By Rick Grant B+
Rated PG-13 90 min
* this article is web-exclusive
Writer/director, Ira Sachs’ screenplay for this film is a dark satire of the classic late 40s-50s movies, created in the Woody Allen style of witty dialogue delivery. The look and tone of the film was meticulously researched to be correct in every detail to the late 40s period. Men wore suits any time they left the house. Women were relegated to being housewives or career women, there was no in-between. Everyone chain smoked straight cigarettes (Lucky Strikes or Camels) and drank heavily. The life expectancy was about mid-50s when men would drop-off with heart attacks or lung cancer.
Chris Cooper portrays Harry Allen a successful business executive who is disillusioned with his wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson). He feels she doesn’t love him anymore and she wants sex much more than him. Consequently, Harry has been carrying on an affair with young pretty woman named Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams) half his age. Harry makes the big mistake of introducing his mistress to his best friend, Richard Langley (Pierce Bronsnan) who is instantly smitten by her. Richard immediately begins plotting to steal Kay from Harry.
And so, Sachs sets-up this love triangle with Harry, who is contemplating murdering Pat with poison as his only way out. After all, he doesn’t want to hurt her and be the guy who ruined his wife’s life. He reasons that she’d be better off dead than face the humiliation of him leaving her.
Gradually, Richard injects himself into Kay’s life and before she realizes it they are going out on dates to night clubs. His excuse is–he is just trying to keep her from getting lonely while Harry is away with his wife. But, Richard aims for a home run which doesn’t take him long and bingo, Kay is singing Richard’s song of lust. Ah, sweet mystery of life I have found you...and so on.
With skillful fimmaking, Sachs created a typically 40s skin-deep social setting of proper dress and manners in which to place his actors. On the surface, the characters were polite and charming, but underneath they were obsessed with free sex and bored with the constrictions of the typically uptight 40s marriage.
As the plot boils, Harry gets cold feet about murdering his wife, and Richard strengthens his relationship with Kay. Meanwhile, there are strange things going on with Pat, who is unhappy with her life yet still feels loyalty to Harry.
Indeed, Sachs’ dialogue is snappy with underlying dark satire. Miraculously, Pierce Bronsnan was able to deliver some funny lines with a straight face, which only made them funnier. Chris Cooper is the quintessential stuffed shirt of the era–a man who hid his emotions to the point of making him psychotic. Culturally and socially, we’ve come a long way from that miserable time when people led secret lives to free themselves from the tyranny of acting a certain way to satisfy society’s narrow expectations.
This is a serious grownup movie with well written dialogue and interesting characters. It’s a far cry from the mainstream schlock that fills up the theaters.
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