The Morning After (1986)

December 25, 1986, release date

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Screenplay by James Hicks, David Rayfiel (uncredited)

Music by Paul Chihara

Edited by Joel Goodman

Cinematography by Andrzej Bartkowiak

Distributed by 20th Century Fox

Produced by Lorimar Motion Pictures

Jane Fonda as Alexandra “Alex” Sternbergen, also known as Viveca Van Loren, an actress

Jeff Bridges as Turner Kendall

Raúl Juliá as Joaquin “Jackie” Manero, Alex’s husband

Diane Salinger as Isabel Harding, Jackie’s new lover

Richard Foronjy as Sgt. Herb Greenbaum

Bruce Vilanch as Harry, the bartender

Geoffrey Scott as Bobby Korshack

James Haake as Frankie, a cross dresser and friend of Alex’s

Don Hood as Mr. Hurley, the lawyer

Kathleen Wilhoite as Red, Jackie’s assistant at his salon

Kathy Bates as Korshack’s neighbor

Frances Bergen as Mrs. Harding, Isabel’s mother

The Morning After is a story full of suspense and plot twists. A female lead carries most of the film, which is a bit different from most noirs that more often feature male leads, a femme fatale, and maybe one more female character whose goodness serves to contrast with the femme fatale. Alex Sternbergen, the lead character in The Morning After, fails repeatedly to get her acting career off the ground and can’t seem to stay away from the bottle, but she is a sympathetic character and viewers care about her predicament.

Alex, whose stage name is Viveca Van Loren, is an alcoholic who drinks so much that she often blacks out and can’t remember what happens while she is drunk. Viewers learn details of her current situation as the film progresses, but The Morning After starts with one particular morning, when Alex wakes up and finds a bloody corpse lying beside her. The rest of the film involves her attempts to figure out how she knows the corpse and what happened the previous evening.

Brilliant colors are used in interesting ways, especially at the start of the film and especially during the opening credits, to highlight Alex’s loneliness and her being alone in a desperate situation. The long shots of Alex leaving the crime scene and walking past brightly colored buildings are especially effective. At one point during the opening credits, Alex passes a handwritten message on a wall: YOU ARE ALONE. Although the message is in capital letters, it’s easy to miss. I noticed it for the first time while watching The Morning After on DVD, even though I have seen the film several times on television. It’s more subtle than this mention here might lead viewers and readers to believe, and it works well in combination with the long shots of Alex walking alone in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Sidney Lumet returns again and again throughout the film to Los Angeles landscapes filled with vivid color, an emphasis that is another departure from traditional neo-noirs.

(This blog post about The Morning After contains spoilers.)

Alex’s predicament is the basis for her confusion, self-doubt, and angst. She isn’t quite sure who to trust, with the exception of her estranged husband, which proves to be a liability for her. She meets and accepts the help of Turner Kendall, an ex-cop with some problems of his own. But he is attracted to Alex and wants to help her. They begin a tentative love affair while they try to prove Alex’s innocence. Alex slowly lets down her guard with Turner and begins to reveal her true self. The following exchange even has Turner using the film noir term dame to describe Alex:

• Alex: “What do we do now, Turner?”

• Turner: “Wait for Greenbaum [Turner’s friend in L.A. Homicide] to do his stuff.”

• Alex: “Waiting for Greenbaum. I think I saw the play.”

• Turner: “You’re a rare dame, Viveca.”

• Alex: “Listen, Viveca’s my fake name. I’m really . . . I’m Alex Sternbergen.”

Alex’s self-identification is part of her confusion and self-doubt. Is she Alex Sternbergen, the woman who tried to become a successful actress and instead drinks to forget, or is she Viveca Van Loren, the woman she wants to be and keeps trying to shore up? The film doesn’t spend a lot of screen time exploring this feature of Alex’s character directly. Viewers know that Alex drinks, that she hasn’t become a famous actress, and that she’s struggling to find work. But there aren’t frequent references to the person that she used to be.

When Alex turns to Jackie, her estranged husband and a famous hairdresser, for help in changing her appearance to evade the police, she specifically requests that he change her hair back to its natural color. He complies, and she is very pleased with the results; the way that she expresses her pleasure is to say that she recognizes the person in the mirror as Alex, not Viveca. She is finally accepting herself as she truly is and not the image that she has manufactured for herself over the years. Jackie Manero is an homme fatale, however; Alex trusts him implicitly, which sets her up for manipulation and ultimately for betrayal. Jackie is also manipulated and betrayed, and the plot twists involving this duality provide one surprise after another.

The two lead characters, Alex Sternbergen and Turner Kendall, are flawed in their own ways. If they had been played by other, less well known actors, maybe their flaws would have been bigger features of the film. I have seen The Morning After several times on television, and it was great to see it, uninterrupted and complete, on DVD. Fonda and Bridges are fantastic in their respective roles. But I have to admit that it was hard for me to forget that I was watching Jeff Bridges and Jane Fonda. I’m not going to count that as a liability for the film, however; I can still recommend The Morning After wholeheartedly. Maybe others won’t find the two famous leads quite as distracting as I did. The story is compelling, and I remember being completely surprised by its plot twists the first time I saw it.

And it was great to see a neo-noir where the main character is a woman doing most of the things that male leads in most neo-noirs do. She’s trying to clear her name after finding herself in dire circumstances—but without a gun. I guess the one drawback is that the male lead has the gun, but even he is limited in its use. You’ll know what I mean if you see the film.