dated work that will strike Williams scholars as the cinematic equivalent of a bottle cap and everyone else as arguably the worst version of one of his works to ever hit the big screen and bear in mind, I have seen "Boom."
It's unfortunate that an entire generation who've never seen a Williams play or film will think that this current work represents the artist. Now that this screenplay has been 'found' ... can we lose it again?
Most effective as a reminder that Williams' works emerged from a certain time and place, and to approach them from another is fraught with peril.
A rambling, zombified pass at Williams-certified melodrama, the film is an absolute chore to finish, even while boasting a few fine performances and the luscious humidity of 1920's southern comfort.
Audience Reviews for The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
Super Reviewer
This film feels like Tennessee Williams's work from beginning to end, and one can almost draw one-to-one parallels from The Loss of the Teardrop Diamond to Cat on the Hot Tin Roof; both films are about maintaining integrity in a dishonest and disappointing world, but Teardrop is far less subtle, almost banging you on the head with speeches about how one's word is all that one can truly control. These are resonant themes in Williams's work, and the "style." by which I mean the long monologues filled with sharp images and the characters' slow drawl, is also typical Williams. But I can understand why this screenplay was never produced during his lifetime. There are elements that just don't fit, most obviously the Ellen Burstyn character, and when Fisher does what she does with the second medicine bottle, I wondered when she would experience something more than making the scenery look darker.
I didn't recognize Bryce Dallas Howard, who gives a fine performance, but Chris Evans is what Chris Evans would be if he routinely talked in a Southern accent.
Overall, this is a poor effort, but die-hard fans of Williams will find something to like.
Super Reviewer
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- Miss Addie: Thank you for coming in. I know how unpleasant it is to enter this chamber of horrors.
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- Fisher Willow: I almost never feel really peaceful, you know.
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- Fisher Willow: I'm not sure embarrassment is still an emotion I could feel.
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Good movie but a little boring for my taste. Great acting from Bryce and Chris. If there is a problem with the movie, it needs a little more time to invest in characters outside of Fisher. As a romance, the movie is questionable, not so much because of cheap film making, but because of a deliberate decision to keep things a bit distant. In fact, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond when all is said and done, is more of a drama than a romance. This movie is not for everyone so I recommend you really watch it if your a Tennessee Williams novel enthusiast or a fan of Bryce or Chris.
Tells the story of Fisher Willow, the disliked 1920s Memphis débutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her. After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with Jimmy, the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation. She tries to pass him off as an upper-class suitor to appease the spinster aunt who controls her family's fortune, but when she loses a diamond, it places their tenuous relationship in further jeopardy.