The M.V. Film Society hosts its annual Women in Film Festival coming up, and one of the films, “Isle of Hope,” focuses on the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. Starring Mary Stuart Masterson (Victoria) and Diane Ladd (Carmen) as daughter and mother, this film covers everything from divorce to jealousy, to love and laughter.
Victoria is a college professor who hasn’t forgiven her self-absorbed, once-famous actress mother for ruining her dreams of becoming a playwright years earlier. This act of betrayal settles like a cloak over much of the film, but in the end brings the two women together as they come to their own realizations.
Damián Romay directs the two women in “Isle of Hope,” and Omar Romay is executive producer. Rounding out the cast are Andrew McCarthy as Victoria’s ex and Sam Robards as her brother. I became familiar with both Romays first by talking to Damián about his film project featuring Cynthia Riggs and the late Howard Attebury. (See B1 for related story.)
We get to know Victoria through her lessons at the university, and she even makes it difficult for some of the student actors who take her classes. She drives a hard bargain, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Her psychiatrist brother William (Robards) tries to reason with her once their mother suffers a stroke, and wakes up believing it’s 15 years earlier. We can see that Victoria needs to reconcile with Carmen, but we also see that it’s going to take some work.
Through this life-threatening stroke experience Carmen has, we see all the characters soften a bit — and panic. But Carmen, with her Southern drawl, is the liveliest of all of them. She takes great pride in her appearance, and helps the rest of the family not take themselves too seriously — which they are all prone to do.
Victoria is divorced, and her ex (McCarthy) has clearly moved on, and his new partner is expecting. Their daughter Eleanor feels stifled and hovered over by Victoria, and thinks after a trip abroad that she’d like to stay with her father instead of Victoria. Their relationship doesn’t appear to fall far from the one Victoria has with Carmen.
Victoria’s character evolves into accepting her daughter’s point of view once she returns from her trip, and eventually her daughter’s decision to keep the baby she is carrying. Everyone grows emotionally in this women-centric film.
“Isle of Hope” can be a tearjerker at times, but it also makes you smile and laugh as you watch Carmen outwit her children and her doctors. Carmen eventually has another spell that reverses the 15-year memory loss, but that memory loss is what motivates Victoria to figure out where her life went haywire, and how she can reconcile her relationship with her mother, her ex-husband, her brother, and her daughter.
Carmen stays with Victoria after she’s released from hospital, something Victoria seems saddled with at first. We see her warm up to the situation, though, and we see three generations of women coming together and working through their tough episodes — not unlike real life.
The producer, Omar Romay, says he loved the stage version of “Isle of Hope,” and moved forward to adapt it into the film. He explained that producers have different roles in different films, writing in an email, “Any film production requires creative and logistic work, and every production is different. The role of the producer is always unclear. Some take care of the financing, some take care of the logistics, some get involved in every aspect of the film. Each producer and each film may be different.”
The movie’s actors all feel well-suited for their roles, and even though some scenes are predictable, “Isle of Hope” makes you feel good in the end, and just might make you see your own relationships a bit differently.
“Isle of Hope” screens Friday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 pm at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, as part of the Women in Film Festival.
