Sunday Times
August 17, 1995
Stephen Amidon
Safe Passage (15) is another film that takes a terrible explosion as its dramatic starting point, though from there all similarities with The Usual Suspects end. In it, Mag (Susan Sarandon) is a middle-class American mother of seven mostly grown sons whose life is thrown into crisis when one of them, a US marine stationed in the Sinai, goes missing after his barracks are blown up by terrorists. Her remaining sons and estranged husband (Sam Shepard) travel from their various far-flung homes to be with her as they wait for news of his fate.
Despite this somewhat melodramatic plot device, the film is actually a closely observed family drama about a mother trying to find herself after her large and boisterous flock has flown the coop. Pushing 50, Mag possesses highly developed skills and strongly enduring emotions that no longer have an outlet. Like her imperilled son, she is trapped and must try to dig her way out.
Safe Passage is the first feature film o one of America’s most highly regarded stage directors, Robert Allan Ackerman. His pedigree shows despite a flashy opening dream sequence, the film, with its largely house-bound action, depends upon character development and the spoken word for its drama. Indeed, although Deena Goldstone’s script is based upon Ellyn Bache’s novel, it might just as easily have been adapted from a stage play.
This proves to be a minor flaw, easily compensated for by Ackerman’s sense of timing and attention to quirky incident, such as the argument Sarandon and Shepard have over the name of the Las Vegas chapel where they were married, which ends with them shouting ”Bliss” and ”Harmony” at each other. In an era when films tend to be loud and extreme, it is rare to encounter one that builds its drama out of such everyday objects as used tea bags, ornery cats and cluttered garages.
What Safe Passage really has to offer is Sarandon’s barnstorming performance. Called upon to carry the film, she does so in style, creating a sassy, difficult character whose deepest flaw is caring too much about the squadron of men in her life. Saddled with an unruly brood before she was an adult herself (”I was 35 before I had a dinner where I wasn’t cutting somebody’s meat”), Mag finds herself in the unlikely position of having to grow up after helping seven boys come of age. Whether getting stoned with a tearaway son so she can gain the authority to tell him off about it, or goading her effete eldest boy into setting fire to the garage so he can experience passion, Sarandon conjures a gloriously impossible woman who somehow holds a turbulent family together. Only in the absurd and pointlessly fraught scene where she wrestles a bullying dog do her heroics go overboard. Among the rest of the cast, only Nick Stahl as her dreadlocked 14-year-old is able to keep up with her. Shepard, meanwhile, manages to turn in another near-invisible performance as a spineless man outshone by a dynamic woman. If they ever give an Academy award for selflessness in a supporting role, he should be the first nominee.
