Janet Maslin's NY Times review
Review/Film;
A New-Age Comedy, Crystals And All
By JANET MASLIN
Published: April 6, 1990, Friday
The beneficial power of crystals has done nothing for ''In the Spirit,'' a nervous new-age comedy much more notable for good intentions than good luck. A rare appearance by Elaine May, who co-stars with Marlo Thomas in what proves to be an unexpectedly mundane caper story, and a directing credit for the respected acting coach Sandra Seacat give ''In the Spirit'' a lot more curiosity value than it would otherwise have.
Ms. May appears as Marianne Flan, a Beverly Hills wife who winds up beached in her native New York after her husband, Roger (Peter Falk), loses his job. While renovations on the Flan apartment proceed disastrously, Marianne and Roger are taken in by the effervescent Reva Prosky (Ms. Thomas), who is the story's crystal-trusting, astrology-touting live wire. Reva, who says things like ''Look at me: you know in your heart that what you're eating is wrong,'' soon arouses the absolute enmity of Marianne, who is trapped alone with her after Roger decides to disappear. In a film like this, pure loathing is the automatic first step toward instant friendship.
After a narrator has intoned excessively about the fateful implications of this cosmic connection, Reva and Marianne are sent off on a series of wild adventures. The catalyst in bringing them together is Crystal, a hooker who shocks Roger with her capacity to be dull. Crystal talks a lot about her assortment of pornographic bric-a-brac, and as played in heavy makeup by Ms. May's daughter Jeannie Berlin, she looks eerily like a bigger, brassier, more masculine version of the star. Ms. Berlin and Laurie Jones wrote the screenplay, which is appealingly chatty in places but isn't often funny or fresh.
Ms. Seacat's direction is especially strange, since it is so thoroughly unaccommodating to the actors. The camera is treated as if it were radioactive, never being allowed to linger where a performer might be heard clearly or shown off to good advantage. A telephone receiver covers the mouth of the person speaking; hair gets in the way of faces; back-of-the-head shots abound. The editing is so bizarre and unpredictable that it seems just plain irrational at times.
The actors, especially Ms. May and Ms. Thomas, spend a lot of time yammering simultaneously in time-honored sitcom style. Every now and then they touch the sort of rueful, idiosyncratic note that gives the film its only real weight. A discussion between the two women drifts from the story's empty intrigue plot to the uncomfortable idea of middle age. A mystery is solved because someone has accidentally had too much caffeine. ''It's really insane, isn't it,'' one of the stars muses, ''how you kill yourself taking care of someone just to have someone take care of you in a situation like this.'' There's a glimmer of acuity here, but it's a lonely and small one.
Ms. May is a welcome screen presence anytime, and Ms. Thomas's reflexive brightness helps, too. (Ms. Thomas manages to coax tears on three different occasions, though none of them are warranted by the film's essentially frivolous tone.) Also on hand, and just as weirdly adrift, are Olympia Dukakis in a role that is virtually a walk-on and Melanie Griffith in just the sort of call-girl role she no longer needs to play.
LOST IN THE STARS - IN THE SPIRIT, directed by Sandra Seacat; written by Jeannie Berlin and Laurie Jones; director of photography, Dick Quinlan; edited by Brad Fuller; music by Patrick Williams; production designer, Michael C. Smith; produced by Julian Schlossberg and Beverly Irby; released by Castle Hill Productions. Running Time: 93 minutes. This film is rated R.
KAKISTOCRACY (n.) - a society governed by its worst citizens.