Lizzie

Shirley Jackson's "The Bird's Nest" has always been one of my favorite novels, so I was excited to find that it had been made into a movie (albeit one that's nearly impossible to find) 'way back when. The film's black-and-white 1950s graininess perfectly evokes its era, as do the starchy clothes and rigid hair of the characters, and the dreadful, over-the-top "score" of shrieking, dissonant violins. The beginning of the movie promised an experience so terrible that I was tempted to hold off watching it till I could gather some of my snarkier friends, but it was already too late -- I'd been sucked in and was having too much fun to quit. As the movie goes on, it gets much better, yet it remains enjoyable, every now and again flinging itself headlong into vertiginous swoops of insane bathos. All in all, I found it perfectly delightful, and can only summarize it by plagiarizing Mae West: When it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad, it's better.