An unusual but perfect pairing of Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg
There’s a bunch of movies that I watch when I have a lazy day and I’m feeling good. I want to watch a movie that won’t be too taxing on my mind or my conscience. But after I watch it, I feel like it was time well spent and I feel good about the world. I find a lot of these movies come from the 90’s. I’m completely biased because that was my childhood and my formative years. But there is a marked difference from the movies I’ve seen in the last 10 years compared to the movies back then. The movies back then come off as less cynical, less serious, and easier to digest as a fantasy yet still believable somehow.
One of those movies is Corrina, Corrina. It wasn’t a movie that I saw in the theatres, but a movie we either rented or caught on TV because of a recommendation from Siskel and Ebert. Whoopi Goldberg plays the titular character Corrina. She’s a college educated Black woman who ends up taking a job as the housekeeper for a recently widowed father, Manny (Ray Liotta) and his ten year old daughter, Molly (Tina Majorino). Today this doesn’t seem all that interesting, but the movie is set in 1959 and dare I say anything from maybe before the 80’s and if there’s white and black characters involved, you can probably guess that there’s going to be an element of racism and prejudice addressed in the movie.
But unlike most movies in more modern times, the social commentary is kept at a very safe distance in Corrina, Corrina. It’s as if the time period is just an accessory to the story which is really just about a single dad and his daughter who is unable to deal with the grief of losing her mother. Manny is an advertising guy who writes jingles, but he can’t go to work and look after his daughter and keep the house in order.
He interviews for a housekeeper and after a creepy run-in with the first hire, played by the always kooky and crazy, Joan Cusack, he meets his match with Corrina. Corrina is just there to put in her time, so she can collect a paycheck, and she’s not intimidated by anything including a kid who’s not in the most emotionally stable place.
What I love about Corrina, Corrina is that it’s not a heavy handed or even typical romantic dramedy. It’s a very grown up and practical romantic dramedy. You have Corrina who is too smart and too talented to be cleaning houses for a living, but because she happens to be Black, here we are because we’re in the 1950’s. We then have Manny, who’s a widowed, handsome advertising professional who has a super cute daughter and his own house, but he’s not interested in partnering with his supposed female counterpart because society says he should.
Corrina and Manny’s relationship is more of an intellectual affair. They share a love of music and writing and they get each other in that way. The scene where Manny is having trouble finding a word to rhyme with “pudding” for his jingle for Jell-O basically describes their bond. As Manny is telling Corrina what he’s working on, he’s says how he can’t figure out how to make the jingle work with the word “pudding”. He says it a few times but at one time, he says “puddin’”. Corrina stops him and tells him that he just figured it out. Take the “g” from pudding and you have “puddin’”. She wasn’t telling him. She wasn’t taking over and fixing it for him. She simply guided him in the right direction and she was humble about it. That’s a true partnership.
How many of us get to meet someone where you get each other because of a shared love of something? It’s a different kind of feeling. It may not always be romantic, but it’s still a great feeling to have this type of simpatico.
But before all that love stuff, there’s business to take care of. Manny has to focus on his jingle work. Corrina has to clean houses. But in addition to that, she also has to keep Molly’s secret. Since Molly’s mom died, she hasn’t been able to go to school. She begs Corrina not to let her go and to not tell her father. So instead of going to school, she spends the days helping Corrina clean houses.
Molly is the first one to see the love starting to build between Manny and Corrina. They’re so busy taking care of business, it’s only when Corrina is helping Manny with his suite jacket and seeing him off to work that they naturally just kiss each other goodbye without realizing what just happened. But there’s no starry eyes across the room or declarations of feelings. It’s only at the very end when Corrina and Manny share a tiny bit of PDA, but it’s all very PG.
When I watch Corrina, Corrina now, I really appreciate at how grown up and slowly this relationship evolved. Manny and Corrina’s connection was built on an intellectual connection and an understanding of each other’s love for the music and arts. And it’s also of course, built on their love and care for what’s best for little Molly. Corrina lives with her sister and her family of three little kids similar in age to Molly, so Molly has built in buddies to safely play with. But all of this took time. And it took place in-between real life moments. I really appreciated that the romantic fluffy stuff was kept at a minimum and that it was more of a mutual respect and need for each other which was why Manny was at Corrina’s door at the end.
I’m sure back then and even today, people will raise their eyebrows at the pairing of Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg. But they’re perfectly cast and totally believable as two grown adults who have a lot in common and just end up being more than just friends in the end. And that’s because the movie really does amplify their common interests and personalities and how those come into play versus it being a physical and starry eyed emotional affair.
I was scrolling through the Daily Mail when I saw the article about Ray Liotta dying in his sleep in the Dominican Republic. I was so shocked. He’s one of those actors that you depend on and look for in a movie no matter how small his part. You know he’s going to bring it in whatever role he’s in. He may not have captured the same glory as he had in Goodfellas, but I recall him having great supporting roles in Cop Land and Date Night.
And perhaps his greatest role to date but completely underrated, is his starring role in the television series, Shades of Blue. I once upon a time worked in a television media company and one of the shows I had to analyze was Shades of Blue. It was one of the very few shows I actually watched and stayed up late to download on its air date (I never owned a TV but no one could ever tell based on my analysis work). He was perfect as the corrupt cop, Lieutenant Wozniak, opposite Jennifer Lopez. I was so disappointed when the show ended. Shades of Blue was a New York cop show that finally broke out of the Law & Order-like mold of cop procedurals and it was definitely because of Ray Liotta and Jennifer Lopez. If you ever get a chance to catch Corrina, Corrina on TV or rent it on a streaming service, definitely do. You’ll really appreciate how greatly skilled Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg are at acting.
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