Under a grey, melancholy sky, Stephen King presents another labyrinthine tragedy in Total Eclipse, a horror story, but not supernatural. All elements of the film come from everyday horrors such as alcoholism, gender-based violence, humiliation, dehumanization, labor exploitation and child abuse.
Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) is the caretator of Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), an elderly and frail woman who dies after falling down the stairs. Detective Mackey (Christopher Plummer) is ready to prove Dolores guilty.
- There are precedents in that.
- The detective also investigated the “accidental” death of Dolores’ husband (David Strathairn).
- Who surely murdered him nearly twenty years earlier.
After discovering her mother’s arrest, Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) returns to her childhood home and the scene of many traumatic memories for both her and Dolores.
Dolores Claiborne worked for Vera Donovan for more than 20 years, her work was not easy. Vera demanded, for example, that she hang each sheet with six clothes tweezers instead of five, and always at the top of the garden, she had to repeat this ritual all year round.
After Selena returns, the mother and daughter return to the ruined family home. We see Selena smoking and consuming alcohol and stress medications.
The new environment causes him great anxiety, fueling his resentment towards his mother, who suspects that the mother had something to do with the death of her father, who fell into an abandoned well on the afternoon of a total eclipse.
While Selena helps her mother “in her own way,” Dolores helps her unlock memories of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her father, as a result of these abuses and the theft of all the savings spent at Selena’s studies. , we see that in fact, his father was killed by Dolores.
Taking advantage of that day’s total eclipse, she devised a perfect plan so they wouldn’t find out it was her. However, twenty years later, the detective who nearly caught him has returned to investigate Vera’s death, determined to arrest him. near retirement and doesn’t want to leave any open file.
Dolores is a mother dedicated to what she considers her daughter’s happiness, but at the same time faces the challenge of not having the natural ability to inform her, in fact, the story becomes more intense when this emotional blockage becomes apparent. Looks like she tried to remove all emotions from her life to ease the pain.
The father is someone we don’t understand, he appears as someone who eliminates emotions. His character only invites rejection and shows us that there are people who have not completed the humanization process. N, the film, the character only serves to help the viewer understand the behavior of mother and daughter.
The women in the film live in a world full of men who seek to divide and keep them silent, demonstrating how patriarchal society ignores older women until they do something that makes them afraid.
These women are always underestimated and the strength they encounter often comes from their relationships with other women around them. The film focuses on this dynamic, which we all see repeated hundreds of times in real life.
Dolores finally gets a chance to tell her daughter the truth. Selena realizes her mother’s strength when she hears her confession. Dolores lost almost everything to protect her daughter from the man who abused her. This exercise in honesty allows her to Selena look like her mother. and realize that they are one. They are at the same time to deal with all the abuse and pain.
Kathy Bates is the perfect actress to play a woman like Dolores. Bates acts as fiercely as he acts tragically. Jennifer Jason Leigh is slowly handling Selena’s slow decline. Selena and Dolores’ frenetic relationship leads the film, reflected in the stormy friendship between Vera and Dolores.
The role of Vera is also excellent and reminds us that women face all kinds of situations. The three women have a front of resistance against a world that has made them victims. But, as Vera points out, “sometimes being a slut is all a woman needs. To get attached. “
The film calls for a different ending, in which Selena embraces her emotions, what the audience needs is a big wave of emotion.
Instead, we are in a cold and continuous atmosphere, slightly tempered by the suggestion that the distance between mother and daughter has been reduced.
Although it is not an emotionally satisfying ending, it is realistic, however, this film is about the family horrors that leave their mark on our hearts and emotions, even if we wanted a different ending, we end up with a realistic and sincere reality.