Above the Line

March 1, 2016

Award-winning actress MacLaine, most recently praised for her appearances in the television series Downton Abbey, has written ten books, mainly about otherworldly surrealistic speculations. This title includes those elements as she describes her involvement in a financially stressed, still unreleased film on a location in the Canary Islands, "remnants of the Lost Colony of Atlantis," playing an old lady owed a $900 check, who gets $900,000 instead, and takes off with a friend (played by Jessica Lange), to sow her wild oats in Las Vegas. In the title, "line" divides the filmmakers: management and cast above, crew below. Capricious surreal guru-toned speculation peppers the narrative and fills an extensive undocumented appendix of her "research." Two other voices also emerge: a crafty gossip publicizing the offscreen behaviors of cast, crew, and management, and a proud octogenarian celebrating her lifestyle: sharing her appearance-centered hair-and-makeup experiences, wise financial insights, buried-to-the-neck-in-sand dreams, and hang-by-the-neck-underwater ongoing therapy program with her current mentor. VERDICT For fans of MacLaine and behind-the-scenes Hollywood gossip.--Ann Fey, SUNY Rockland Community Coll., Suffern

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