Play It as It Lays

Play It as It Lays is a 1972 American drama film directed by Frank Perry from a screenplay by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, based on the 1970 novel of the same name by Didion. The film stars Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins, who previously starred together in the 1968 film Pretty Poison. Plot Former model Maria Wyeth, who comes from a Nevada town with a population of 28, is now a successful actress. Unhappily married to, and separated from, temperamental producer Carter Lang, she is also chronically depressed and institutionalized. Reflecting back on what brought her to the asylum, Maria recalls driving around Los Angeles in her yellow Chevrolet Corvette and spending time with her closest friend, B.Z. Mendenhall, an unhappy man who is gay. Maria has a brain-damaged daughter, Kate, who is being kept in a sanitarium at the insistence of Carter, who resents Maria’s visiting the girl so frequently. Maria's secret desire is to live somewhere with Kate and find some kind of joy in life together. Maria has been having an affair with Les Goodwin, a screenwriter. When she tells Carter that she’s pregnant with Goodwin’s child, he demands that she get an abortion. Maria goes to Las Vegas and has a fling with a mob-connected lawyer, Larry Kulik. She later returns to L.A. and has a one-night stand with Johnny Waters, a television star who needs to watch his own show on TV in order to get in the mood for sex.