• Release Date: 18 December 1987
• Rating: R
• Distributor: Columbia TriStar
• Duration: 2 hrs. 24 min.
• Official Site: Movie Official Site

Summary :Hector Babenco's bittersweet film, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by William Kennedy, stars Jack Nicholson as Francis Phelan, a drunken former baseball player running away from life and the painful, guilty memories that haunt him. Set in the winter of 1938, IRONWEED features Francis wandering the streets of Albany, New York, with his pal Rudy (musician Tom Waits) looking for odd jobs, cheap drinks, and flophouses. Meryl Streep costars as Helen Archer, Francis's longtime girlfriend and partner in drink. Together they lament the misery of life and ponder their tragic pasts, hoping to find a way to free themselves from their troubled lives--but never believing it's possible. Told in a series of drunken flashbacks, this dark portrait of depression-era hopelessness is a searing character-driven drama. Nicholson and Streep deliver painfully honest Oscar-nominated portrayals of two down-on-their-luck vagabonds moodily stewing in an alcoholic daze. The film, South American director Babenco's American debut, also features an excellent performance by Waits.

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Tom Waits, Fred Gwynne, Carroll Baker

Directors: Hector Babenco

Producers: Keith Barish

Critics Review

Reviewed By	Brief Review	Grade
www.washingtonpost.com	''Ironweed,'' the new film by Hector Babenco starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, comes about as close to being an unmitigated waste of talent as any movie in recent memory....more
www.channel4.com	Adapted by William Kennedy from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this has Nicholson and Streep playing two drunken bums in 30s Albany, an on/off couple haunted by their respective pasts. He has a forgotten family and a dead son, she might have made it as a singer but now things are only bearable with the bottle. It is all relentlessly bleak, and there is something galling about Hollywood dabbling in such squalor, as if it could come across as anything other than patronizing. The two leads put in startling performances to cut through such cynicism, but there's no levity or dramatic peak to elevate you from the misery....more