Park Avenue
Gaby Dellal’s mother-daughter drama is distinguished by the presence of Fiona Shaw and Katherine Waterston, but suffers from a rather insubstantial screenplay.
Katherine Waterston and Fiona Shaw
Image courtesy of Olympic Films.
Gaby Dellal's Park Avenue is a film which owes a great deal to its two leading actresses Fiona Shaw and Katherine Waterston but it fails to provide material strong enough to make this piece as memorable as their presence seems to promise. What Dellal gives us (she is the first-named writer of the screenplay as well as being the director) is a family drama very much centred on a mother and daughter. The mother (Shaw’s role) is that of a successful writer named Kit DeMille who can afford to own an apartment in a house on New York’s Park Avenue and whose latest book launch brings her daughter Charlotte (Waterston) on a visit to stay with her mother. At least that is what Charlotte claims as her reason for turning up but it is really only an excuse on her part. The film's opening scene establishes the fact that Charlotte lives far away on a ranch with her husband Hans (Frederick Weller) and, despite the fact that they have a teenage daughter, Lily (Gabriella Baldacchino), we see Charlotte driving away in circumstances which suggest that the marriage may be coming to an end. We soon learn that Charlotte's relationship with her own mother, a widow, is a tricky one but we still sense that she is turning to her in this moment of crisis and may well be hoping to discuss her situation and perhaps receive some support.
Everything that follows is set in and around Park Avenue and we come to realise that this is a drama in which secrets play a great part. The first indication of this is quickly made apparent because at the outset we find Kit visiting her doctor (Robert Lenzi) and it emerges that she has been diagnosed with cancer but this is something that she hides from Charlotte and from virtually everybody else. In contrast Charlotte does after a while open up about the possibility of divorcing Hans and, when she does so, she finds to her surprise that her mother is unsupportive. This is due to her taking the view that for Lily’s sake Charlotte should remain with her husband. However, the lack of any real ease between Kit and Charlotte has its roots in past history including the way in which Charlotte was treated after her father's death. Facts about his demise are being withheld as we eventually discover and in the meantime we are left to speculate about the role played by one Johnny Johnson (Timothy Hutton), a man who had been a friend of Kit’s but whom she describes as having died although that turns out not to be the case.
Tensions within the family often provide good dramatic material for a film and the mother/daughter focus here – essentially that of Kit and Charlotte but with an echo in what is happening between Charlotte and Lily – certainly has potential. There are, of course, those who, on noting the setting here and the lifestyle that goes with it, would in consequence ask whether viewers can really be expected to care about the problems of people like this. But if the writing and the playing are good enough that becomes an unnecessarily shortsighted view. In this case the talent of both Fiona Shaw (an actress fully deserving of a film in which she has the memorable lead role) and Katherine Waterston meet that bar, but unfortunately the screenplay is not of a standard to provide real satisfaction although there will be audiences drawn to this kind of drama even so.
Given that so much of the focus is placed on the two central characters, it is perhaps surprising to discover that the major weakness in the writing concerns the subsidiary figures. A number of them are the other elderly lessees living in the apartment block, two of whom provide cameo roles for Phylicia Rashad and Didi Conn. They work well enough due to their limited function in the tale and it is also acceptable that the glimpses offered of other occupiers should be no more than that. However, Anders the doorman (Chaske Spencer) has a more significant role having befriended Kit and also in passing becoming involved with Charlotte. Spencer is well cast but the screenplay gives Anders no clear background at all and never attempts to make his unusually strong bond with Kit something that rings true (he is the one person allowed to know that she has cancer). Similarly, although Lily does put in an appearance and is highly important when it comes to what decision her mother reaches regarding her future, she remains an undeveloped figure. And, if she is sketchy, there is even less detail in the film’s brief portrayal of Charlotte’s unpleasant husband.
By not making these characters more rounded and involving, the screenplay comes to rely far too much on the way in which the father's history continues to create unease and hostility between Kit and Charlotte. The revelations about his death and its aftermath emerge rather slowly with the consequence that the film feels somewhat drawn out. As for the final key disclosure it is held back until a contrived moment in the film’s last few minutes. It is equally characteristic that Park Avenue should bring in references to the days when Charlotte's parents were in China but that the emphasis on oriental artworks and the inclusion of a scene in a Buddhist temple are never really built in sufficiently to become an integrated and meaningful part of the story. It is certainly not difficult to admire the performances given by Shaw and Waterston and for many they may be reason enough to see the film, but Park Avenue sketches in its drama rather than exploring it in a way that brings the story fully to life.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Fiona Shaw, Katherine Waterston, Chaske Spencer, Timothy Hutton, Phylicia Rashad, Didi Conn, Gabriella Baldacchino, Susanna Guzman, Mary Beth Peil, Nelson Ascenio, Gino Cafarelli, Robert Lenzi, Frederick Weller.
Dir Gaby Dellal, Pro Diana Phillips, Screenplay Gaby Dellal and Tina Alexis Allen, Ph David Johnson, Pro Des Katie Fleming, Ed Michelle Botticelli, Music Stephen Warbeck, Costumes Thomas Schuster.
Washington Square Films/Rimsky Productions-Olympic Films.
105 mins. USA. 2025. UK Rel: 14 November 2025. Cert. 12A.
