"Strapless" (1990)

If you've seen either "Plenty" or "Wetherby," two previous works by writer-director David Hare, you can sense he's drawn to self-possessed women harboring inner storms. In "Plenty," his heroine is a former spy with an unquenchable thirst for thrills in the post-WWII world. "Wetherby" is built around a schoolteacher whose guilt and sexual repression drive her to murder. Both pieces offer sterling roles for the lead actress (Meryl Streep in "Plenty"; Vanessa Redgrave in "Wetherby"), and "Strapless" continues Hare's salute to fascinating, challenging women.

Blair Brown, in a performance that demonstrates how little of her talent is seen in the weekly "Days and Nights of Molly Dodd," plays Lillian Hemple, an American doctor working in a British hospital. Reserved and aloof, Lillian is a marked contrast to her sister Amy (Bridget Fonda), a playgirl who will go to any lengths for a good time. On vacation, Lillian meets Raymond (Bruno Ganz), a seemingly wealthy businessman whose immediate interest in her both frightens and intrigues her. "I like the early part" of relationships, she says, noting that she loses enthusiasm in the long run.

She's lying, but it's exactly what Raymond wants to hear. Acting on impulse for the first time in her life, Lillian allows Raymond to talk her into a quickie marriage, an arrangement that leads to personal disaster.

Hare's scripts have never been easily accessible, and although "Strapless" is slightly more in the mainstream than either "Plenty" or "Wetherby," it's no crowd-pleaser. It is, however, a good deal more insightful and thought-provoking than anything else currently on view. The situations will ring true to anyone who has ever placed their faith in the wrong person or wrote off someone who later made a surprising comeback.

There are no martyrs or villains at work here, just characters with strengths and weaknesses that the audience must judge. Lillian is a gifted physician from a medical standpoint, but she's not willing to take a human interest in her patients; Amy seems to be nothing more than a dizzy bon vivant, but finally shows she has more determination and strength than her "serious" sister; what Raymond does is not in any way admirable, but it seems almost forgivable, since he acts out of self-preservation. If the central metaphor is not terribly strong (Amy creates strapless dresses; Raymond leaves Lillian "strapped"), the performances are. Brown downplays her usual charm to emphasize Lillian's self-motivation, and we feel empathy rather than pity when Lillian begins to realize the gravity of her mistake. Hardly a sex symbol, Ganz still projects an air of sensuality that makes him a convincing seducer.

Fonda, taking the smallest of the three leads, shows her work in "Scandal" and "Shag" only hinted at what she can do; her combustible combination of beauty, comic timing and an ability to find the bottom line in her characters make her one of the top discoveries of the past few years.