BetteBack: ‘DROWNING’: MIDLER, DEVITO AND SOME YUGOS




What can you say about a comedy murder mystery in a town where everybody drives a Yugo?

Well, first things first: How do those Yugos drive?

”Actually, a Yugo handles very well,” said Danny DeVito, who drives a Yugo police cruiser as the chief of the town where ”Drowning Mona” is set.

”It’s very nice; it’s a very nice car for the box that it is.”

”Drowning Mona” isn’t really about Yugos, though – it’s about the death of the town shrew, Mona Dearly (Bette Midler), whose Yugo goes over a cliff and into the local river.

She’s such a pain that just about everybody in town ends up a suspect in her death.

”The whole town in the movie, and the cars, are running on a half-tank of gas,” DeVito said in recent publicity interviews.

Bette Midler‘s the Wicked Witch of the West, and, boy, does she let go with both barrels.”

That she does.

Though Ms. Midler‘s character dies in the first reel of ”Drowning Mona,” flashbacks of Mona bashing her husband with a frying pan or smashing the headlights out of another Yugo with a golf club show Ms. Midler tearing up the scenery.

”Really, the fun of the role was living up to the director’s vision,” Ms. Midler said in the group interviews.

”Mick Gomez is terrific, and he knew all along what was going on.

”I was just a small piece of the puzzle. But it was such a fun puzzle I was really glad to be a part of it.”

Indeed, ”Drowning Mona” eventually becomes a puzzling (and wacky) murder mystery, as DeVito’s cop tries to find out who killed Mona in a town full of quirky suspects, including Jamie Lee Curtis as a floozy-type waitress, Neve Campbell as a blushing bride-to-be and Casey Affleck (Ben’s brother) as her bumbling fiance.

”Quirky is a good word,” Ms. Midler said. ”Quirky is a very good word.

”The whole town is askew – because most towns are. When you peel back the layers of the onion, most towns, most people, are a little out there. And this town is full of nut jobs, but they’re so funny.”

And ”Drowning Mona” reunites a couple of always funny people – Ms. Midler and DeVito.

Bette Midler – I wanted to kill her in ‘Ruthless People,’ and in ‘Drowning Mona’ I don’t have to, because she’s already dead,” joked DeVito.

Share A little Divinity

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.