General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

The Morning After

The Morning After is a 1986 American mystery film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Jane Fonda as an alcoholic actress who wakes up beside a corpse with no memory of the night before. It opened in Los Angeles and New York on 25 December 1986, runs 103 minutes, and carries an R rating.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	25 December 1986, Los Angeles and New York openings; distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox¹
Principal cast	Jane Fonda as Alex Sternbergen, Jeff Bridges as Turner Kendall, Raul Julia as Joaquin Manero¹
Crew	Director Sidney Lumet; screenwriter credited as James Hicks; producer Bruce Gilbert; cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak¹
Production	Filmed 7 April to late June 1986 in Los Angeles on a $15 million budget, completed two weeks early¹
Recognition	Jane Fonda nominated for the Academy Award for Actress in a Leading Role at the 59th Academy Awards²
Reception	61% Tomatometer from 18 critics; 38% audience score; $22.4 million United States gross³

Spoilers

Plot

In downtown Los Angeles, an alcoholic actress using the stage name "Viveca Van Loren" awakens from a blackout in a pool of blood, lying next to a dead man. The bedroom television is broadcasting an interview with the deceased, Bobby Korshack, a controversial fitness photographer who had been prosecuted on obscenity charges, and a knife stands in his chest.¹

As Alex Sternbergen tries to piece together the previous evening, she cannot rely on friends or on her estranged husband, the hairdresser Joaquin "Jacky" Manero, who is distanced from her by his new life with a wealthy fiancee. Her one ally is Turner Kendall, a loner ex-policeman who rescues her and helps her evade both the police and the real killer.³^•⁴

Production history

Jane Fonda and her business partner at IPC Films, producer Bruce Gilbert, began developing James Hicks's screenplay in August 1984. The script had earlier been optioned by Tri-Star Pictures on Sydney Pollack's recommendation; when that option expired, Fonda and Gilbert teamed with writer Jay Presson Allen to acquire the project for Warner Bros. A trade item published during production listed Hicks, Allen, and David Rayfiel as screenwriters, but neither Allen nor Rayfiel is credited onscreen. The New York Times review of the film noted that "James Hicks" was a pseudonym for James Cresson, better known at the time as a producer.¹

In late 1985 the project moved from Warner Bros. to Lorimar Motion Pictures, and Sidney Lumet was hired to direct. Jeff Bridges was cast as Turner Kendall in February 1986, and trade columns noted that the film would be Lumet's first feature shot in Los Angeles. Principal photography began on 7 April 1986.¹

Locations and schedule. Los Angeles locations included downtown, the Tyler Lord salon in Beverly Hills, the Pacific Design Center, the Westside Pavilion shopping mall, the Chevron oil fields, Mulholland Drive, and Coldwater Canyon. Three sets were built at Hollywood Center Studios: the beauty parlor, Alex Sternbergen's apartment, and Turner's Quonset hut. The $15 million production finished two weeks early, after seven weeks of a scheduled nine-week shoot, with four weeks on location and three at the studio.¹

Fonda had no producing role on the picture despite her part in optioning it; she worked for a salary and a percentage of the box-office gross, while Gilbert produced through his company American Filmworks, and Fonda ran her own company, Fonda Films, separately.¹

Reception

Fonda's performance drew the film's main recognition: she was nominated for Actress in a Leading Role at the 59th Academy Awards, held 30 March 1987, where the award went to Marlee Matlin for Children of a Lesser God.²

Critical response was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 61% Tomatometer from 18 reviews against a 38% audience score, with a reported United States gross of $22.4 million.³ Reviewers repeatedly separated the acting from the plotting. Roger Ebert, longtime film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film three of four stars and wrote that it would be a mistake to dismiss the movie for its shaky plot because of the performances, calling Fonda and Bridges wonderful in the film.⁵ In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington wrote that the opening had the viewer in its grip but that the story did not deepen or extend itself enough, leaving the actors to carry the film.⁴ Emanuel Levy gave it a B, calling Fonda's work as the alcoholic ex-actress a brilliant, Oscar-nominated performance in a routine thriller, while Dennis Schwartz graded it C, writing that the thriller kept looking for something missing and never found it.³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026