IBMovies

Release date: 1995-03-24

Rating: 7.278

Votes: 802

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

Reviews

MoHA

Welcome to Maine; where alcoholism, smoking, and all sorts of behavior the aforementioned are trying to cover up creep up on you like bad filling of gravy. At least, in Stephen King’s universe. True to his (excessive) words, a lot gets stirred up, not all of it gets answered, and characters get knee high in lots of details. Nothing wrong about that, except in this movie the details, and the melodrama that comes with them, tend to bog down what should be bonding of two women over the men that hurt them. What a depressingly masculine mess. I love a good pulpy environment (hello film noir, which often has a mystery element to it like this movie) but someone how the pacing was just off. I think Kathy Bates does a pretty fantastic job as the the title character. Her daughter Selena though.. I don’t know if it meant more in the book but her talks about the story in Arizona she wants to cover doesn’t really anything interesting to the mix. Maybe it’s to show what bad decisions she’s made after having no family to turn to, but it’s belaboured. We get she’s a emotional mess without it. I also don’t think Jennifer Jason Leigh is all that great in the role, but then again she mostly just sits there to reveal plot points and be something Dolores scarified for. She’s a talking macguffin. Much more interesting is the relationship between Dolores and Det. Mackey, played gravely by Christopher Plummer. Oh, and that odd looking John C. Riley as his deputy. His face always livens everything up. There’s a bit of destructive perfectionist streak in Mackey, wanting to close the book on the case he never solves to his satisfaction. At some points this runs into cop drama play by play (including a[albeit mercifully short] courtroom scene. Were 90’s Hollywood films required to have those in at least one scene?), but it helped by little details, like throwing a full piss pan at the other. But whose piss was that? Why the fermenting yellow liquid of Vera, a women we seem to think Dolores killed. We know that’s not true though, any two who exchange such old fashioned zingers (“Dolores, I insist that all women who have hysterics in my drawing room call me by my Christian name.”) and share body fluids can’t hate each other. Maybe with only one, but both? Nay. Besides, it’s much more fun to tag team to doom a alcoholic sexual predator. Her husband; Am I spoiling anything by saying she did kill him? Then it would only be 95% special victims unit, not totally. Might as well cook up all that gravy, a full crock. This does lead to two defining moments for Dolores. The log back rub to milk cranium massage is pretty good vicious, but mere flower play before the eclipse. After finding Joe has been stealing from her (by proxy of having a penis and the bank therefore believing his bullshit) and abusing a young Selena she plays to stuff him down a well, when everyone is watching the sun black out. This scene is certainly memorable, if not only for the almost baroque visual style (lot of key light) but where she seems to set an olympic record for long jumping, right over the hole. Frankly, this should have been the ending, it’s Dolores best movement, and since she really sets the stage for everyone else to ladle out in, it’s a wonderfully creepy way out. Instead we wait another quarter of a film to pass by. Anything not Dolores tends to be too congested to be found appetizing. I wage she was more of the center of attention originally, and the other parts were attempting to give the actors more to do, or give more speaking time to the men. This is dubious; King material tends to be overripe as it is, but imitation King (as practiced by director Taylor Hackford and writer Tony Gilroy) is even more stagy. Fine, she helped her daughter, who recognizes it nearly twenty years later, and she amused an entertaining old lady. But the real Dolores, and where Bates is at her best, wrapped all the pain she took from an abusive husband, and leaped over to stomp down someone who hurt her young, like a fierce chicken. A little more strut, a little more pecking, and we would have a fine character study between her and her golden egg. Guess you take what you can get, and go on with your day, especially in Maine.

talisencrw

This one tends to get ignored when people consider the 'classic' Stephen King film adaptations (the first 20 years), but it's very subtle, nuanced, and is basically one of King's finest and more mature works. If it was even possible for Kathy Bates to out-do her Oscar-winning work in 'Misery', she still did so, and nailed it. I'm a huge fan of John C. Reilly, Eric Bogosian (why 'Talk Radio is my favourite Oliver Stone movie and 'Under Siege 2' my favourite Steven Seagal film), David Strathairn, Christopher Plummer and especially, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the Tony Gilroy script serves them beautifully. Unfairly, I tend to joke about director Taylor HACKford, but it just may be that he's a more contemporary model of such versatile directors from the past as Norman Jewison and Robert Wise. That's fairly esteemed company--and here, he abides himself quite nicely in some of his best work.

John Chard

Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto. Dolores Claiborne is directed by Taylor Hackford and adapted to screenplay by Tony Gilroy from the novel of the same name written by Stephen King. It stars Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Strathairn, John C. Riley, Christopher Plummer and Judy Parfitt. Music is scored by Danny Elfman and cinematography by Gabriel Beristain. Plot sees Leigh as Selena St. George, a big-city reporter who travels to her home town island in Maine when her mother is accused of murdering the elderly woman that she was caring for. Her estranged mother, Dolores (Bates), is also widely suspected to have killed her husband and Selena's father some 20 years earlier, even though that was ruled as an accident. As mother and daughter come together, secrets of the past merge with the harshness of the present. A terrifically well acted and well mounted drama doing justice to a great book, Dolores Claiborne thrusts family trauma to the front of an on going murder investigation. King adaptations are well known for being very hit and miss, but this is certainly one of the better ones, it sees a shift from standard horror monsters, to monsters of a different kind, the human ones. Played out to a perpetually dank backdrop of rain, grey skies and a sea devoid of beauty, film unfolds to reveal the sadness of one family's roots, where emotional discord hangs heavy, constantly. The structure is well handled by Hackford, as present day scenes merge into those from the past, giving off a perfectly ghost like feel to the plotting. Plummer's weary detective John Mackey is a bit too underwritten for my liking, and the time afforded the pre-trial debate and inquest is simply not enough to make the required impact once all the revelations come tumbling forward - the latter of which is nearly unforgivable given the film runs at over two hours. However, slight irks aside, this is still great stuff and if only for the trio of lead lady performances then this is a must see for the drama seeking film fan whom wants some intelligent emotional heft in the screenplay. 8/10

Movie Recommendation

Big Driver
2014-10-18
Tess Thorne, a famous writer, is determined to seek revenge on the man who brutally assaulted and raped her on a desolate New England road.
More...
Indictment: The McMartin Trial
1995-05-20
The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.
More...
Amityville: The Evil Escapes
1989-05-12
After moving into their matriarch's gothic seaside mansion, the Evans family soon becomes host to an uninvited demonic force in the form of a mysterious lamp that once resided in the Amityville house.
More...
Don't Come Knocking
2005-08-25
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
More...
El dolor de pagar la renta
1960-10-06
Viruta and Capulina are about to be evicted from the neighborhood where they live for not paying rent for eleven months. After several troubles with the police and the building owner, it is clarified that Capulina had saved the money to pay for the operation of a child that lives in the building. After all, the doctor operates the child for free, the neighbors celebrate with a big party and the building owner forgives them all the income.
More...
Ghetto
2006-06-08
In 1942, in Vilna, the Nazi annihilate 55,000 Jews and squeeze the 15,000 survivors in a seven blocks ghetto. The twenty-two year old sadistic commander Kittel is assigned to administrate the ghetto in the capital of Lithuania, becoming the master of life or death. When he finds the gorgeous Hayyah sneaking with one kilo of beam stolen from the German army, he sentences her to death; but when he is informed that she was a former successful singer, he decides to activate the old theater and promote shows in the ghetto. The Jew Chief of Police Gens uses the theater and a sewing factory to save as much lives as he can; in his ambiguous position, he kills Jews to save lives of others.
More...
Music on Hold
2009-03-19
Ezequiel is a film music composer that can't find the inspiration he needs to compose a new score and Paula is a pregnant woman recently abandoned by her boyfriend whose mother has just came from Spain to meet her husband. Together they will try to solve their problems.
More...
The Cure In Orange
1987-10-13
A concert video of The Cure filmed in Orange, France. 1. Intro 2. Shake Dog Shake 3. Piggy In The Mirror 4. Play For Today 5. A Strange Day 6. Primary 7. Kyoto Song 8. Charlotte Sometimes 9. Inbetween Days 10. The Walk 11. A Night Like This 12. Push 13. One Hundred Years 14. A Forest 15. Sinking 16.Close To Me 17. Let's Go To Bed 18. Six Different Ways 19. Three Imaginary Boys 20. Boys Don't Cry 21. Faith 22. Give Me It 23. 10.15 Saturday Night 24. Killing An Arab
More...
In Four Rows
1999-12-07
The story about the Bleiburg massacre, seen from a Croatian Home Defenders point of view.
More...
MA 2412 - Die Staatsdiener
2003-12-25
The film deals with questions that have long tormented us: Who was the first civil servant? How has the civil service developed over the course of history? What did Mr. Weber, Engineer Breitfuß, Ms. Knackal, and Mr. Claus do before MA 2412 existed? How did they meet? Why was MA 2412 actually founded? What if the EU decides to introduce a Europe-wide Christmas department? And what is the point of it all?
More...
Family
2018-08-19
Kate Stone is career-focused with a brash attitude that keeps relationships at an arm's length. When her estranged brother calls asking her to baby-sit her tween niece Maddie, Kate reluctantly agrees to help. But baby-sitting overnight unexpectedly turns into a week, and Kate's life spins into chaos. As Maddie reveals stories of being bullied and of wanting to run away and be a Juggalo, the two form a unique bond.
More...
Riding the Bullet
2004-10-15
In 1969, while studying at the University of Maine, artist Alan Parker becomes obsessed with death. Believing he is losing his girlfriend, he tries to commit suicide on his birthday but his friends manage to stop him. He receives news that his mother has had a stroke and decides to hitchhike to visit her at the hospital.
More...
The Headless Woman
2008-08-21
After running into something with her car, Vero experiences a particular psychological state. She realizes she might have killed someone.
More...
Klown
2010-12-16
Frank is left with the responsibility for his nephew Bo on an already planned canoe trip. Frank's mate Casper is also coming along. Weighed down a with their obligation, Frank and Casper nevertheless look forward to ending the trip at Skanderborg Festival where there's plenty there for the guys, a spree of drinking and women. Not the best example to set for young Bo. And how do their partners see it all?
More...
The Mangler
1995-03-03
When an accident involving a folding machine at an old laundry happens, detective John Hunton investigates. As his investigation progresses, he begins to suspect the machine is possessed by a demon from Hell.
More...
Project Eerie
2023-09-03
On Halloween, 2020, Jesse and Jacob Warner disappeared while live streaming on social media. This is that live stream.
More...
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
2002-08-16
The year is 2087, the setting is the moon. Pluto Nash, the high-flying successful owner of the hottest nightclub in the universe, finds himself in trouble when he refuses to sell his club to lunar gangster Mogan, who just happens to be helping the mysterious Rex Crater mastermind a plan to take over the entire moon.
More...
The Most Hated Woman in America
2017-03-24
The true story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- iconoclast, opportunist, and outspoken atheist -- from her controversial rise to her untimely demise.
More...
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
1970-10-29
Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments.
More...
School for Tramps
1955-01-27
Alberto Medina is a famous composer whose car breaks down while he is on a trip. While looking for help, he finds the Valverdes' house and is welcomed in by Emilia, the mother of the family, who is known for taking in tramps.
More...