Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Kathy Bates gives a career-defining performance as the title character in this big-screen adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. To paraphrase King himself regarding the plot: Dolores Claiborne is about a woman who gets away with one murder (her husband’s) only to fall under suspicion for another murder many years later she didn’t commit (her employer’s). While that’s an accurate synopsis, this film is about so much more.

Dolores Claiborne is an involving character study, an examination of family ties and of the ways childhood experiences mold us and sometimes haunt long after we think they’re buried. Most of all, this film reminds that some relationships, no matter how strained or dysfunctional, are so integral to identity, that they can never be completely left behind.

The film opens on an affluent-looking home along the shores of a coastal town in Maine. We hear a loud, dramatic commotion as the camera moves into the house and then see Dolores Claiborne standing over a fallen woman at the foot of a large staircase, rolling pin upraised as if to kill. The woman on the floor chides Dolores to ‘do it,’ but the mailman arrives first, interrupting.

The scene then shifts to a newspaper bureau in New York City where reporter Selena St. George (Jennifer Jason Leigh) receives the fax of a local newspaper story regarding Dolores Claiborne’s arrest for the attempted murder of her employer, Vera Donovan. There’s an anonymous handwritten note too, asking if the suspect is Selena’s mother. It is of course and Selena heads home for the first time in many years.

Upon Dolores and Selena’s reunion, we quickly see that the relationship is deeply tense, with most of the hostility coming from Selena. Selena drives the pair home from the police station and as they enter Dolores’ shack, their conversation awakens an old memory for Dolores. Here the film shifts into flashback mode--the first of many--and we meet a younger, happier Dolores and an adolescent Selena (Ellen Muth). We also meet Joe St. George (David Strathairn), Selena’s father and Dolores’ long-deceased husband. The three at first seem like a typical, lower-middle-class American family. But even in this early flashback, we sense more to the family dynamic than meets the eye; there is something dark, even sinister lurking beneath the apparent normalcy. Much darker.

From that first flashback, the film alternates between present day and flashbacks to Selena’s childhood and to Dolores and Joe’s marriage. Each flashback scrapes away a little more of the seeming normalcy, revealing secrets so terrible that adult Selena has repressed the worst memories from that time. In their place Selena has substituted rage, bitterness and blame towards her mother. There’s no proof (Dolores was never charged in Joe’s death), but Selena knows Dolores murdered Joe and deeply resents it. And indeed, Dolores did in fact murder Joe but had good reason. Very good reason. It is those reasons that Selena has repressed, those reasons she must remember and come to terms with to make peace with Dolores and, most importantly, with herself.

Dolores Claiborne unfolds like a finely structured novel, with the present-day scenes presented in subdued, monochrome tints and the flashbacks presented in rich, colorful pastels. For me, this color scheme was a clever symbol, representing the ideal, perfect family on the one hand and the souring of those delusions, the loss of innocence on the other.

Although the film boasts strong performances all around, the rapport between Bates and Leigh is the centerpiece. Their relationship is intense and complicated without devolving into melodrama. There is never any doubt of the love between these women nor of the deep pain. Almost as compelling is the relationship between Dolores and Joe. Stripped of his facades, Joe is an abusive, cowardly monster. I imagine any woman who’s ever suffered through an abusive relationship might feel like cheering during the film’s final confrontation between Joe and Dolores, when Joe gets his comeuppance. Strathairn’s portrayal is not only good but, in a way, almost admirable; it couldn’t have been easy to portray such a fiend.

The relationship between Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt) and Dolores is also quite compelling. Vera is a rich old widow who’s employed Dolores as her housekeeper and personal assistant for many, many years. Though the pairs’ relationship is antagonistic on the surface, Vera chooses Dolores as her caregiver in the final days of life; we eventually learn that the film's opening scene was in fact Vera's attempt at euthanasia and at provoking Dolores to help. We also learn in one of the flashbacks that it is Vera who first plants the idea of murder into Dolores’ mind as a solution for Joe.

Christopher Plummer plays local detective John Mackey, a man who, like Selena, knows Dolores murdered Joe but is haunted by the fact he couldn’t prove it. He sees Dolores’ current impending murder charge as a chance for redemption, a chance to finally nail her and bring his career to a successful close.

Bates holds everything together. She breathes such life into Dolores, that she could easily be someone the audience knows. The pacing may be a bit slow for some, but I greatly appreciated director Taylor Hackford's measured approach. If you enjoy Stephen King adaptations or good, character-centered drama in general, Dolores Claiborne is a solid choice. Highly recommended.


Starring: Cathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Strathairn, Judy Parfitt

Directed by Taylor Hackford