Edie Falco Shines Yet Again In Amazon’s Indie ‘Landline’

It’s no secret that Edie Falco is an outstanding actress. No matter the subject matter or genre, the Emmy and Golden Globe winner elevates every film or show she’s in with her unique brand of understated comedy.

Landline, Amazon’s 1990s-set romantic comedy that made its debut on Prime Video right before Thanksgiving, is no exception. Falco plays Pat Jacobs, matriarch of a dysfunctional Manhattan family that’s struggling to keep its shit together. Pat has two daughters, Dana (Jenny Slate), an engaged twenty-something who gets cold feet and begins cheating on her fiance (Jay Duplass), and Ali (Abby Quinn), a rebellious high school senior, plus an absent-minded husband, Alan (John Turturro), who has no problem letting his wife play bad cop 24/7.

The plot kicks in when Dana and Ali find out that their father is having an affair with a mystery woman, “C.” The sisters attempt to uncover his mistresses’ identity and expose their father’s infidelity, but their hunt isn’t so much a grand quest as it is a meandering search.
Landline doesn’t pretend that their search is the focus of the story; it’s merely a situation that helps us learn more about the characters and the (often conflicting) forces of loyalty and nostalgia that have come to define their family’s relationship.

For much of the film, Falco’s character takes a backseat to all this drama. Her daughters—neither of whom had great relationships with their mother to begin with—get closer at the exact moment that her husband pulls away, leaving Pat all alone to deal with her long-simmering feelings of isolation. It’s clear from the beginning that Pat and Alan have lost all the chemistry they once had, but watching Pat realize that there’s no possible way to get it back is all different kinds of heartbreaking.

Falco shines in Landline—as she does in most projects—because she’s able to turn what could be a one-note character into something more. Undoubtedly, the script is weakest when it comes to depicting Alan and Pat’s relationship (and strongest when it comes to depicting Dana and Ali’s), but despite the limited material, Falco imbues her character with a sense of quiet confidence and understated humor. She’s more than the bored wife stuck in a loveless marriage that we’re used to seeing in romantic comedies; she’s a Hillary Clinton pantsuit-wearing, dive bar-dancing woman who’s just trying to cope with the shit hand she’s been dealt.

Yes, Jenny Slate and Abby Quinn are the standout stars of Landline. But Edie Falco, much like Pat herself, quietly plays an important role in developing the film’s tone. It’s Falco’s commitment to the little moments of realism—the specific moments so spot on that you can’t help but laugh—that helps Landline stand out as a romantic comedy. It won’t go down as a career-defining performance (The Sopranos takes the cake on that one), but it’s one that deserves recognition.

Stream Landline on Prime Video