Andrew Sarris

“Jill Clayburgh seems to have become and even more controversial actress than Jane Fonda or Diane Keaton, and I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can is unlikely to still the furor over Clayburgh’s allegedly abrasive femininism. In fact, this relatively upbeat treatment of Barbara Gordon’s grim memoir of addiction, withdrawal, and near madness is likely to intensify some of the backlash that has swirled around Clayburgh every [sic] since she came on like a whirlwind in An Unmarried Woman. At her best, and Clayburgh is very close to her best in I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, she reminds me of what the late Otis Ferguson said of a ‘30s box-office-poison-feminist-before-her-time in Howard Hawks’s 1938 Bringing Up Baby: “Katharine Hepburn builds the part from the ground, breathless, sensitive, headstrong, triumphant in illogic, and serene in that bounding brassy nerve possible only to the very well bred.

“One could stretch a point to note that Jill, like Kate, was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and it still shows a bit on the screen….

“…. [I]n Semi-Tough (1977), … Clayburgh displayed a commendably hard edge in a dangerously frivolous situation. The hard edge became a cutting edge in An Unmarried Woman, and the blood has been flowing ever since. Like every prominent actress of this era, she has been unable to escape the boom-and-bust cycle that forestalls any big-star-persona leverage for women in the film industry…. [T]he critics, detractors, and antifeminists were ready to pounce on her for It’s My Turn (undeservedly) and First Monday in October (deservedly). Her extensive work in television does not count for much in the Big Star sweepstakes, and the fact that she has paid her dues in the theater, whatever that means, does not seem to redound to her credit with the cognoscenti.

“From early indications, I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can is not likely to solve Clayburgh’s current career problems. Though the character she plays is from the outset extraordinarily insecure, there is once more some part of Clayburgh’s persona that remains invinvible even a Valium pill’s throw from the bottom of the snake pit. A Talia Shire, for extreme example, could have plunged much deeper into misery and wretchedness, but I am not sure that I would have found the resultantly squalid verisimo worth seeing. As it is, I came close to reaching for one of my own Valiums during some of Clayburgh’s clinical misadventures. Fortunately, the movie became darkly funny long before it approached the point of being unbearably brutal.

[leaving out quite a bit because I’m tired]

“The movie is thus not faithful to the book, granted, and I’m glad it isn’t. Clayburgh has simply too much spunk, humor, and resiliency to fit into the more agonizing scenarios of addiction. Yet I am not convinced of the validity of the sincerity and authenticity routines either…. Clayburgh herself partakes a bit of counterculture smugness. Still, I was moved almost in spite of myself by Clayburgh’s high spirits and defiant gestures in the face of adversity. Whether we like her or not, Clayburgh is some kind of woman, and in future times people may look back at her more appreciatively, not because she was the most winning and seductive actress of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but because she was in some ways the most eloquent expression of a brave and free woman in this troubled age.”

Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, March 16, 1982