Nuts (1987)

When a high rent New York call girl (Barbra Streisand) is arrested for manslaughter after killing a client, her mother (Maureen Stapleton) and stepfather (Karl Malden) attempt to have her declared mentally incompetent rather than stand trial. Based on the play by Tom Topor, the majority of the film takes place in a courtroom and it feels like a play, no more so than when at the end, Streisand delivers her lengthy dramatic monologue that in the legitimate theater would probably have garnered her a strong round of applause. Topor's play is a rather obvious piece of dramatic claptrap and while the director Martin Ritt (THE HUSTLER) does a nice job of keeping the narrative tightly moving along, it's Streisand's performance that anchors the film. It's an inspired piece of casting really. Streisand's often strident persona can be very divisive to audiences but here it fits beautifully into a character whose rage and cynicism are equally irritating to her doctors and lawyers. I could have done without the film's unnecessary "cute" epilogue. The muted underscore is by Streisand. With Richard Dreyfuss as her public defender attorney, James Whitmore, Eli Wallach, Robert Webber and William Prince.