SUSAN TYRRELL ("OMA") in FAT CITY

The Importance of Susan Tyrrell's Oma in FAT CITY

John Huston's FAT CITY centers on the lives of small-town boxers in Texas, and Stacy Keach as Tully is trying to cut the drinking habit and get back into the ring. He gets a job picking fruit, befriends a young hopeful Jeff Bridges, and things seem to be going alright until he enters a bar for a drink or two, and mostly thanks to Susan Tyrrell, he sidesteps his comeback and becomes a full blown barfly. But he's nothing compared to Tyrrell's Oma who, sitting at the end of the bar with her soft-spoken boyfriend, shouts at all the men in the bar and is downright scary. Years ago, during my inexperienced youth... before I knew women like this actually existed in every corner bar in America... I had thought her performance a bit way over-the-top. But the more I rewatch the more I realize how important her screeching drunken lush is, and how she brings the film to a level of cosmic awesomeness: doing what no other actress can pull off. Lending a completely satisfied lush-till-the-end persona to an ultra realistic nerve-wrenching level, Susan allows Keach to climb his way out of the bottle. It would take a very special person to show the light to a man who can drink anyone under the table, that is, he'd have to meet his match and that's where I believe no other actress, without Susan's masculine strength and steely determination, could do. In other words, being a film about boxing the real challenge for the main character is out of the ring - into the barroom - and back out again. Whether Oma's character, for Keach, represents the end of a road or the beginning of a new one... He realizes it's a path he couldn't muster, no matter how tough and experienced he may be. [This is a R.I.P. to Susan Tyrrell who died recently. What an actress!]