The Tamesis
all night (1981), director. Jean-Claude Tramont
Photo: Courtesy of Everett Collection
Streisand wrote in her memoir that she agreed to do this all night Reluctantly: She “had no particular desire to play a dim-witted blonde suburban housewife.” But she also realized she had never played anyone like Cheryl Gibbons before. Cheryl is a bullied wife who has two ambitions: to seduce a married man in midlife crisis, played by Gene Hackman, and to become a singer-songwriter, unaware of her lack of talent. In one very funny scene, Cheryl plays the piano while bloodlessly singing one of her campy country tunes.
Well, it makes the film sound like a broad comedy – Streisand does deliver her lines in the slightly breathy voice of Marilyn Monroe – but the performances are cleverly understated. Streisand completely disappears into the role of Cheryl, and not just because she spends much of the film wearing what looks like a late-stage Debbie Reynolds wig, lilac jumpsuit and matching eyeshadow.
guilt trip (2012), director. Anne Fletcher
Photo: Courtesy of Everett Collection
“There was a director, Anne Fletcher, who had been pursuing me for a year to play a Jewish mother,” Streisand writes in the book. my name is barbara. “And she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer…and it’s a lead role that I haven’t done in a long time.” guilt tripStreisand plays Joyce Brewster, a New Jersey widow who drives across the country with her son, played by Seth Rogen, who is Streisand’s straight man in every sense of the word. Streisand has played chatterboxes before, but Joyce is inquiring, over-sharing, and a bit provincial. A collector of frog gadgets who became obsessed with Las Vegas slot machines. The movie wasn’t a box office hit, but Streisand and Rogen’s chemistry should be: They’re hilarious together, especially when she makes his Tux miserable.
As of this writing, guilt trip This was the last film Streisand made. In 2023, when Howard Stern asked her if she would make more movies, she said that while she wanted to direct again, “I wouldn’t be in another movie. It would be too painful, you know? Doing hair, makeup…” However, in her memoir, Streisand was wistful about her screen career: “I hadn’t been in that many movies… only 19… while other actresses who were appearing at the same time had done 50 Or more…Looking back, I feel as if I didn’t live up to my potential.” Now the Palme d’Or says otherwise.
