Lisa Eichhorn is particularly good at playing people whose unhappiness others would prefer to overlook. Her restraint gives Cutter's Way much of its force, and it is the performance we recommend starting with.
Fi1m perspective
In Cutter's Way (1981), Lisa Eichhorn's Mo holds our attention without trying to match John Heard's intensity. The men are absorbed in their own troubles, and she makes that absorption harder to excuse. We found her unhappiness hard to shake, because she makes us care about what the murder investigation keeps pushing aside. There is no need for her to dominate the film to change how we watch its leading men.
She made her film debut as Jean Moreton opposite Richard Gere in Yanks (1979), then played Gertrude Wentworth in The Europeans (1979). Those early roles preceded the move towards mothers and supporting parts from the 1990s. Mo is the performance that makes us wary of treating that later casting as a full account of her abilities. Ivan Passer's film sometimes lets its murder investigation lose momentum, but Eichhorn gives us somebody to care about when the plot is struggling to move.
In King of the Hill (1993), Steven Soderbergh casts her as Mrs Kurlander, mother of Jesse Bradford's Aaron. The family gradually disperses from a residential hotel in Depression-era St Louis, leaving the boy to fend for himself. It is a film we recommend warmly, although the final half-hour tidies up more than it should. Do not go in expecting another Mo: Bradford carries the film, while Eichhorn helps establish the family life his character is about to be left without.
Her later parts include Emily Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Mary's mother, Jean, in About Time (2013). We would like to see her given more of the space Passer allows her, with unhappiness that the film takes seriously even when its other characters do not. For Eichhorn herself, start with Cutter's Way, accepting that its investigation occasionally needs more patience than its actors do.
Biography
Lisa Eichhorn is an American actress, writer and producer. She was born on 4 February 1952 in Glens Falls, New York. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Eichhorn made her film debut in Yanks (1979), for which she received two Golden Globe nominations. She also appeared in The Europeans (1979) and Cutter's Way (1981).
In the 1990s she played supporting roles in films including The Vanishing (1993) and King of the Hill (1993), in which she portrayed Mrs. Kurlander. Her television credits include guest appearances in Law & Order, Miami Vice and Midsomer Murders, as well as a role in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and About Time (2013).
