Sweet, Sly Sallywood Pays Homage to Sally Kirkland

The sweet, sly behind-the-scenes showbiz caper Sallywood takes on a new and elegiac meaning this week upon its subject Sally Kirkland’s passing, at the age of 84, just as the indie film arrives on digital platforms. Surely that was never writer-director Xaque Gruber’s intent some 20-plus years ago, when in the early aughts he worked as Kirkland’s assistant, nor would it have been when he first began translating those experiences, loosely, into the Sallywood script. But Hollywood loves its ironic twists, and so, at the very moment of Kirkland’s passing, Gruber’s touching tribute finally finds its wide release.

Kirkland probably would have appreciated the irony. She was known as a gadabout and scene-stealer in her sharp supporting turns in films as diverse as The Sting, The Way We Were, Private Benjamin, JFK, and Bruce Almighty; she held down the lead in 1987’s Anna, in which she also played a once-famous actress, earning a lead actress Oscar nom (losing to Cher for Moonstruck). Along the way, she collaborated with Andy Warhol as his avant-garde muse and developed a reputation of sorts both for her willingness to disrobe on screen and stage and a laundry list of high-profile romantic dalliances. It all added up to a supremely talented, independently minded star whose talents were better known inside the industry than outside it.

Gruber’s Sallywood is at once a tribute to the actor, a backstage showbiz caper-comedy, and a coming-of-age kunstlerroman. Young Zack (homophonous with “Xaque”), played by Lucas Krystek, lives with his parents (Lenny von Dohlen and Jennifer Tilly) in rural Maine, where he is inspired by randomly seeing Kirkland in Anna on VHS at an impressionable age. Played by Tyler Steelman for the rest of the film, Zack moves from his native rural Maine to Hollywood in search of the actor. A chance encounter leads to his being hired, in no short time, as Sally’s personal assistant, but her finds her once-renowned career is in shambles. Like so many an aging actress (and in no small number of films from The Star and Sunset Boulevard to The Substance), there’s little work for for a female star of her age, despite her impeccable credentials and inestimable talent.

Zack’s admirable devotion well exceeds his modest skillset. And Kirkland’s failing career has her desperate for nearly any paying gig. What is at first an uneasy alliance becomes a sweet friendship. Their goal of resuscitating her career begins with a small role in what sounds like the unlikeliest of vehicles: a next-to-no-budget softcore alien invasion zombiepocalypse film. These scenes and others provide Sallywood its mirth, but Zack and Kirkland have a bigger goal in mind: they hope to land her something even more prestigious in order to help her regain her glory and reclaim her legacy.

Along the way, Sally has plenty of opportunities to remind the audience and Sallywood’s cast of characters of her credentials. They include her longtime friend and frequent co-star Eric Roberts as her skeevy agent, Keith Carradine and Kay Lenz as big-time (Cameron-Bigelow-divorced-style) directors, Maria Conchita Alonso as a rival agent, and Michael Lerner as a producer. Seeing Sally Kirkland burst into a monologue from Shaw’s Saint Joan, unbidden, at a Hollywood party scene in a desperate attempt to impress the director who won’t return her calls, is both laugh-out-loud funny and a cringeworthily meaningful commentary on the industry’s deeply ingrained ageism and sexism. If anyone is ready for her close-up, it’s Sally Kirkland. And you have to admire the actor’s chutzpah to take on this self-effacing role at the end of her career; she’s given us all good pause to remember to appreciate not just herself but all those legends like her.

Sallywood has already won over 50 awards on its festival circuit run. It doesn’t exactly break new ground but instead mines the familiar tropes of the showbiz backstage comedy for much of its humor with its coterie of dimwit wannabes, sleazy agents, talentless writers, and imperious directors. But it’s got Sally Kirkland, and the industry vet gives Sallywood both a lovely last performance and a steely gravitas that elevates it well beyond your run-of-the-mill backstage comedy. Like its star and namesake, Sallywood brings to the table both a sweet grace and an invigorating irreverence. And in doing so, it makes for a fine epitaph for Sally Kirkland’s career.