Better Living

Bad movies are a dime a dozen. Rarer — though no better — are movies so baffling you can only wonder why talents like Olympia Dukakis and Roy Scheider ever got involved. Adapted from George F. Walker's play and helmed by theater director Max Mayer, making his feature-film debut, this dysfunctional family comedy (at least, the press notes say it's a comedy) is a tangle of themes in search of an engaging plot and some believable characters. The setting is a shabby house in some unidentified, blue-collar neighborhood; Nora (Dukakis) raised her daughters Elizabeth (Deborah Hedwall), MaryAnn (Catherine Corpeny) and Gail (Wendy Hoopes) there after her husband, ...