The Lovers

What an interesting film The Lovers turned out to be (directed by Azazel Jacobs). It's being marketed as a middle-age Cousin, Cousine, and while it has comic elements (a laugh out loud moment), it's going to disappoint folks who attend thinking that the two films are similar.

It has received a high rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (86%; by way of comparison, Wonder Woman got 93%), and it's easy for me to see why. It's fresh and original and features wonderful acting. Aiden Gillen's performance was especially fascinating to me. At first, I had trouble taking it in. It felt like viewing a cubist painting without being able to resolve the different points of view. I imagine that his performance in Game of Thrones made such an indelible impression on me that it was hard for me to see him as someone else. (Even though I'd also seen his performance in The Wire, which I also thought wonderful.) But I felt that I was able to see him as someone else, and his performance, as well as the others, all seemed to be very real, to be imitative of reality in a way that's unusual for a Hollywood film.

I loved all the performances. Tracy Letts and Debra Winger were wonderful. Melora Walters, who played the husband's lover, Lucy, was also wonderful. Winger and Letts were the cheating spouses, with so much vitality that it was easy to see how they could be loved despite their cheating ways.

After I thought I'd caught the tenor of the film, I kept thinking Ernst Lubitsch, Ernst Lubitsch, Ernst Lubitsch, he would have done something different with this material. I think I was troubled by the gap in expectation that this would be a funny film and its somber tone. Then I thought We can't have Little Shop Around the Corner, we've seen too much. Perhaps that's true, given that domestic violence made an appearance in Eleanor & Park, a cozy culinary mystery by Diane Mott Davidson and even Debbie Macomber. Does an escapist film have to deny reality? Can there not be an admixture of truthful comfort in the humor of a what is clearly a ridiculous (as well as sad) situation?

I did not like the music or the set design, and while both served to underscore the unsentimentality of the film I found them alienating. I imagine the set design was partly meant to underscore the idea that the wife was emotionally absent and had no emotional investment in her home, no motivation to make it beautiful or personal or full of sentimental touches like a ceramic napkinholder from Key West (not beautiful, sophisticated or elegant, nor even very personal but not anonymous).

Towards the end of the film Debra Winger's character is trying to grapple with the inherent deceit of cheating, and she says, "We're not bad people." At that moment, I wasn't convinced of that statement and I'm not sure that her character was, either. Contrast that with the last line of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot: "Nobody's perfect." The last line of this film is funny, and it has a happy ending.

If you're interested in Billy Wilder, you might enjoy the episode of the Austin Film Festival's On Story series, entitled Deconstructing Billy Wilder (Episode 709) in which Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot are discussed.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

This is a very entertaining and engaging book, and I think it's great for both teens and adults, and a wonderful title for a parent and teen to read together. I love this book, and certainly Rainbow Rowell fans are an enthusiastic group. I lent this book to a neighbor, and she agreed that it was good. (So nice of her to approve my enthusiasm.)

It's a love story about how Eleanor and Park meet, on a school bus, junior year, and confront a situation that's really scary and overwhelming. And they struggle with some of the same issues you would find in an adult romance novel.

It's a fast and easy read - I read it in five hours. I was just sharing my enthusiasm for this book with a friend, and as she said, I didn't want it to end. It was so sweet, but not maudlin. It's a real feel-good read, with lots of funny dialogue and well-rounded characters.

I was surprised to see that domestic violence is part of the story. It's presented in a psychologically realistic way. I think I was surprised because it seems to me to come up so often in my reading: it was a theme in the Debbie Macomber novel I read, and also in a Diane Mott Davidson novel (where I really didn't expect it). Dealing with tough real-life issues seems to be a hallmark of the best YA fiction.

Like all romances, there are obstacles to be overcome. I think that one of the things that's charming about Pride and Prejudice is that the characters grow and change; that's true of Eleanor & Park. In fact, Park struggles with wanting social acceptance, and he worries about how the other kids will view him if they perceive that Eleanor is his girlfriend. Eleanor has a different set of issues to struggle with, including a desire to be invisible and to avoid notice (and therefore, trouble); for her own different reasons she hesitates to admit her feelings for Park, and to resist acknowledging the relationship.

Park learns that, after all, his friends don't care that much, and more importantly, Eleanor is far more important to him than their opinion. Eleanor begins to be able trust that Park's feelings for her are enduring. Classic romance!

After I read the book, I went to Google Images and found a collection of fan art depicting Eleanor & Park and scenes in the book. I was so delighted. Check it out. Knowing that the fans know how to depict scenes in the book makes me wonder why it is proving hard to get the film of the book produced.