What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

This is a story of the whole being lesser than the sum of its parts. Taken individually, the components of the movie are mostly fine. The lighting, cinematography, and overall direction are great. The acting is good. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and ominous. And the story is good. But that script … good lord, that script undermines every step of this movie. At every moment, the plot and character development ruins the story. It starts with how the characters are introduced. We’re given brief glimpses of Jane and Blanche as kids, we only hear about them in their Hollywood prime, and after maybe five minutes, they’re older women and the plot begins. There is no slow descent into Jane’s madness, no peeling back the layers as we see her unravel. She’s just cuckoo-banana-pants from moment one. Without watching her break down in slow motion, it robs the movie of the ability of building tension. And because Blanche is handicapped, there is no contest of wills. There’s just a crazy, abusive woman tormenting her sister for two hours, like an album with a skipping needle. On the other end, there’s Blanche, whose demeanor of a sweet, trusting, naive sister never feels true. It feels forced, and (spoilers for a 60 year old movie) as it turns out, it is forced; she’s a liar and a rotten piece of crap too. But the longer the movie forces you to believe she’s this kind and an innocent victim, the more it screams out that it’s a fake, and no amount of torment inflicted by Jane brings the sympathy it should. The biggest sin are the gaping plot holes that require people to act stupid so the movie doesn’t end. When Blanche writes a note and throws it out the window at her neighbor, she could just as easily yell out to the neighbor, but doesn’t. When Alvira has her fatal confrontation with Jane, she’s smart enough to get tools to tear down the locked door, but despite Jane being obviously nuts, she leaves the tools out in the open so she can be murdered. When Jane calls the doctor and imitates her sister to cancel the emergency visit, Jane wakes up during the call; does she call out? Is the doctor suspicious of getting a second call in like 30 seconds that reverses what the previous one said? Nope. When the piano player comes around, Blanche could scream or make noise, and doesn’t. And when he comes back later and she does, he doesn’t call the police; he wanders into the street and tried to signal passing drivers. Scene after scene, this movie relies on characters acting like they don’t have a functioning brain to keep the script from falling in on itself, and it hurts.  I want to like this movie as a Hitchcockian psychological thriller. It has a great story in there, and two great actresses. But it is totally torpedoed by a script that leans on camp, turns its characters into idiots, and has no idea how to build tension. I know I’m on an island on this one, and I’m prepared to be hated for it, but it’s how I see it. I just could not enjoy a movie working so hard against itself.