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Movie Reviews
Three movies I’ve seen recently (all spoilers are under lj spoiler cuts; you must click on them to read)
Queen of Versailles
This documentary opens on Jackie and David Siegel circa 2008, when they were building the largest single-family home in America. David Siegel is in his seventies and on his third marriage. He owns a huge, successful time-share company that he still runs with the help of his son from his first marriage. Jackie, meanwhile, is a former beauty queen/software engineer/model in her forties, raising her seven kids plus a niece with the help of a staff of 20.
Cue the market collapse.
The bulk of this documentary involves watching this couple give up their dream of their ridiculous thirty bathroom-two bowling alley-ten kitchen house, and cut back by sending their kids to private school.
I saw this with my friend B, who’s a WASP to the core, and definitely from a wealthier family than I am. We were split on our reactions: I liked Jackie and wanted her to succeed even as I recognized how ridiculous it was to watch someone try to adjust to a much higher income bracket than I’ll ever be in. B had less sympathy for everyone involved, because she hated that even with an army of servants, the children (and dogs) were entirely undisciplined in a way that cannot be blamed on documentary cuts.
Incidentally, I told my most unpleasant coworker about this movie. She argued—I could not possibly make this up—that when she was young, growing up in Appleton, WI, ostentatiousness was worse than rape.
That’s not true, I pointed out.
It is, she answered, and refused to hear otherwise.
For a Good Time, Call…
Lauren and Katie are roommates who have hated each other since college. Katie is a good-time girl who works several jobs, including as a phone sex operator. Lauren is an uptight rich girl who was recently dumped by her boring boyfriend and fired from her publishing job. They learn to coexist, strike up a friendship, and start a phone sex line.
I loved this movie. It was funny, and mined great laughs from phone sex, but what I really loved was the way that these girls became friends. This is a movie, in my mind, that gets those passionate, loving female friendships right. A female friendship can be intense and all-consuming, and fragile, and this movie got that. And yeah, one of the girls finds heterosexual love or whatever, but more importantly, she gets a best friend that she loves. And it’s played like the love story it is.
There was one sour note, for me,
and that was the third act reveal that sex-positive phone sex operator/former sex store employee/college slut Katie was actually… a 29 year old virgin! Who never, ever masturbates! Eyeroll. Bonus points for the Tina Fey reference, though.
And I’m annoyed as ever by the gay best friend who mostly just exists to set up them as roommates and get overly involved in their lives. He supposedly has an active sex life, but we only ever see him either with the girls or his dog, so….
Sexually, too, I thought it was interesting
that the only orgasm we see is Katie’s. It’s implied her boyfriend came inside her, presumably before she runs off to go make up with her best friend, but after a movie full of guys jerking off in stalls and cars, and both the women faking orgasms left and right, the only real, important orgasm we see is Katie’s, but she’s with a guy.
Hope Springs
Kay and Arnold have been married for 31 years, and the passion is gone. Gone. So Kay cashes in her savings and buys two tickets to see a marriage councilor in Maine. Dr Feld has them sit and talk to each other about the dissolution of their marriage and sex life, while they take small steps towards repairing their marriage.
This movie, I think, suffers from false expectations from the trailer. The trailer shows a comedy, but this movie is a drama, really. An excellent drama. Their marriage suffers from a lack of nurturing, rather than infidelity or some other issue. They became roommates gradually, and he’s more or less ok with it, while she’s considering fleeing.
This is an adult movie, not just because it features two actors over sixty as the leads or because those two actors have prolonged and on-camera attempts at repairing their sex lives, but because most of the movie is the two of them, in rooms either talking with their therapist about difficult topics, or trying, awkwardly, to reignite lost passions. I wouldn’t say the movie ever made me uncomfortable; the idea isn’t to make the audience cringe, but to really let us see how difficult the process is and how high the stakes are, first for her and gradually for him too.
I was reminded here how much I love Meryl Streep. I know, how could I forget? Iron Lady, that’s how. That was two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. But here, she’s playing a woman who lacks confidence in herself, and she plays the hell out of that role. She trembles, she squirms. Tommy Lee Jones was excellent too; I thought the two of them had fantastic chemistry together.
The movie ends happily, with Arnold coming to Kay’s room at night. They make love, and the next morning he kisses her passionately. Did I buy it? I think I did. They are making it work by putting themselves out there. And probably continuing couples counseling, based on the credits scene, where they renew their vows and promise in them to communicate better and try harder with each other.
Sexually, it was fascinating that
much is made about Kay giving Arnold a blowjob—she buys a book on that topic, and even attempts to give movie theater head, and when that fails, she tries again in their hotel room, but she never gets very far. Meanwhile, her getting oral sex is never brought up, though it’s implied she rarely had orgasms from their (missionary position) sex. Nevertheless, the only two orgasms in the movie are hers, first from masturbating after an aborted exercise in sensually touching her husband, and then from partnered sex.
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"Hope Springs": Sounds like a movie I'd enjoy seeing. If I haven't grumbled at you in some of our HID discussions that in fiction being past thirty or thirty-five generally renders you curiously asexual and non-romantic, I will happily do so. ;) But it's encouraging to see a movie that deals with romance and sex in an older couple, and honest communication and intimacy.
"Versailles": Growing up in Minnesota, I can say the hardworking, practical German/Scandinavian ethic does look down a lot upon ostentatiousness, boasting, rudeness, and arrogance, but there's no way in hell it would be considered worse than rape.
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Hope Springs was amazing in its depictions of older folks as deserving of romance/sex. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many scenes there were of them discussing sex and romance. I kept expecting the camera to pan away, or for someone to fall off the bed or something, but they played the sex as emotionally honest- which isn't to say it was always comfortable to watch- and eventually as pretty hot, really, for two people old enough to be my parents, but still something they had to work on. I expected to like it, because the reviews were positive and the leads are all charming people, but I didn't expect it to be so emotionally honest. But I'd love to hear what you have to say about older folks in the media, if you feel like expounding on it. It's possible there are a lot of things in popular culture that deal with older people and sex and I'm just not watching them.
Oh! And let me know if you think you'll get a chance to look over that draft I sent you, or if you want to see my now slightly-longer version.
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Well, it's one of my specific AFAF goals to have Johanna get to a point where she can establish some solid, positive female friendships rather than feeling threatened or disdainful towards other women. Much as I love H/J, she seriously needs girlfriends, because Haymitch has guyfriends, and I think Katniss is almost more of a sister to her. So expect a lot of Johanna interaction with the female victors. ;)
Hope Springs: Oh, it was more just a rant on HID that I got into on a review convo about Haymitch. Given that his postwar fate is basically conveniently be there on the few occasions when K/P need him and to go drink himself to death most of the time when they don't. To me, that's really not living. Clearly it's not "You can't have a life of your own if you're damaged" since K/P are granted the grace of love and a future, so with Haymitch it seems to be "You can't have a life of your own if you're damaged and middle aged." And to me that's such a horrible message to send--that just because he's past forty the only thing he has the right to expect is to hope Katniss and Peeta occasionally can make time to include him? Ouch.
Obviously it's something that existed for me even prior to THG since I also loved things like Adama/Roslin in BSG because it was two older people establishing a lovely, trusting relationship--even a clearly sexual one too--rather than it just being the young, hard-bodied kids without wrinkles or grey hair that got a romantic plotline.
Er...I never got a draft? :P
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So we need to think of a deleted scene for Justin Long's character. (sidenote: Have you seen his movie with Drew Barrymore? I liked it.) He's a comedian, and Ari's character, Katie, wants to go see him perform but he won't let her which is a common comic thing I hear about on podcasts but still, a scene with him in his element would have been nice. He seemed like a caricature of what Hollywood wants gay men to be (on screen) at the moment, like if this movie was made 20-25 years ago Nathan Lane would have played it. (See Frankie and Johnny) I hope the writers - one was Lauren who plays Lauren - had more in mind for him but had to cut, though at 86 minutes I doubt they had to cut much.
While you are perturbed at the Katie being a virgin story, and as I don't believe it, because she appears to be so pro-sex and didn't make sense, Ari's performance made it work. She made it winning. And her relationship with Sean was cute as was he.
Favorite line: I think it was something like, "Don't judge my bubbe."