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There is a line of dialogue that comes late in "Marvin's Room'' and contains the key to the whole film. It is spoken by a woman who has put her life on hold for years, to care for a father who "has been dying for 20 years--slowly, so that I won't miss anything.'' Has her life been wasted? She doesn't believe so. She says: "I've been so lucky to have been able to love someone so much.'' The woman's name is Bessie ( Diane Keaton ). She lives in Florida with her still-dying father, Marvin ( Hume Cronyn ), and a dotty aunt ( Gwen Verdon ), who wears some kind of medical device that is always opening the garage door. Bessie has discovered that she has cancer, but that her life might be saved by a bone marrow transplant. The only candidates for donors are Lee ( Meryl Streep ), a sister she has not seen in years, and Lee's two children. If they are to be of any help, some old wounds will have to be reopened.

Lee lives in Ohio, where her precarious life has recently taken an upturn; she's received her degree in cosmetology. It has also taken a downturn; her older son Hank ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) has just burned down the house. Her younger son Charlie ( Hal Scardino ) has reacted to this development as he reacts to most, by burying his nose in a book. Lee visits Hank in an institution, where he proudly reports, "They're not strapping me down anymore!'' "Don't abuse that privilege,'' she tells him.

The two sisters have not so much as exchanged Christmas cards in years, for reasons that they would certainly not agree on.

In broad outlines, this story goes on the same shelf with " What's Eating Gilbert Grape " another movie drama about a malfunctioning family (also starring DiCaprio). Both films have children who are the captives of chronically housebound parents; both have a child whose behavior is unpredictable and perhaps dangerous; both have a rich vein of bleak humor; both are about the healing power of sacrifice.

One of the big differences between the films, for a viewer, is that "Marvin's Room'' has so much star power: Not only Streep and Keaton, but also Robert De Niro , as a detached, apologetic doctor whose attempts to sound reassuring are always alarming. (How many spins can a doctor put on the words "test results?'') The famous faces make it difficult, at first, to sink into the story, but eventually we do; the characters become so convincing that even if we're aware of Keaton and Streep, it's as if these events are happening to them. (De Niro never becomes that real, and neither does Dan Hedaya , who is brilliant as his problematic brother, but that doesn't matter because they function like the fools in a tragedy.) Lee piles Hank and Charlie into the car for the drive down South, during which she keeps Hank (on release from a juvenile home) on a very short chain. (Having burned down the house, he naturally is not allowed matches, so when he wants to smoke, she has Charlie, the 10-year-old, light his cigarette.) When she first sees Bessie, there is bluntness and disbelief: Both have aged 20 years, except in each other's minds--and in their own.

Once the sisters are reunited, the material boils down into a series of probing conversations, and we sense the story's origin as a play. (It was written by Scott McPherson , and first produced at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in 1990; McPherson wrote a version of the screenplay before he died in 1992.) The stage origins, although we sense them, are not a problem because these two women *need* to talk to each other. There is a lot to say, and director Jerry Zaks lets them say it.

How do families fall apart? Why do many have one sibling who takes on the responsibilities of maintaining the "family home'' and being the care giver, while others get away as far and fast as they can? Is one the martyr and are the others taking advantage? Or does everyone get the role they really desire? What "Marvin's Room'' argues is that Lee, by fleeing the sick people at home, may have shortchanged herself, and that Bessie, ``chained'' to the bed of her slowly dying father, might have benefitted. Or perhaps not; perhaps Lee was constitutionally incapable of caring for her father and was better off keeping out of the way. There is a point in "Marvin's Room'' where such questions inspired parallel questions in my own mind; all families have illness and death, and therefore all families generate such questions.

Is one of the three visitors from Ohio a match for the transplant operation? Will Bessie live? Will her father die? The true depth of "Marvin's Room'' is revealed in the fact that the story is not about these questions. They are incidental. The film focuses instead on the ways the two sisters deal with their relationship--which they both desperately need to do--and the way the sons learn something, however haphazardly, about the difference between true unhappiness and the complaints of childhood.

Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems. Hal Scardino has some wonderful moments as the "good'' boy of a mother who is a borderline control freak (watch how he meticulously eats a potato chip just as she instructs). DiCaprio, on his good days, is one of the best young actors we have. Here he supplies the nudge the story needs to keep from reducing itself to a two-sided conversation; he is the distraction, the outside force, the reminder that life goes on and no problem, not even a long death, is forever.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Marvin's Room (1997)

Rated PG-13 For Thematic Elements and Brief Language

Gwen Verdon as Ruth

Hal Scardino as Charlie

Diane Keaton as Bessie

Meryl Streep as Lee

Leonardo DiCaprio as Hank

Robert De Niro as Dr. Wally

Hume Cronyn as Marvin

Screenplay by

• Scott McPherson

Directed by

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Marvin’s Room

The most interesting aspect of Jerry Zaks' "Marvin's Room," an intimate exploration of familial sacrifice and love, is observing three terrifically gifted performers, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio, effectively submerge their idiosyncratic talents and personas in an effort to portray ordinary, down-to-Earth individuals.

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The most interesting aspect of Jerry Zaks ‘ “ Marvin ‘s Room,” an intimate exploration of familial sacrifice and love, is observing three terrifically gifted performers, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio, effectively submerge their idiosyncratic talents and personas in an effort to portray ordinary, down-to-Earth individuals. Boasting what’s got to be year’s most perfectly cast film, with superlative supporting turns from veterans Gwen Verdon and Hume Cronyn, Miramax should do reasonably well with its modest, small-scale movie, whose message of selflessness and forgiveness aptly fits the spirit of Christmas.

Originally produced by Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in l990, and later in New York, “Marvin’s Room” is a personal play by Scott McPherson, who died of AIDS in l992, at the age of 33. This biographical item is not just background info, as it’s almost impossible to watch the film, which concerns various approaches to love and death, without realizing its particular AIDS message, as well as more universal values, such as caring for others and the strength of family bonds.

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Thematically, the narrative bears strong resemblance to Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart” (with two instead of three sisters), particularly the Keaton role, and Arthur Miller’s “The Price,” which also is about rival siblings and their different attitudes toward familial responsibilities and duties.

Since describing screen families as dysfunctional has become such a cliche, let’s just say that this film’s family is vastly troubled. As the story begins, the chief characters are briefly introduced through cross-cutting. Bessie (Keaton) is a sensitive, middle-aged woman who lives in Orlando, Fla., taking care of her dying father, Marvin (Cronyn), and eccentric aunt Ruth (Verdon). Her younger sister Lee (Streep) is a tough, fiercely independent divorcee, raising two sons: rebellious adolescent Hank (DiCaprio) and quieter brother Charlie (Hal Scardino), a geek who spends most of his time reading.

The two sisters have not spoken or written to each other for 20 years. In fact, they have been so alienated from each other that Hank didn’t even realize he had an aunt. Years back the sisters chose radically divergent paths. Bessie went home and sacrificed herself for her bedridden father. A single mother with a bad marriage, Lee went back to school, got a diploma in cosmetology and began a new life as a hairdresser in Ohio.

A reunion of sorts is forced upon the women when Bessie is diagnosed by Dr. Wally (Robert De Niro) as having leukemia, with her survival dependent on finding a relative whose bone marrow matches her own. In a funny scene, Bessie and Lee rehearse in front of the mirror how they will greet each other but, predictably, their meeting follows a totally different scenario.

The serio-comic tale, which still feels like a play, unfolds as a series of arguments, counter-arguments and reconciliations. Most of the drama consists of intimate interactional scenes, in which confessions and revelations are made. To describe the relationship between Lee and Hank as a generational gap is an understatement. Ever since he set their house on fire and was labeled delinquent, Lee has taken an extremely tough approach with him. Still, both handle their problems with gumption and even drollery. Talking about the mental institution Hank was sent to, Lee says: “We call it the loony bin, or the nut house, to show we’ve got a sense of humor about it.”

The whole film is laced with shards of humor and irony, which proves helpful, considering the basically downbeat nature of the material. Though utterly selfless, Bessie tells her doctor, “My father has been dying for 20 years, slowly, so that I won’t miss anything.”

It’s a credit to director Zaks, who here makes his feature debut, that he minimizes the exteriors and, more importantly, avoids the pitfalls of big emotional confrontational scenes, as is often the case of stage-to-screen transfers. “Marvin’s Room” is decidedly a film of many small but glorious moments. The inner journey that both sisters undergo, especially Streep’s character, is handled delicately, step-by-step, without hysteria — or sappy melodrama. It’s also telling, that the few outdoor scenes, such as Hank taking Bessie for a wild ride on the beach, or the whole family visiting Disney World, feel extraneous to a yarn that is inherently interior.

Zaks, who staged landmark productions of John Guare’s “House of Blue Leaves” and “Six Degrees of Separation,” knows that his best asset are the actors and he uses the bigscreen as an extension of the play’s literariness, providing his ensemble a platform to display their wonderful skills.

Truly collaborating, rather than competing (as could be expected), Keaton and Streep render brilliant performances. Part of the joy derives from watching how the two thesps, who have never acted together before, use different techniques that ultimately complement each other. Streep works at her role from the outside in, mastering the details of voice, movement, facial expression. Keaton, in contrast, is an instinctive actress who makes her lines sound more spontaneous. Keaton’s observation (obviously speaking for the author), “I’ve been so lucky to have been able to love someone so much,” and Streep’s lyrical closeup reaction to it are truly heartbreaking.

Rest of the cast, including back-in-form DiCaprio, as the troubled teenager who hits it off with his aunt; Cronyn, who spends the entire time in bed; Verdon, as the funny/sad ailing aunt; De Niro, as the whimsical doctor; and Dan Hedaya, in a role that under different circumstances might have gone to Robin Williams, is flawless.

Polish lenser Piotr Sobocinski (“Red,” “Ransom”) gives the film a crisp look, with nuanced lighting that underlines the characters’ continuously changing inner states. Other tech credits are good, with special kudos to Julie Weiss’ colorfully authentic costumes, particularly for the leading ladies.

• Production: A Miramax release of a Scott Rudin/Tribeca production. Produced by Scott Rudin, Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. Executive producers, Tod Scott Brody, Lori Steinberg. Co-producers, David Wisenievitz, Bonnie Palef. Directed by Jerry Zaks. Screenplay, Scott McPherson, based on his stage play.
• Crew: Camera (DeLuxe, color), Piotr Sobocinski; editor, Jim Clark; music, Rachel Portman; production design, David Gropman; art direction, Peter Rogness; set decoration, Tracey Doyle; costume design, Julie Weiss; sound (Dolby), Danny Michael; associate producers, Craig Gering, John Guare; assistant director, Ellen Schwartz; casting, Ilene Starger. Reviewed at a Raleigh screening room, Los Angeles, Nov. 26, 1996. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 98 MIN.
• With: Lee - Meryl Streep Hank - Leonardo DiCaprio Bessie - Diane Keaton Dr. Wally - Robert De Niro Marvin - Hume Cronyn Ruth - Gwen Verdon Charlie - Hal Scardino Bob - Dan Hedaya Dr. Charlotte - Margo Martindale Retirement Home Director - Cynthia Nixon

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Marvin's Room Reviews

Zaks knows enough not to get in the way of his three superb stars, who put on a display of emotional fireworks that is lovely to behold.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2018

Great work from Dicaprio, De Niro, and especially Streep certainly make the film watchable, but it still can't save it from feeling like a TV movie of the week. If you're a fan of melodrama... and over 60, then you'll find much to like.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 2, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

Keaton is given a rare opportunity here to remind us that she's not simply a fine comedienne, and she's marvelous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 8, 2010

At times attractive, at other times dull.

Full Review | Feb 8, 2010

The performances are overwhelmed by cinematography so gorgeous and distracting it makes the drama seem like just so much wheel spinning.

It's all plinky-plink pianos and mewing oboes, trying to jerk those tears a little too hard. No, a lot too hard. The music is awful. Stupendously bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 4, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2007

Based on a play by Scott McPherson's who died of AIDS, it's impossible to watch the well-acted film (particularly Diane Keaton, who should get an Oscar nod) without thinking of its themees: the various approaches to love and the strength of family bonds

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 26, 2006

Streep gives her most credible blue-collar performance to date; Keaton sidesteps saintliness to mix vulnerability and small heroics.

Full Review | Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2005

Its an actor's/writer's movie, but, oh, what acting and writing

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 9, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2005

Slow, depressing family drama finely acted

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 23, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2003

Marvin’s Room Review

01 Jan 1996

Marvin’s Room

Meryl Streep gets to do her dowdy working class thing, Diane Keaton suffers cancer gracefully, Leonardo DiCaprio gets to do teen angst and Robert De Niro gets to mug away as an eccentric doctor in this all-star adaptation of Scott McPherson's play.

Performances are all eminently watchable, you do get a slight feeling that everyone is looking for that little golden statue, (even the young DiCaprio). but the truncated feel (just over 90 minutes of this tale of family responsibilities in the face of death) robs the film of anything more than perfunctory pleasures. Making it lose it's flow somewhat and end up with a fairly dreary second half. Still it is of higher class than any made for TV melodrama but falls short of being the next Steel Magnolias or Awakenings.

MARVIN’S ROOM

"a family reunion".

What You Need To Know:

MARVIN’S ROOM is the dramatic story of two estranged sisters who find reunion through conflict. One sister, Bessie (played by Diane Keaton), has spent the last fifteen years caring for invalid family members. The other sister (played by Meryl Streep) has spent most of her life trying to keep her eldest son, Hank, out of jail. The two women have not spoken to one another in twenty years. At the beginning, Hank burns down the house and is placed in a mental asylum. Family conflicts come to a head with a phone call from Aunt Bessie asking for help. She has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Hank at first refuses to have anything to do with Bessie, but Bessie keeps trying to get through to him. Slowly and tenderly, the relationships are renewed among all family members, and pain is replaced with love.

(B, L, V, D, M) Moral worldview with pro-family elements including love & forgiveness, 3 obscenities & 1 profanity; mild violence including throwing things; chain smoking; and anger & shouting

More Detail:

MARVIN’S ROOM is the dramatic story of two estranged sisters who find reunion. One sister, Bessie (played by Diane Keaton), has spent the last fifteen years caring for her invalid, bedridden father (played by Hume Cronyn) and her senile aunt Ruth. The other sister (played by Meryl Streep) has two sons and has spent most of her life trying to keep the eldest, Hank (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), out of jail. The two have not spoken to one another in twenty years. Though the reason for this estrangement is a little vague, it is apparent that the two have never gotten along.

Streep comes to prominence at the beginning of the movie when Hank burns down the house and is subsequently placed in a mental asylum. The conflict between Hank and his mom is intense and heated. The communication between the two is short and cutting. Hank can think of nothing but his father, who abandoned the family when he was young. Hank also idolizes his father as a big race car driver. Streep, meanwhile, can think of little else than getting her degree in cosmetology. It is a personal goal she can obtain. The younger brother (Hal Scardino) is the oddball in the bunch, reading constantly and acting as the family nerd. All these conflicts of interest are bought to culmination with a phone call from Aunt Bessie asking for help in the form of a bone marrow transplant because she has leukemia.

The remainder of the story centers around the two most needy members of the family: Hank and his aunt Bessie. Hank, a hard-nosed, unemotional, rebellious teenager, at first refuses to have anything to do with Bessie. He refuses to trust her or anyone else. Bessie, in a wonderful display of love and compassion, keeps trying to get through to him, to make a connection. Hank keeps saying he won’t have the bone marrow testing done, but Bessie keeps trying to reach her nephew whom she has just met. Slowly and tenderly, the relationship takes form, and Hank finds himself experiencing love and concern, important qualities missed in his relationship with his mother.

The story demonstrates the factors that play into the coming together of a family, of re-establishing priorities and the important things in life. The cast provides an impressive and delightful performance that relays on encouraging message about the family, regardless of how dysfunctional it may be. The movie tells the viewer that the family is a place for love and encouragement and sticking together.

From the comical antics of senile Aunt Ruth and her electric shock therapy machine, to the tender performance of Diane Keaton, the film shines as an uplifting and pleasant experience providing both entertainment and thoughtful reflection on the priorities of life. You will be pleased to know that Robert De Niro with a bit part as a doctor, swears only once. With not many objectionable elements, it is an intense but pro-family movie, for those who favor character study rather than special-effects excitement.

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Marvin's Room

• After seventeen years, a fiercely independent woman and her rebellious son return home and together they turn the family she left behind upside down.
• Years ago, the fiercely independent Lee took off for Ohio, while her older sister Bessie stayed home to look after their bedridden father, Marvin. Lee has troubles of her own, including her mischievous son Hank, who has a knack for burning down the neighborhood when she's not looking. Seventeen years since her last visit, and after an unexpected call from Bessie, Lee's packs up Hank and his younger brother Charlie for the trip home.
• Estranged since their father's first stroke some 17 years earlier, Lee and Bessie lead separate lives in separate states. Lee's son, Hank, finds himself committed to a mental institution after setting fire to his mother's house. His younger brother, Charlie, seems unfazed by his brother's eccentricities or his mother's seeming disinterest. When Lee comes to the asylum to spring Hank for a week in Florida so that he can be tested as a possible bone marrow donor for Bessie, Hank is incredulous. "I didn't even know you had a sister," he says. "Remember, every Christmas, when I used to say 'Well, looks like Aunt Bessie didn't send us a card again this year?'" "Oh yeah," Hank says. Meanwhile, Marvin, the two women's bedridden father, has "been dying for the past twenty years." "He's doing it real slow so I don't miss anything," Bessie tells Dr. Wally. In Bessie's regular doctor's absence, it has fallen to Dr. Wally to inform Bessie that she has leukemia and will die without a bone marrow transplant. This precipitates the two sisters uneasy reunion. In Marvin's room, Bessie cares for her father's every need. In Lee's eyes, the sacrifice Bessie has made is too great and realizing the old man's welfare will fall to her if Bessie dies, Lee's first instinct is to look for a nursing home. "In a few month's, I'll have my cosmotology degree," she says. "My life is just coming together; I'm not going to give it all up, now!" As first Lee is tested and then the boys for the compatibility of their marrow with Bessie's, the women take stock of their lives and rediscover the meaning of "family." — Mark Fleetwood <[email protected]>

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Home > Marvin’s Room Ending Explained

Marvin’s Room Ending Explained

• UPDATED: September 21, 2023

Table of Contents

Marvin’s Room Ending Explained: A Heartbreaking Conclusion

“Marvin’s Room,” a critically acclaimed 1996 drama film directed by Jerry Zaks, has left audiences pondering its ending for years. The movie, based on the play of the same name by Scott McPherson, tells the story of two estranged sisters, Bessie and Lee, who are forced to confront their complicated relationship when Bessie is diagnosed with leukemia.

Throughout the film, we witness the emotional journey of Bessie (played by Diane Keaton) as she navigates her illness and seeks reconciliation with her sister Lee (played by Meryl Streep). The story is filled with moments of heartache, humor, and raw vulnerability, making it a truly unforgettable cinematic experience.

As the movie reaches its climax, Bessie’s health deteriorates rapidly. She finds solace in her newfound bond with her nephews Hank (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Charlie (played by Hal Scardino), who have been living with Lee. Bessie’s selflessness and love for her family shine through as she tries to ensure their well-being even in her darkest moments.

The ending of “Marvin’s Room” is both devastating and bittersweet. After a series of heart-wrenching events, including the death of their father Marvin (played by Hume Cronyn), Bessie’s condition worsens. In a final act of sacrifice, Bessie decides to donate her bone marrow to Charlie, who is suffering from a rare blood disorder.

This decision showcases Bessie’s unwavering love for her family and her willingness to put their needs above her own. It is a testament to the strength of familial bonds and the power of selflessness in the face of adversity.

The concluding scene depicts Bessie lying in a hospital bed after the bone marrow transplant. Lee sits beside her, holding her hand, while Hank and Charlie watch from a distance. The room is filled with a mix of sadness and gratitude as the characters come to terms with the inevitability of Bessie’s fate.

The film’s ending leaves viewers with a sense of profound loss but also a glimmer of hope. It reminds us of the fragility of life and the importance of cherishing our loved ones while we still have them. Bessie’s sacrifice serves as a poignant reminder that sometimes, love means making difficult choices for the greater good.

“Marvin’s Room” is a cinematic masterpiece that explores themes of family, forgiveness, and mortality. Its ending encapsulates the emotional depth and complexity of the story, leaving audiences contemplating their own relationships and priorities.

In conclusion, the ending of “Marvin’s Room” is a heart-wrenching conclusion to an already emotionally charged film. It showcases the power of love and selflessness in the face of adversity, leaving viewers with a lasting impression of the fragility and beauty of life.

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Marvin's room.

1996 Directed by Jerry Zaks

A story about the years that keep us apart... And the moments that bring us together.

A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.

Meryl Streep Diane Keaton Leonardo DiCaprio Robert De Niro Hume Cronyn Gwen Verdon Hal Scardino Dan Hedaya Margo Martindale Cynthia Nixon Kelly Ripa John Callahan Olga Merediz Joe Lisi Steve DuMouchel Bitty Schram Lizbeth MacKay Helen Stenborg Sally Parrish

Director Director

Producers producers.

Robert De Niro Scott Rudin Jane Rosenthal Bonnie Palef Adam Schroeder John Guare David Wisnievitz Craig Gering

Writer Writer

Scott McPherson

Casting Casting

Ilene Starger

Editors Editors

Jim Clark Mitchel Stanley Debra C. Victoroff

Cinematography Cinematography

Piotr Sobociński

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Ellen H. Schwartz

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Tod Scott Brody Lori Steinberg

Lighting Lighting

Russell Engels

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Production design production design.

David Gropman

Art Direction Art Direction

Peter Rogness

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Tracey A. Doyle

Stunts Stunts

Frank Ferrara

Composer Composer

Rachel Portman

Sound Sound

Wendy Hedin Raymond Karpicki

Costume Design Costume Design

Julie Weiss

Makeup Makeup

Allen Weisinger

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Alan D'Angerio

Tribeca Productions Miramax Scott Rudin Productions

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Spanish

Releases by Date

18 dec 1996, 05 jun 1997, 20 jun 1997, 18 jul 1997, 05 sep 1997, 18 sep 1997, 18 oct 1997, 10 jan 1998, releases by country.

• Theatrical IMDB
• Theatrical 12+
• Theatrical 6

South Korea

• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical 7
• Theatrical PG-13

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New York Theater

by Jonathan Mandell

Marvin’s Room Review: Dying, and Laughing, and Loving

There’s a story told in “Marvin’s Room” of a young man named Clarence who took a swim during a beachfront picnic, dunking down into the water and popping back up several times, each time laughing harder, which got his friends and family to laugh along with him.

“Laughing and choking looked the same on Clarence,” the storyteller concludes. “He drowned right in front of us.”

The anecdote can be taken as playwright Scott McPherson’s sly commentary on his own play, a 1991 comedy about two sisters who reunite after a 20-year estrangement. So much is so sad in the lives of Bessie (Lily Taylor) and Lee (Janeane Garofalo, in her Broadway debut) as to make the audience fully justified in wondering: Should we be laughing at this?

Yet laugh we do, thanks to the playwright’s subversive worldview, and a production directed with unflashy effectiveness by Anne Kauffman ( The Nether , A Life , etc. etc), who is, remarkably, making her Broadway debut. She steers the uniformly credible cast through a sometimes flighty comedy ultimately grounded in compassion.

Bessie has been taking care of her father, Marvin, who has been dying for the last 20 years. (We only see Marvin in vague shadow, behind the glass brick of the room he never leaves.)   She is also in effect the caretaker of Marvin’s sister Aunt Ruth (Celia Weston), whose brain has been wired to stop the debilitating back pain she’s had since birth. In the first scene of the play, we see Bessie in a doctor’s office, and eventually learn she has leukemia.

Her illness leads to the visit to Bessie’s Florida house by her sister Lee, who makes the trip from her home in Ohio with her two children, Charlie (Luca Padovan) and Hank (Jack DiFalco). One of the three may be a match for a bone marrow transplant. Hank had to be borrowed temporarily from the mental institution to which he has been committed for burning down the family house.

So what is funny about any of this?

It’s all in the spin. Three quick examples: In that first scene, Bessie is increasingly nervous dealing with Dr. Wally (Triney Sandoval), a doctor who is so absent-minded that he calls Bessie June, which is the name of his dog; has trouble finding or even identifying his doctor’s tools; and rips open a sterile bag of cotton balls with his teeth. In Bessie’s house, the wiring in Aunt Ruth’s brain keep on causing the garage door to open. When in Ohio Lee tells 17-year-old Hank about his aunt Bessie’s condition, he says: “This is the first I’ve heard of her. “

Lee: “,,,,Well I know I’ve mentioned her. She’s my sister.”

Hank: “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Lee: “ You know how at Christmas I always say, ‘it looks like Bessie didn’t send a card this year either.’”

Hank: “ Oh yeah.”

They get away (sometimes just barely) with the wackier of these comic touches because they are counterbalanced by the more realistic ones, and because the actors pull it off.

It is Bessie who is really the soul of “Marvin’s Room,” her selflessness and efficiency not just contrasting with the selfishness and/or incompetence of those around her, but subtly transforming nearly everybody, including her sister. We see this effect even in the largely comic character of Aunt Ruth, whose portrayal by Celia Weston is one of the two stand-out performances in this revival. We also see Bessie’s effect in the other stand-out performance, Jack DiFalco as Hank. The playwright depicts the character benevolently, making Hank’s deranged arson into little more than a punch line, almost a rite of passage for sullen teenagers. Still, DiFalco, in impressive contrast to the blunt-force performance he gave as a criminal teenager of the future in Mercury Fur  (a style required for that play), creates a character with more of an internal life than an external one. He has a deadpan delivery, but somehow lets us know there’s struggling, and thinking and growing going on in there.  It is a character we not only believe, but feel for. We wind up sharing in the playwright’s guarded optimism in the face of defeat, all the more singular since, shortly after the debut of his play,Scott McPherson died of AIDS, at the unholy young age of 33.

Marvin’s Room Roundabout’s American Airlines Theater Written by Scott McPherson; Original music by Daniel Kluger Directed by Anne Kauffman Scenic Design by Laura Jellinek; Costume Design by Jessica Pabst; Lighting Design by Japhy Weideman; Sound Design by Daniel Kluger; Hair and Wig Design by Leah J. Loukas; Makeup Design by Leah J. Loukas Cast: Janeane Garofalo as Lee, Lili Taylor as Bessie, Celia Weston as Ruth, Jack DiFalco as Hank, Carman Lacivita, Nedra McClyde, Luca Padovan as Charlie, Triney Sandoval as Dr. Wally

Running time: 2 hours and 15 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission

Tickets: $47 to $147

Marvin’s Room is scheduled to run through August 27, 2017

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Marvin's Room review

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Marvin's Room is a good old-fashioned "weepy": it's got lashings of terminal illness, a big, hormonal dollop of sisterly angst, a generous portion of parental strife and crisis after crisis aftercrisis to hold it all together. Don't stop reading. Although mighty kingdoms rise and fall in the time this film takes to get going, it isn't aimed solely at your great aunt and her six-monthly trip to the flicks. It deftly sidesteps the gaping, sugary pit many schmaltzy relationship/ clog-popping movies leap into with such abandon; the hollow-eyed, bed-ridden side of terminal illness (Dying Young, anyone? Us neither...) isn't Marvin's Room's style at all. Instead, Scott McPherson's assured autobiographical screenplay comes up trumps in the area that matters - interesting, realistic characters.

Of course, three-dimensional characters do not a thrill-dizzy film experience make: Marvin's Room is a bit of a plodder. But it's enlivened by some world-class thespery from Keaton and Streep. The former's sensitive Bessie - - the role got her a Best Actress Oscar nomination - - is convincingly devoid of caricature, while Streep delivers a watery-eyed, blemish-free performance that's reminiscent of her old Kramer Vs Kramer days. Robert De Niro (who plays Diane Keaton's Dr Wally) gets to do disappointingly little in his supporting role - he wears a white coat and looks concerned, and that's about it - but Leo DiCaprio again proves how good he is, and there are sharp turns from lesser-known actors like Hal Scardino and Dan Hedaya. Once you get over the fact that you're watching big-name stars, the storyline takes over - and it's a good one.

Marvin's Room is testimony to the fact that if you've got a strong script with believable characters, an impeccable cast and a director who knows how to let the story breathe and evolve, you can't go far wrong. Films like this are rare. Chances are you still won't want to see it, but trust us - - it's really not bad. In a 1950s, Technicolor, Lauren-Bacall-could-be-in-it way.

A ventricle-wrenching and intelligently crafted film about how two very different sisterscope with terminal illness and family hassles. Its refreshing authenticity places it above most weepy, sugary fare.

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Review: In ‘Marvin’s Room,’ Who Will Care for the Caregiver?

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By Jesse Green

• June 29, 2017

Are we grimmer or dumber or colder than we were in 1991, when Frank Rich, in The New York Times, called Scott McPherson’s “Marvin’s Room” “ one of the funniest plays of this year as well as one of the wisest and most moving”? He did so even while noting that this “healing” comedy, then opening Off Broadway, featured three major characters dying or disintegrating — and a bunch of others arguably worse off.

I ask because the Roundabout Theater Company revival that opened on Thursday, giving the play its Broadway debut, barely seems to be any of the things Mr. Rich listed. Thoughtfully directed by Anne Kauffman; keenly performed by Lili Taylor, Janeane Garofalo and especially Celia Weston; a pleasure to watch throughout — it is all of these. But it is somehow, also, fatally mild.

How can this be when nothing has been altered? The 40-ish Bessie (Ms. Taylor) is still a saint, having devoted the past 20 years of her life to caring for Marvin, her always-dying father. “He’s doing it real slow so I don’t miss anything,” she says, only partly in jest. Bessie also tends to her dotty Aunt Ruth (Ms. Weston), a sitcom character in exile. The electrical implants that relieve the pain of her three collapsed vertebrae somehow operate the garage door, too.

But the warm and self-sufficient life these three kinfolk lead in a Florida house can continue only as long as Bessie remains healthy. So when she receives a diagnosis of leukemia from the wacky Dr. Wally (Triney Sandoval), the whole ménage is threatened. Ruth breaks down, terrified not only for herself but also for Marvin. And Marvin, whom we never see and who barely talks, agitates noticeably from behind the glass-block wall of his bedroom.

At this point the play, having had its comic face slapped, means to turn the other cheek. In truth, it’s about time; with no conflict to propel it, it has been fueling itself for too long on whimsy. (Dr. Wally, a bumbler who mixes up his patients’ names, seems like a character straight out of vaudeville.) Now Bessie must call her sister, Lee, whom she has not seen since their father’s first stroke two decades earlier. Perhaps Lee (Ms. Garofalo) or one of her two sons (Jack DiFalco and Luca Padovan) will be a bone-marrow match.

From then on “Marvin’s Room” concerns itself with the deeper questions of caretaking: Is it selfless or — as Hank, Lee’s troubled 17-year-old, maintains — just another kind of selfishness to devote oneself to others? (“People don’t just do things,” he says. “They get something for it.”) Piling on, Lee, who is tough and wayward and casually abusive, points out that if Bessie is glad to have stayed with their father and aunt, why should Lee feel guilty about having left her to do so?

As the play pauses to consider these thorny questions, offering variations on the theme of guardianship and neglect, the plot gets a case of the doldrums. Bessie especially becomes becalmed; her illness only burnishes her halo as she adds her sister and nephews to the roster of relatives she can help. It is a relief, and the story’s most touching moment, when Lee finally does something for Bessie instead: A budding cosmetologist, she offers to restyle her wig.

If in 2017 the play seems to be stacking the deck, offering so many kinds of sickness needing so much care, there is a perfectly good 1991 reason for it: AIDS. Mr. McPherson did not have the disease when he wrote “Marvin’s Room”; it was based more on memories of Florida relatives in fact named Marvin, Bessie and Ruth. Still, AIDS was all around him. His companion, Daniel Sotomayor, died of it in early 1992, during the play’s original New York run; Mr. McPherson himself died nine months later . Both men were 33.

These losses, and the auguries of them haunting the play, could not have been separable from the reception it received. The New York theater world was likewise surrounded and beleaguered by AIDS at the time. Challenged, too: While some people and institutions were running, like Lee, from their duty to care for those in need, many others stepped up. “Marvin’s Room,” with its all-too-familiar procedures and pills and bedside hoverings, reflected that reality, leavening it with what lightweight humor it dared. And its lesson — for there is one — in some ways thanked the survivors who kept the faith.

Without that heightened and emotional context some of the play’s flaws are more evident now. They seem to have been evident to Mr. McPherson even then. The 1996 movie version , for which he wrote the screenplay just before his death, excises a lot of the whimsy and more carefully delineates the process by which Lee (Meryl Streep) comes to understand the value of the sacrifice that Bessie (Diane Keaton) has made. In the play, this change seems to come out of nowhere, at least partly because Ms. Garofalo is such a brilliant underplayer that I could hardly tell the difference between Lee’s awfulness and her kindness.

It’s unfair, of course, to hold anyone up to Ms. Streep, but if the movie’s cast (which also includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Hank and Robert De Niro as Dr. Wally) acts up a storm, the play’s cast acts up a calm. Ms. Taylor is lovely as Bessie but is almost too honest, abjuring any theatrics that might spark a fire in the 726-seat American Airlines Theater. (The old Playwrights Horizons space, where the New York production originated, seated 146.) Only Ms. Weston, in a part that could not survive too much naturalism, achieves the right balance of silly and moving; she’s divine.

Even so, this production of “Marvin’s Room” languishes in the gap between the powerful, absurdist comedy Mr. Rich saw and the histrionic (but effective) excess of the three-hanky film. Perhaps Ms. Kauffman, the terrific director of new plays like “ Marjorie Prime ” and “ A Life ,” felt there was no avoiding that pitfall with this material and so determined to make the best of it. Her production is smart and refined, with an elegant set design by Laura Jellinek that is dominated by a cloverleaf breeze-block wall suggesting both separation and permeability. (And Florida!) Everything, really, is perfect.

But unlike some other dramas arising from the same milieu — “Angels in America,” “The Baltimore Waltz,” “The Normal Heart,” to name three — “Marvin’s Room” may suffer from such perfection. Its wound, shockingly deep though it was, seems to have healed over itself. It would take a great deal more guts, in the production and in us, to risk reopening it now.

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A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.

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Theater Review: MARVIN’S ROOM (Actors Co-op)

by Tony Frankel on March 8, 2022

in Theater-Los Angeles

A ROOM OF THEIR OWN

Actors Co-op is reviving Scott McPherson ‘s extraordinary play Marvin’s Room . While it has always been one of my favorite plays, it’s a daunting choice for any company. The play requires a delicate touch so the sentiment doesn’t turn into bathos and the black humor stumble into vulgarity. Under Thomas James O’Leary’s sensitive directorial touch, it’s a near-perfect attempt that does credit to the ensemble. McPherson, who died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 33, gives us an extraordinary play in that the heartbreaking material is also very funny and very compassionate. This play packs the most gentle wallop, and this production follows suit.

You will never see the title character. He’s an old man ravaged by cancer and senility, but he hangs on living in a dark room in his Florida home with his caregiver — his daughter Bessie, a sweet 40-year old unmarried woman who is getting sick herself. She is surrounded by a set of bizarre yet complementary characters who give the play’s outwardly realistic tone a surrealistic flavor. Bessie not only cares for her decaying father, she attends to Marvin’s elderly sister Ruth, a dotty old woman who has electrodes in her brain to stop the pain of three collapsed vertebrae; every time she activates the electrodes, the house’s garage door goes up.

Then there is Bessie’s hard-boiled sister Lee, a cosmetician and single mother with a whiff of trailer trash about her. Lee arrives from Ohio with her two troubled teen-aged sons, Hank and Charlie; she hasn’t seen her family in many years and her appearance reignites friction with Bessie that has lain dormant during their long separation. Hank has just been released from a mental institution, where he was being treated for anti-social behavior; his rebellious personality is taking his mother to the emotional edge.

Bessie is much put upon by all the supporting characters, but she is a genuinely good person, not a martyr to her family’s demands but a woman who takes pleasure in serving others. In one of the play’s most touching passages, she proclaims “I am so lucky to have been able to love someone so much. I am so lucky to have loved so much. I am so lucky.” This from a woman facing an unpleasant death from an incurable disease.

Casting needs to be pinpoint to make  Marvin’s Room credible and not jokey or maudlin. Front and center for me is Brian Habicht as a physician of stupendous insensitivity and even more stupendous incompetence who treats Bessie for her illness. The centerpiece to the play’s black comedy, Habicht gives a pitch-perfect performance by balancing the authenticity of his character with McPherson’s laugh lines. A stupendous job.

Francesca Casale is rapturous as Bessie, delivering a sensitive performance, especially in the second act when Bessie faces the finality of her condition; Casale credibly exposes Bessie’s innate goodness, occasionally with a bit of an edge that enhances her humanity. Tara Battani is very credible as Lee, emotionally taxed by a failed marriage that left her with two sons — and now she has a family in Florida with needs she isn’t prepared to meet. What a deliciously understated performance. Lanky Dean Hermansen ’s Hank never overplay’s the teen’s anger, just barely dipping into the angst and vulnerability beneath the surface; this Hank seethes from the inside. Marek Myers is terrific as Hank’s younger brother, Charlie. Crystal Yvonne Jackson is a most talented actress, and I did indeed enjoy watching her, but she is miscast as the dotty sister Ruth; for starters, she’s not so dotty here, just empathetic. But Jackson is also Black, which doesn’t make sense as being a part of the White family. Colorblind casting may work somewhere else, but sadly Ms. Jackson’s casting feels like an attempt to have more people of color on the stage. Nonetheless, she develops great empathy for her character.

The ensemble is rounded out by Kimi Walker and Justin Bowles , who provides the gibberish voice of the hidden Marvin. Avery Reagan , who is responsible for the lighting, does a great job, especially when Nicholas Acciani ‘s flexible all-purpose glass-brick-centered rotating set that fits nicely within the tight confines of The David Schall Theatre; E.B. Brooks designed the costumes; and David B. Marling the sound.

photos by Larry Sandez

Marvin’s Room Actors Co-op, The David Schall Theatre, 1760 N. Gower Street, Hollywood Fri and Sat at 8; Sun at 2:30 (Sat matinees on March 5 & March 12 at 2:30) ends on March 27, 2022 for tickets ($25-$35), call (323) 462-8460 or visit Actors Co-op

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Marvin's Room

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With an all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and Robert DeNiro, Marvin's Room tells the funny and stirring tale of one family's journey to reconnect.