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My Bloody Christmas Card

Make My Bed: Tony Goldwyn threatens Mia Farrow.

'Reckless' is cruel farce for the holidays

By Richard von Busack

A light version of theater of cruelty is popular on stage these days. Such playwrights as John Guare, John Patrick Shanley and Craig Lucas specialize in Jacobean farce, in which lives and limbs are lost. When cruel farce is transposed into a movie, though, the cruelty makes the mood seem out of control, as if no conscious decision had been made on which way the film should feel.

Craig Lucas and director Norman René have adapted Lucas' mean-for-the-fun-of-it Christmas play into Reckless, a light seasonal movie comedy with a body count of at least four. A mom (Mia Farrow) is the target of a hit man hired by her husband; she flees her home, and is found and adopted by a kindly therapist (Scott Glenn) and his deaf-and-dumb wife (Mary-Louise Parker), neither of whom are, despite appearances, very honest people. After a spell as an amnesiac, Farrow is nursed by a Miracle Worker type (Eileen Brennan); when cured, she seeks refuge in Alaska, where Santa Claus lives, and it must be Christmas all the time. Farrow is very droll as the oblivious mom. René is an uncertain filmmaker, though; the scene of the game-show parody with Giancarlo Esposito as the host has Farrow's own apologetic qualities embossed all over it.

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Reckless (PG-13; 96 min.), directed by Norman René, written by Craig Lucas, photographed by Frederick Elmes and starring Mia Farrow, Scott Glenn and Mary-Louise Parker.


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