
75 Degrees in July   100 min. Drama
Writer/Director: Hyatt Bass
Producers: Hyatt Bass & Jeanne O'Brien
Cast: Shirley Knight (Desperate Housewives, As Good
as it Gets), Heidi Swedberg (Seinfeld), Harris Yulin
(The Emperor's Club, Training Day, Rush Hour 2, Murder
at 1600), William R. Moses (Perry Mason), Karen Sillas
A successful New York sculptor returns to her Texas
home to reconnect with her family, only to encounter
old patterns of miscommunication and jealously. From
her emotionally distant father and her fiercely
competitive mother to her sister and sister's husband
who blames everyone else for their own sacrifices, it
becomes clear that everyone is an outsider in this
complex family.
PRAISE FOR 75 Degrees in July
Variety-
A sensitively handled drama about a family whose
less-than-happy reunion reveals no end of bitter
divisions... kept from becoming too oppressive by
Bass' restrained approach... the fine cast resists the
potential for easy pathos, villainy and melodrama...
Each principal thesp grasps their role with such
subtle, layered understanding.
Full Variety Review
It's hot as Texas in July --- in fact, it is Texas in
July --- but the emotional climate is well below
freezing in writer-director Hyatt Bass' debut feature.
A sensitively handled drama about a family whose
less-than-happy reunion reveals no end of bitter
divisions, "75 Degrees in July" is the kind of sober,
downbeat chamber drama that reps a hard sell
theatrically these days, particularly without benefit
of significant star wattage. Prospects will probably
be brighter ahead in broadcast and video markets.
Title's weather forecast appears to be wishful
thinking, since characters are wilting from the heat
throughout. This adds to the general crankiness as
Letty Anderson (Karen Sillas) returns home --- for
evidently the first time in several years --- to visit
her parents and sister. The excuse for this trip is a
posh local gallery show of her sculptures; Letty's
artistic career has brought her considerable success
and prestige.
But sibling Kay (Heidi Swedberg) can only view this
success through the tunnel vision of her own
resentment --- she'd abandoned a promising singing
career years before, ostensibly to raise a family, but
more deeply due to her mother Jo Beth's (Shirley
Knight) meticulous undermining of any professional
confidence. She's taken that frustration out on
husband Jed (William Moses), never letting him forget
he's her father Rick's (Harris Yulin) employee. Nor
can Jed stop resenting the wealthy Anderson
patriarch's purchasing his beloved but debt-hobbled
ranch, making him a hired hand on his own one-time
family property.
Indeed, this clan is all about competition, emotional
blackmail and little backstabbings, a status quo set
in stone long ago by the parents' needy, manipulative
ways. Jo Beth is the type of butter-wouldn't-melt
hausfrau whose surface sweetness masks a constant,
nagging disapproval. (She tactlessly implies that
still-single Letty's career triumphs are meaningless
alongside her domestic "failure" as an "old maid.")
She longs for some show of tenderness from hubby Rick,
but his meanspirited neglect amplifies her
shrewishness, just as the cold-blooded business
strategizing that's made his fortune has also played
wife, daughters and son-in-law against one another.
Letty and Jed --- once high school sweethearts until
he was grabbed away by Kay, presumably in another show
of premeditated one-upmanship --- appear the least
vindictive characters here, the ones most willing to
forgive and forget.
But all bridges remain burned beyond repair at pic's
muted close, any rapproachment stifled by Kay's
misdirected anger, Jo Beth's bitterness and Rick's
callous insistence on treating his loved ones like
property. (He offers to give back Jed's family
property in "exchange" for more time with his two
grandchildren. But Jed, understandably, doesn't want
his kids struggling to meet the same impossible
expectations that soured Kay and Letty.)
It's a bleak psychological landscape, kept from
becoming too oppressive by the physical one (lenser
Michael Barrett makes much of the rural scenic
beauties at hand) and by Bass' restrained approach.
There are few explosive confrontations here; instead,
interpersonal tensions are revealed in small,
incessant slights and telltale glances. The widest
open spaces in "75 Degrees" aren't Texas' own, but
rather the yawning gaps between what's said and what's
left to fester in silence. While pic's modesty
precludes the greater cathartic punch of similar
deep-freeze-family dysfunction dramas from "Ordinary
People" to "The Ice Storm," its earnestness and
integrity make these rather unpleasant characters
watchable.
So, too, does the fine cast, which resists the
potential for easy pathos, villainy and melodrama.
Feature might have degenerated into a feel-bad
domestic potboiler if each principal thesp didn't
grasp their role with such subtle, layered
understanding. Bass might have allowed them to lighten
up a little more often, though: Apart from one very
funny, incisive scene in which the Andersons scare off
a highway patrolman, there's not much humor here to
alleviate the overall gloom.
FESTIVALS
Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Montreal International Film Festival, world
premiere
Valleyfest Film Festival, "Best Film," award
River Run International Film Festival, "Best
Screenplay" award
USA International Film Festival, opening night
film
 
 
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