But they only share one scene – and Ms. Midler dies in the movie’s first reel.
This is just one warning that ”Drowning Mona” is not your average comedy.
You get your first warning when the movie opens with scenes of Verplanck, N.Y., informing you that the town’s claim to fame is the first U.S. test market for the cheapo Yugo automobile.
The fact that everybody in town is still driving a Yugo is your tipoff that the town doesn’t have a Mensa chapter.
No, ”Drowning Mona” is a low-rent murder mystery where the clues are in short supply because everybody in this movie is clueless.
As you may have guessed from the title, the deceased is Mona Dearly (Ms. Midler), whose Yugo plunges over a cliff and into the river early in the film. Yes, she drowns. It’s “Drowning Mona,” remember?
This would be a tragic accident if not for the fact that Mona was pretty much the most hated person in town. As we learn through flashbacks throughout the film, Mona was an unrelenting shrew, and just about everybody in town would have had a good reason to arrange her drowning.
Mona’s henpecked husband, Phil (William Fichtner), could have done it. Her dim-witted son Jeff (Marcus Thomas) also had a motive; by one account, Mona chopped off his hand as he reached for her beer. (The only thing we know for sure is that Jeff lost his hand while reaching for a beer.)
Diner waitress Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis) could have drowned Mona, too. She was, after all, having an affair with Mona’s husband. Bobby Calzone (Ben Affleck’s younger brother Casey) could have wanted Mona dead. She made his life a living hell after he went into the landscaping business with her son, Jeff.
Town police chief Wyatt Rash (DeVito) is trying to sort all this out. Of course, he drives a Yugo police cruiser. Investigating Mona’s “accident,” he discovers it was not an accident.
It’s through his interviews with the suspects that we get all sorts of varying – and progressively wilder – versions of the events that might have led to Mona’s murder.
By the way, the chief has a vested interest in the outcome. His cute-and-she-knows-it daughter Ellen (Neve Campbell) is engaged to Bobby Calzone.
Suffice it to say, this is one wacky group of people with very few redeeming values – except that they are pretty funny.
Less dark than, say, ”Fargo,” ”Drowning Mona” is certainly not less quirky. In fact, that’s its main problem.
Sometimes ”Drowning Mona” seems to be trying a little too hard to be odd – as if this collection of oddballs isn’t enough.
Still, considering all the wrong directions this film could have driven off in, ”Drowning Mona” steers a pretty steady comedy course.
