Get us in your inbox

The Grifters

  • Film
Advertising

Time Out says

The title refers to con artists like Roy Dillon (Cusack), who makes a living palming dollar bills in bars, or Myra (Bening), the feisty drifter who tries to steer him to the big time after a petty scam lands him in hospital. But the most ruthlessly survivalist is Roy's mother Lily (Huston), employed by the Mob to work a 'playback' scam at racetracks, and liable to be beaten up or have a cigar stubbed out on her hand just to teach her a lesson. Lily is perceived as a woman of great tragedy, still possessed of the maternal instincts she needs to try to save her long-neglected son, imbued with a toughness that helps her overcome constant terror and loneliness, and sufficiently tainted by life to both desire and finally destroy her offspring. Donald Westlake's excellent screenplay does some justice to the starkness of Jim Thompson's novel; and Frears' direction never fails to grab the attention, even given the weaknesses of Cusack and Bening as the existentialist young love interest. Anjelica Huston is quite astonishing; as Thompson is a kind of dime-store Dostoievsky, so Huston's Myra seems straight from the pages of Euripides and Sophocles.
Written by SGr

Release Details

  • Duration:110 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Stephen Frears
  • Screenwriter:Donald E Westlake
  • Cast:
    • Anjelica Huston
    • John Cusack
    • Annette Bening
    • Pat Hingle
    • Henry Jones
    • Michael Laskin
    • Eddie Jones
    • JT Walsh
Advertising
You may also like
You may also like