Sweet Revenge. 1976. USA. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg. Screenplay by Marilyn Goldin, B. J. Perla, Jor Van Kline. With Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston. DCP. 90 min.
Set in an unfamiliar, hardscrabble Seattle, Sweet Revenge extends Jerry Schatzberg’s examination of marginalized figures and determined outsiders. Following his stark portrayal of heroin addiction in The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Schatzberg here turns his attention to another figure operating at the edge: a compulsive car thief whose rejection of any kind of social integration serves as both character study and philosophical speculation. Fresh from her starring debut in The Fortune, Stockard Channing plays Vurrla Kowsky, a charismatic car thief whose elaborate schemes and disguises serve a single goal: acquiring enough money to purchase her dream Ferrari Dino. When her court-appointed defender Le Clerq (Sam Waterston) becomes irresistibly fascinated by her case, he finds himself drawn into her tangle of deceptions and betrayals, even as she continues to manipulate everyone she encounters.
Vincent Canby’s assessment that the film was “not exactly a failure” suggests its intriguing position between genres—neither pure comedy nor straightforward crime drama. Vilmos Zsigmond’s unvarnished cinematography of Seattle’s urban landscape provides a stark counterpoint to the gleaming machines at the heart of Vurria’s obsession. Though it competed at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, the film’s limited release and ambivalent tone contributed to its obscurity. Viewed today, it stands as a fascinating exploration of anti-heroism and consumer desire in American cinema of the 1970s, distinguished by its rare focus on a female protagonist who refuses to account for herself.