`USED PEOPLE' IS MORE ARTIFICE THAN ART

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993                   TAG: 9301230207
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
`USED PEOPLE' IS MORE ARTIFICE THAN ART
"Used People" is one of those "endearing" family comedy-dramas about abrasively eccentric people who seem to spend an awful lot of time arguing with each other. Like a multitude of similar movies, this one is bookended with a funeral and a wedding.
The crowd-pleasing ingredients are here: lots of sentimentality under the corrosive exterior, romance, spunky old folks, family tensions and ethnic cultures in collision.
A good cast takes a game swing at the material. But the charm is labored. Directed by Beeban Kidron and written by Todd Graff, the movie is more artifice than art, though it does offer some amusing if unconvincing moments.
Shirley MacLaine plays Pearl, a recently widowed Jewish woman who is the mother of two divorced daughters. Kathy Bates plays Bibby, the overweight daughter who has consistently been belittled by her mother all of her life. Marcia Gay Harden plays Norma, the pretty daughter. Norma has lost her youngest child, and she copes with her grief by going to movies and playing out screen characters in real life.
The time is 1969, and Norma dresses up like Marilyn Monroe, Barbra Streisand and Anne Bancroft, among others. Meanwhile, her other child, unfortunately named Swee' Pea, is trying to cope with his own pain over the death of his grandfather and brother and his mother's retreat into fantasy through his own brand of self-destructive behavior.
Jessica Tandy plays Pearl's mother, who spends a lot of time bickering with her pal (Sylvia Sidney) and criticizing Pearl.
The most sympathetic and believable roles in the movie belong to Matthew Branton, who overcomes any acting awkwardness with his slight presence and sorrowful portrayal of Swee' Pea; and Bates, who is a wronged daughter if ever there was one.
Into this dysfunctional family comes Joe, played with charm if not realism by Marcello Mastroianni. Joe is an Italian widower who has loved Pearl from afar for 23 years. Now he intends to marry her. Joe seems like a nice, obsessed romantic, and he really doesn't deserve the family he may be getting.
The first two-thirds of the movie involve a lot of ugly confrontations and the airing of grievances, and the last third seems a hurried rush to send everyone off happily into the sunset.
\ USED PEOPLE: ** A Largo release at Tanglewood Mall Cinema (989-6165). Rated PG-13 for language and mild sexual content; 125 minutes.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB