Word: dewhurst
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...Instead of building toward a climax, Stranger strings together three awkward, vaguely related segments. The first concerns a baby sitter (Carol Kane) who is terrorized by phone calls from a homicidal maniac (Tony Beckley). The second, set seven years later, has the maniac loose again, menacing a woman (Colleen Dewhurst) in a bar. The third has him on the trail of the baby sitter, who is now a wife and mother, while a detective (Charles Durning) stalks...
None of this works. Kane talks through her nose, and Beckley overacts. Dewhurst is physically far more formidable than her assailant and so does not seem menaced. Durning, a mild fat man who was perfectly cast as the comic villain in The Muppet Movie, jiggles too much when he runs to be credible as an implacable avenger. Moss grew years ago on Director Fred Walton's spooky trips...
...Hampshire church hall. The occasion is a wedding rehearsal that never does take place. The bride-to-be is Annie (Kathleen Quinlan). She is accompanied by her Aunt Helen (Elizabeth Wilson), her older sister Andrea (Meryl Streep) and her mother Ruth (Nancy Marchand), an unresigned widow. (Colleen Dewhurst played Ruth for a few performances but withdrew because of a prior commitment.) A fifth woman distinctly jars this ostensibly patrician clan. Dixie Avalon (Dixie Carter) is a breezy, purse-swinging entertainer who has been hired by one of the absent menfolk to sing Oh Promise Me, apparently as a prank. Dixie...
...aching honesty to Quinlan's Annie as she tries to hold a mirror up to her troubled heart. Streep's alabaster features can convey icy disdain and mock merriment. Her voice is a bed of nails on which she some times lies in self-contempt. As Ruth, Dewhurst was a Rock of Gibraltar. Marchand is better suited to the role, a homebody with artistic impulses who needs a hus band for ballast. Though she has her cranky moments, Wilson's Aunt Helen is a lamp of sanity, and if anyone could lift the evening...
...kept firmly grounded in plausible, recognizable territory by the realistic detailing in Donald Wrye's direction, the authentic tone of the dialogue and the straightforward work of an excellent cast. Tom Skerritt as the skater's father, reluctant to let her go, and her first coach, Colleen Dewhurst, are particularly good. There is a choice piece of writing for Robby Benson, playing her boyfriend. In the beginning he is both unsure about what he wants to do in life and fearful that she will outdistance...