"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Kristen Lopez

The great American playwright, Tennessee Williams, has had several of his works turned into iconic films. Plays such as a “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie” have gone on to become classics. The latest to come from the world of Tennessee Williams is "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," which looks to espouse all the typical themes of the writer, including misplaced privilege, class disputes, and gorgeous Southern belles.

The film details the life of Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard), a bored high society debutante living in 1920s Miami. As a means to avenge her greedy father, she asks poor Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans) to escort her to a fancy party where she will inherit a fortune from her aunt. When Fisher loses one of the aunt's beloved teardrop diamond earrings, the young lady doesn't know what to do, and decides to blame her new suitor.

What's odd is that the premise mentioned above is only touched on in the trailer. If anything, the preview highlights the high society vs lower class love between Fisher and Jimmy, which isn't anything new. You see the snooty young girl living it up, becoming jealous and having tender moments with the guy, but there's hardly any mention of Fisher blaming the earring's loss on Jimmy aside from a single scene where she says the earring is in the boy's pocket.

From this trailer alone, it would be hard to find any plot aside from a romance that's marred by class troubles and a throwaway interest on losing an earring. A highlight of the trailer itself is how it attempts to be from a different era--the narration and the font used on the preview attempt to convey an image that's reminiscent of past Williams' works.  On the flipside, everything comes off very cheesy and cliché, a caricature of other movies based on the writer's works. The image isn't helped by some terrible acting and the awkward use of Southern accents.

Bryce Howard is gorgeous in her costumes and dark hair--she's obviously channeling Vivien Leigh--but her accent is so Blanche Du Bois, it's laughable. You're constantly waiting for her to comment on “the kindness of strangers.” Chris Evans is not suited for this role and comes off as stiff and uptight in the role. A lot of fans could say that's just his character in the film, but really, he seems uncomfortable being in the movie at all. Big-name stars like Ann-Margaret and Ellen Burstyn are only given cursory glances in the preview.

I'm on the fence about this movie. It either could be a great film reminiscent of the earlier movies of Tennessee Williams, with strong performances from the actors mentioned above. Or, judging by the trailer, it could offer a mixed-up plot filled with muddied accents and no direction on whether this is a drama or a romance.  This could be a melodramatic retelling of a great story.

View the trailer for "Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" here. Thoughts?