Screen
Baumann, Paul
put the building on the market for $650,000. Even if it sells for only $550,000, he will have secured a gross rate of return of 150 percent over three years. r. C's case is illustrative of a...
...Unless the plaintiff and respondent have legal counsel of approximately equal talent and loyalty to their clients, the would-be plaintiffs (the poor) will, on average, fare poorly in a court of law...
...But, provided she has adequate resources, she too can move...
...Even if the landlord does not provide hot water, they would rather fight than flee...
...The poor, however, cannot exercise this type of leverage...
...In many cases, a middle-class family needs only to threaten legal action in order to get results from a landlord...
...The pool of available buildings is smaller for the poor than for the middle and upper classes...
...STORY'& 'MALL' irector Stephen Frears's The Grifters is a magi~,~ nificent slice of sleaze...
...Indeed, she can move quickly if she is really perturbed at the management...
...Bening plays the wanton Myra, a con artist of limited range but unyielding ambition...
...Myra has the frank sexuality of a barnyard animal, and ingratiates herself with the favor of sex the way most people use a smile...
...A person with financial means can move if she dislikes the service in her building...
...She may not like paying the rent in the new apartment building, but she can obtain reasonable housing...
...r. C's case is illustrative of a widespread gen- eral pattern that prevails in many U.S...
...Where HPD can cooperate with landlords, it should...
...In the end, it is always real people who suffer the consequences...
...In short, the poor are not only financially restricted but also lack legal resources...
...But HPD should act decisively when landlords abuse tenants...
...cities...
...And if one is restricted to nonluxury rental housing, the vacancy rate is close to 0 percent...
...SCREEN CALIFORNIA DREAMING 'GRIFTERS,' 'L.A...
...Her seduction of a weak-willed landlord is a little piece of comic perfection, as indeed is her entire giggling, bouncing, ever-eager presence...
...In today's modem cities, the price mechanism and the adversarial legal process guarantee that justice will not be served...
...The tenants in those buildings have a choice, which exerts pressure on the land- lord to maintain a building so that people are willing to rent...
...Instinctively, one's empathy is with the rejected mother trying to atone for her sins and reclaim her offspring...
...Their threat to sue is not credible, either because they cannot afford a quality lawyer or because the lawyers provided to the poor through various city organizations are also directed to coop- erate with landlords...
...In New York City, HPD has an interest in working construc- tively with landlords, since landlords make housing available to residents whom the HPD serves...
...HPD had a responsibility to force Mr...
...Under circumstances of poverty and inadequate supply, justice can only be achieved if everyone---landlords, tenants, and lawyers--agrees to certain common standards or values...
...Roy has inherited his youthful mother's instinct for larceny...
...An elderly person, whose aparlment is rent controlled, has less ability to move...
...For them, to leave one building means that they will have to find another that suits their needs...
...Some of the movie's most electric scenes take place early on as Huston and Cusack spar mercilessly, using every immediate grievance to avenge old and abiding injuries...
...Instead, in Mr...
...Roy is resentful and antagonistic toward Lilly's attempts to reclaim a measure of affection...
...When an urban family of moderate means finds a safe building and a good school, they have unearthed pearls of great price...
...In too many instances, city, state, and federal housing agencies, and occasionally the court system itself, do not mediate claims fairly...
...In addition to their limited options for housing, the poor and working classes do not have recourse to effective legal counsel when a dispute arises...
...Despite the good intentions of individuals, the system itself is unfair and unjust...
...19 April 1991:259...
...C to comply, even if previously he had a reputation for being a "reasonable" landlord...
...Happenstance brings him and his estranged mother Lilly together again when she arrives in Southern California to work the local race track for her Mafia bosses...
...Those needs often dictate relocating to a building with Section 8 subsidies (harder than ever to procure), one that is close to public transportation for work and shopping...
...The poor and the working class are more likely to live in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments...
...There are few other places of refuge...
...He makes a modest living bilking strangers of petty cash, or outwitting other small-time gamblers...
...The poor and working class will continue to face serious obsta- cles in procuring adequate housing...
...C's case, HPD chose either to ignore or to declare void the valid complaints of the tenants...
...This is especially true if the landlord suspects that the aggrieved petitioner is likely to find support among other tenants in the building...
...Only as the film reaches its chilling climax does it become apparent how sound her son's suspicions were...
...Bening would steal the movie but for the formidable presence ofAnjelica Huston, who wears her own, more harrowing desperation...
...It will surely make you D smile...
...Ira city cannot offer sufficient choice in housing to its dwellers, or cannot provide quality legal counsel for those with legitimate housing grievances, the system itself is not structurally just...
...Bening is a brave actress, and she almost gives depravity a good name...
...Such problems are less likely to arise in apartment buildings occupied by middle-class and upper middle-class tenants, unless the buildings are rent controlled or stabilized...
...As such, it tells ~us something significant about housing structures in our society...
...The reason is that safe housing and good public schools in poor neighborhoods are in short supply...
...Or is it just Annette Bening who does ~w" j that...
...Grifters concerns the precarious schemes of Huston, her son Roy, played by John Cusack, and Bening, as Cusack's calculating love interest...
...In a place like New York City, the problem is particularly acute because the vacancy rate is only 2 percent...
Vol. 118 • April 1991 • No. 8
