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| courtesy of boston.com |
Great, now that we have that out of the way, we can move on to much less PG-13 topics....
Marriage isn't for everybody. There are people who have relationships that span ten years, but still shouldn't get married. Then there are couples like my wife and I, who were engaged less than six months after we met. Regardless, a long marriage isn't about being in love, exactly. It's about finding a common ground that builds a foundation strong enough to make two people keep coming back to each other in the face of difficulties. Love is one thing - companionship and honesty is quite another.
In Hope Springs, Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) are a middle aged couple living in middle America. The children have moved out of the house, so the house has emptied out a bit. Arnold is an accountant - and a stingy one at that. Most decisions he makes are based on the cost benefit and his own sense of time management. Their lives have become stagnant, though Arnold has no real issue with it. Kay, however, is drowning in unhappiness, but isn't communicating it to her husband. With that in mind, Kay dips into her personal finances and pays for a week long trip to Maine, where they will go through an intensive workshop with a famed marriage counselor (Steve Carell). Arnold is, of course, not behind the idea, but eventually gives in and takes part less than willingly in the process, reservations at the Econo Lodge and all.
Director David Frankel (Miami Rhapsody, The Devil Wears Prada) refuses to tell a story he doesn't want to and doesn't give in to typical movie-going standards. Compare this film to Nancy Meyers' 2009 film It's Complicated, also starring Streep. While Meyers' film, also focusing on middle age love lives, was much funnier and easier to watch, it also broadened the topic on a spectrum that allowed it to appeal to a younger demographic. It treated sex and its effect on the family as a bit of a joke. Frankel's film takes similar topics and treats them with a fine-toothed comb, refusing to turn a very serious topic into a physical comedy. Sex may be a staple for relationship comedies, but the lack thereof can cause serious detriment to real-life relationships. As uncomfortable as these characters are talking about it, candid discussion about sex becomes the tipping point between an unhealthy marriage and one with life and vigor.
So, the cat's out of the bag. Though the main focus of the therapy and the film itself is the lack of sex life between Kay and Arnold, the truth behind the breakdown isn't specifically the physical act of love - it's about the perceived lack of desire and communication. It isn't that neither spouse wants to be with the other - it's that they won't talk about it and make unjust assumptions about the other.
Unfortunately, while Frankel's film deserves a lot of respect for not compromising to please a larger audience, it also falls drastically short in a few unforgivable areas. First, the music is used so melodramatically it feels like a Lifetime movie. It's on thing to create mood and appeal to the sympathetic of the audience. It's quite another to smack viewers over the head of a musical hammer, begging them to cry. I didn't think Annie Lennox's "Why" could be used in any fashion other than tongue-and-cheek at this point. I guess I was wrong.
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| courtesy of cinema-way.com |
Finally, my personal pet peeve: supporting performances in strong roles are hard to come by. Supporting performances in roles that - though necessary to the story, are too broad - are a dime a dozen. In other words, Steve Carell's casting makes no sense. He's good, but there are any number of cheaper actors (or comedians) who could play the same role. It's not a difficult part to play and I'm curious why Carell was the choice, other than to be a marketing ploy. Carell is a good actor. Making him the straight man in a film geared toward baby boomers isn't necessary to give him credibility.
Hope Springs is a lightly funny movie about a subject that is ripe for comedic parody. TV and movies tackle the subject of middle age and sex quite a bit (especially in this day and age, since sex has become much less taboo). But, for all the comedic material that exists, few treat the subject in a manner as serious as this film does. I'll be the first to admit that watching Streep and Jones in love scenes is not my cup of tea, but the lack of censorship from such rarely seen screen situations is, at the least, pretty courageous (no, there's no nudity). The actors should be commended for giving some pretty gutsy performances in a film that isn't nearly as funny as I'd hoped, but lays a foundation for how movies can be made when filmmakers refuse to lighten up their material just to get some cheap laughs.
I'm not trying to be cynical about marriage. I've been happily married for 4+ years and have two beautiful children. I could never envision a world where I'm not married to my wife. But, even I'll admit, there are times when it become commonplace and we both get into a rut. Without making the effort to bring that original "first love" back into the equation, the rest of it just becomes more like a dead end job, forever repeating the same mundane tasks day in, day out, assuming that any deviation from it will result in chaotic results. It's not about the flowers or candy or even the occasional night on the town. It's about reminding the other person that, when the chips are down, you'd still take one night with him/her over anybody (or anything) else.
In closing - I love you honey!
...maybe this will be the one review of mine she reads ;)
SHOULD YOU SEE IT: Possibly
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