ANNIHILATION OF FISH, THE
(director: Charles Burnett; screenwriter: based on the short story by Anthony C. Winkler; cinematographers: Rick Robinson, John Ndiaga Demps; editor: Nancy Richardson; music: Laura Karpman; cast: James E arl Jones (Obediah ‘Fish’ Johnson), Lynn Redgrave (Poinsettia Cummings), Tommy Redmond Hicks (NYC Minister), David Kogen (Social Worker), Ar lene Albertson (Woman at Bus Station), Dale Franzen (Opera Performer I), Margot Kidder (Mrs. Muldroone); Runtime: 108; MPAA Rating: R; producers: William Fabrizio, Arlene Albertson, John Remark, Eric Mitchell, Paul M. Heller; Milestone/Regent Entertainment; 1999)
“Absurd dramedy on loneliness and on an interracial romance between two hopeless humans.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Charles Burnett (“When it Rains”/”The Glass Shield”), the master Black filmmaker from LA, directs with aplomb this unusual (hard to categorize) intimate but absurd dramedy on loneliness and on an interracial romance between two hopeless humans who have real mental health problems that the film never addresses. It’s weirdly written as shock comedy in a short story by Anthony C. Winkler, that is not for all tastes.
The elderly, retired, widower Jamaican immigrant janitor, the pot-bellied Black man Obediah “Fish” Johnson, has been discharged from a NYC mental hospital after a patient there for ten years because he was seeing ghosts. These days he’s obsessed dealing with his imaginary demonic foe named Hank, as he moves to LA to get a fresh start on life.
The elderly white woman, a San Francisco resident, Poinsettia (Lynn Redgrave, noted Brit actress), leaves the Bay Area for Los Angeles. She is so whack that she’s convinced she’s the future bride of the 19th century Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini, as she obsessively sings the arias of his Madame Butterfly.
The odd pair are both lonely and lost souls who live in the same LA boarding house. Their kindly but eccentric landlady Mrs. Muldroone (Margot Kidder) encourages them to meet, as she feels sorry for them and thinks they need each other’s company to survive. Both characters are unfazed by their meeting, and continue to act crazy and talking to ghosts. But the odd couple for some inexplicable ghostly reason fall in love, which might be absurd but is nevertheless believable in such a strange pic where even its slapstick comedy seems to have traction as a curative.
The film never received a theater release until now, when it was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Foundation in collaboration with Milestone Films.
It played at the Toronto International Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 2/16/2025 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com