Welcome back to my blog. Here’s my recommendation of a movie to check out today and hope you punch your “Ticket to the Movies!” OK, let’s go with a caper film today and take a look back at 1980’s “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” with Susan Saint James, Jane Curtain and Jessica Lange.
Although “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” has a kind of “tee-vee appearance,” you’ll find the look back to 1980 interesting with the economy (especially inflation and interest rates) and how three women of essentially different backgrounds face similar pressures.
“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” has a caper at its heart: The three headliners need cash so what do they do? Of course! Go rob the mall! The local mall (remember those?) is having a giveway that consists of very large sphere with money inside. So, it’s no shopping for these women, unless you consider using a dry-vac to suck the cash out of the sphere!
As for each woman: Saint James is from a working-class home struggling to get by after her husband left her and he doesn’t pay enough in child support (she’s also pregnant with her new boyfriend); Lange is from a wealthy home, but has a failed antique shop she loves that her husband closes by suing her to satisfy the IRS; and finally Jane Curtain, who is from an upper-middle-class home whose husband abandoned her completely without support.
Naturally, you’ll see everything coming, but it’s still a nice ride with “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” and Saint James and Lange do the best acting, along with supporting cast member Dabney Coleman as Curtain’s love interest. Curtain doesn’t do a bad job, but she’s simply not as gifted for acting as the other two women.
One of the best features of “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” is that it never stumbles over a stereotype and in today’s cinema, that’s quite a treat.
So, I say punch your “Ticket to the Movies!” and watch “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.” It is available to rent on streaming platforms and you can also find it for free on a few. You will thank me later, if you find and watch “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”
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