Spinning into Butter
Directed by Mark Brokaw
Runtime: 86 min.
The problem with having a hit TV series that runs for several years—and for infinity in reruns—is that the character you play becomes part of the pop culture tapestry. Not only has Sarah Jessica Parker still not managed to shake the particular tics and mannerisms that made her Carrie Bradshaw into a cultural icon, those tics that she utilizes for her new role as dean of students Sarah Daniels in Spinning into Butter can actually be traced back to exact Sex and the City episodes.
Her inability to leave Carrie behind is a shame, because Spinning into Butter (based on Rebecca Gilman’s critically lauded play) is a fantastic story longing for a better film. Ostensibly about the racism inherent in American culture, Gilman is actually far more interested in how the administration of a liberal arts college reacts to an African-American student being taunted with notes calling him “Little Black Sambo” (the film’s title comes from a story in that long-banned picture book).
As a Sarah Lawrence College alum, I can attest that Gilman’s portrait of stuffy academics terrified of their students is a shockingly accurate one. As the administration congratulates themselves for being bright enough to organize a forum on race—in which the students aren’t allowed to speak—as a way to meet the situation head on, resentments among the students begin to boil over. Faced with a rebellion, Dean Kenney (a terrific Miranda Richardson) frantically brainstorms ways of ending the campus unrest before triumphantly ordering Sarah to compose a 10-point, bulleted list on how to solve racism for dissemination the next day. But what may have been riveting on stage feels limp on film. Gilman’s whip-smart story still stings even the most liberal audiences (Sarah’s admission that that she refuses to sit next to black men in puffy coats on the train is disturbingly honest), but much of its force has been dissipated by Parker’s complicated star image and director Mark Brokaw’s weak pacing. He never captures the feeling of a snowball rolling down a hill, even as the violence escalates and the students and faculty begin turning on one another. Instead, we’re left with a handful of vicious, thought-provoking vignettes that let no one off the hook—but never add up to a satisfying film.
> Spinning into Butter
Directed by Mark Brokaw Runtime: 86 min.
