Mistress

Mistress has a few weak patches, but they're directly tied to the production's funky charm, and without them, the film might not be half so engaging. All things considered, I wouldn't change one word. [27 Nov 1992, p.18]

It'll make a natural double-feature repertory-house companion to The Player for years to come. It's filled with humor that has paid its dues. [21 Aug 1992, p.38]

The movie lacks the cleanedged economy of the screenplay for The Player, and it could have benefitted from less talkiness and fewer characters, but as a portrait of a particular Hollywood strata it is bittersweet and knowledgeable. Read full review

When the film is funny, it's terrific. When it shows what it really wants the audience to take seriously, it threatens to come apart. But mainly, it's a comedy, and mainly it's a lot of fun. [21 Aug 1992, p.C1]

Whether or not all its subtleties come through or not, the movie is enjoyable solely on the level of its performances. There is not a weak link in the chain. [28 Aug 1992]

The light approach almost derails the movie; without being cheap or misleading, Mistress is a feel-good movie that could've had a sharper sting. It's less satirical and probably more realistic than The Player, but it's also more predictably diagrammed. [28 Aug 1992, p.26]

The acting is solid, but the story sags from time to time, and it's very predictable, though when it's funny, it's very funny. [21 Nov 1992, p.7D]

This isn't a polished work, but anyone who's ever spent time on the movie-making edge will recognize it as a true one. [28 Aug 1992, p.5D]

Mistress abounds with sharp comic performances that never stray into caricature or sentimentality. Read full review

Eventually things play out a bit too thin, but Mistress is insightful entertainment that should be seen by anyone interested in the fascinating underbelly of Hollywood deal making. [07 Aug 1992]

Landau and Wuhl give especially heartfelt performances under the obviously sympathetic direction of Barry Primus, who based the story on his own attempts to finance a project. Read full review

Not everything works that well. Despite a uniformly solid cast - the likes of Eli Wallach, Danny Aiello, Christopher Walken, even Robert De Niro (a co-producer) all appear - the script gets away from Primus in the last act, when the satire does a slow dissolve into farce. [13 Nov 1992]

Although Mistress has the spirited participation of De Niro et al, the in-jokiness seems to wear itself out. The tedious journey the movie has to go through to get made is well-defined. But there's something hackneyed about the thematic plight of artists in this modern, commercial world. Read full review

Wuhl is occasionally touching, and his blank-faced disbelief can be very funny; he has the addled look of a shell-shocked aesthete. But for the most part Marvin's funk doesn't bring out Wuhl's sharpest talents; he needs a role with more spring and less vacant staring-off-into-the-distance. And Primus needs a project that will sustain his gift for transforming a group of disparate actors into a spirited jamboree. [21 Aug 1992, p.F11]

Given a better structured screenplay, Mistress might have given The Player a run for its money. Instead, it merely offers glimmers of what might have been, and settles for being a cinematic footnote. Read full review

The performances are all strong (particularly Landau's) but, as a whole, the movie suffers from competing impulses that push and pull Mistress from comedy to drama and back again. It can't quite seem to make up its mind and as a consequence loses a lot of its steam and momentum. Read full review

Despite sturdy acting from a starry cast, actor Barry Primus' directorial debut is a lacklustre affair. Read full review

Pic, co-produced by Robert De Niro’s Tribeca outfit, looks to fade fast. The Player it’s not. Read full review

The satire is finally too thin and familiar (and not just from The Player - most of the observations here have been staples of the Hollywood comedy since the early '30s) to support the movie's pervasive tone of sourness and disgust. [21 Aug 1992, p.J]

Mistress is a black comedy about the trials and tribulations of a writer/director trying to get his film financed, and if it had been released last year, it might have seemed better. But memories of Robert Altman's The Player, which deftly covered similar ground, are still fresh, and Mistress suffers badly in comparison. [30 Sep 1992, p.E7]

Co-writer and director Barry Primus knows his characters well, but his scenarios are stilted and pretentious. So is Landisman's screenplay, which everyone wants to change. Read full review

While Mistress might gnaw a bit at the problems it tries to confront, it never really sinks its teeth into them. [15 Mar 1993]

While Landau, Aiello and a brief appearance by Christopher Walken do perk things up, it's a tediously indulgent, redundant work. Read full review