(BUFFALO 8 PRODUCTIONS, SALLYWOOD FILMCO, SNEAK PREVIEW ENTERTAINMENT, WILD BLUEBERRY ENTERTAINMENT (89 minutes; Unrated); 2025)
I’ve been reviewing films for many years now, and as both a dedicated movie lover and someone involved in the arts on multiple levels, I think I am pretty well positioned to appreciate a wide variety of cinematic offerings, from the artsy-fartsy to the low-budget trifles. But it’s rare that a movie can grab my attention in as many different ways as SALLYWOOD did. And I mean very personally. I’m amazed that this film was made, and the timing of my viewing, corresponding with Sally Kirkland’s untimely death at the age of 84, is unbearably sad. It’s impossible to reflect on the film without that affecting every observation.
The plot can be summed up pretty simply: A young writer named Zack (Tyler Steelman) is really inspired by the films of actress Sally Kirkland, especially the 1987 film ANNA, for which Kirkland won a Golden Globe and received her only Oscar nomination. After a bizarrely comical opening describing how a moose shattered the window of his neighborhood video store, Zack explains how Kirkland came to his attention, and he impulsively decides to travel to Hollywood in hopes of learning about her and perhaps meeting her. His parents Joann (an inspired Jennifer Tilly) and Dave (Lenny von Dohlen) would prefer he stay right there in Maine where they live and are perplexed by his ambition. But off the youngster goes on his quest, and it’s a fun thing here that he meets the real Sally Kirkland very quickly, and soon finds himself working for her. “In every humdrum life there is a muse,” Zack tells us in voiceover. “Someone who ignites inspiration.” He makes it clear that Sally is just that for him, and we’re OFF on the farcical and improbable adventures of the ageing actress in her twilight years and the young admirer who wants to help her revive her career any way he can. That’s the setup, and what follows is a bunch of things simultaneously: A riotous satire of what it might take to “make it” in Hollywood; a truly original look at how fleeting fame can be for even a star who was once in the Awards game; a personal story about Kirkland herself; and an imaginative (if exaggerated) tale of a fan getting swept up by one surprise/development after another in his pursuit of a showbiz dream.
This description can’t really convey the unpredictable scenes that unfold, starting with Zack somehow rooming with a studly Australian director named Tom (Tom Connolly, providing much of the comic heft here) who is shown hanging with two bimbos with dreams of their own named “Bibi” and “Poundcake.” When Zack tells Tom about his interest in Sally, Tom replies “Wasn’t she ‘Hot Lips’ in MASH?” “No, that was Sally Kellerman,” Zack tells him, in a recurring joke that is admittedly pretty funny. Sally Kirkland is in on the whole showbiz joke here and initially hires Zack to be an assistant, assigning him to write her obituary (this is just downright eerie, as though Kirkland was predicting she might not be around much longer). Zack’s first attempt at the assignment falls short and Kirkland nixes it. “Where is my life in all this?” she says. “The amazing men I slept with, my disastrous marriages, the two times I tried to kill myself? Did I mention that I slept with amazing men?” Kirkland tells Zack’s parents in a wildly funny phone call that she regards Zack as “a mystical child of light.” She is shown ruminating over her fading career often, and Zack hopes to perk her up by suggesting she take a part in his roommate’s new low-budget horror film, OUTER SPACE ZOMBIE CHICKS IN PRISON. The satire accelerates rapidly from this point on, but it always contrasts with Kirkland’s truthful asides about her past-her-prime career. “I’ve been in 200 films,” she says at one point. “But I’ve been completely erased.”
Along with the Zack and Sally storyline, the film intersperses bits of narration and “insight” from fictionalized versions of familiar Hollywood characters: Smug casting agent “Clem” (a never funnier Eric Roberts); divorced movie producers George Corrigan (Keith Carradine) and Kathryn Corrigan (Kay Lenz), all-business and always-busy producer Ned Levitt (an excellent Michael Lerner) and “Venetia Boyd,” a Latino literary agent always looking for an optimal new connection at lavish parties (Maria Conchito Alonso). Everyone is terrific and seems to be having a good time. And the satire always cuts two ways, not only playing on our knowledge of a thousand familiar showbiz tales and gossip columns, but depicting in a painfully honest way how ageing actresses find themselves struggling to land parts. “If you’re over 45, you’re DONE!” says Clem in one scene. Kirkland is a brave and admirable performer throughout, watching old reels of herself on talk shows (such as a notable Arsenio Hall clip showing her at her glamorous peak), trying to appeal to her former love George to help her out (in a memorable, believable scene with veteran actor Carradine), and developing a genuine, touching connection with young actor Steelman (thankfully avoiding any awkward romantic shenanigans). The film is directed by Xaque Gruber, whose real-life tale of meeting and working for Sally Kirkland, the script is mostly based on. Gruber has a sure hand throughout and hardly ever wastes a frame or an opportunity for comic shenanigans, even if the film is over the top at times. But the frequent laughs and original tone in examining Kirkland’s particular career trajectory (and the obvious reality of feeling like an over-the-hill actress despite still having her considerable chops, shown in a spontaneous “audition” scene near the end), can’t help but win you over. The result is a more than memorable look at the foibles of stardom and celebrity wannabe-ITIS.
I said earlier that this movie was quite personal for me. In the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s, I ran a memorabilia business for a while and was more than a casual celebrity-watcher. It just happens that Jennifer Tilly, Keith Carradine and Kay Lenz were three second-tier stars I really liked; I was startled to see them here. I had 8”x10” stills of all. And I was also, for a time, an autograph collector and wrote to about 40 or 50 stars I admired hoping to get them to sign a photo for me. Guess who was one of them who DID sign a pic and send it to me? Sally Kirkland. I’ve included it in this piece. Kirkland cared about her fans very much, and though she never repeated the burst of acclaim she got with ANNA, her performance here has plenty to say about both what stars go through in fickle Hollywood and how fans perceive their idols, something I think about often.
“Just because the rest of the world forgot about you doesn’t mean I ever would,” Zack tells Sally in a poignant scene near the end. I could list half a dozen stars I myself could say that to, if I looked at the whole of my own celebrity watching/collecting days and imagined myself in a Zack type situation. But that notion aside, I heartily recommend SALLYWOOD as a truly funny, surprising and brisk watch for anyone who thinks about show business and fandom on more than a casual level. It ends up being quite a love letter (and sadly, an EPITAPH) for the gifted Ms Kirkland, who does something in this film very few actors have ever done. Whatever little flaws the film has, its virtues far outweigh them, and I bet most of you will find this film very worthwhile.
