Ironweed

Based on William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1983 novel, 1987's Ironweed stars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as homeless vagrants during the Great Depression, who are trying to find money, food, and a place to sleep where they won't be eaten by dogs or freeze to death. Nicholson plays Francis, an alcoholic former baseball pitcher who abandoned his family 22 years earlier after dropping (and killing) his infant son while drunk. Hardened to the streets, Francis looks for manual labor and meets his companion, Helen (Streep), at soup kitchens, after which the pair drift to gin mills and try to figure out how to survive another night. One full act is devoted to Francis returning to his wife, Annie (Carroll Baker), and grown children, Billy and Peg (Michael O'Keefe, Diane Venora), in his old home in Albany, perhaps the most satisfying section of this loose-knit drama. Hector Babenco directs with emotional richness and provides a wide berth for Streep and Nicholson to explore their extraordinary dynamic together (their performances as desperate drunks who remember a much better life are shattering but never unhinged). Babenco also handles the story's element of magical realism (Francis is repeatedly visited by ghost-illusions, and revisits scenes from his past) with restraint and poignancy. Making its latest appearance on DVD and bowing on Blu-ray with a handsome-looking transfer, this is recommended. (T. Keogh)