BEFORE: So I learned late yesterday that actor Max von Sydow passed away at the age of 90, he's always been one of my favorite actors, even though I haven't yet seen the films he was most famous for, the ones directed by Ingmar Bergman. Those films like "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries" are on my list now, but they're notoriously hard to link to. I've got a shot in late April where I MIGHT be able to link to the Bergman films now, since I just added "A Kiss Before Dying" as a possible lead-in. But, do I want to? I'd already made a possible chain to get me to Mother's Day, and this change-up could easily interfere with that. I'll have to check in early April and make a decision to either stay the course and shake things up. The other possibility is that I watch "A Kiss Before Dying" next January 1, and head into Bergman territory from there - this would be a great choice if I choose to send out my annual Jan. 1 dedication to von Sydow - which would also give me time to put together a proper tribute. This is the problem with programming far in advance, if an actor I like passes away, I may have to wait 9 or 10 months to give him his due. But let's note it here, the guy who I think I first saw in "The Greatest Story Ever Told", then later discovered in "Strange Brew", then in "Hannah and Her Sisters", then when I finally watched "The Exorcist", who came back into my life yet again in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", is no longer with us.
I don't think you'll find a more varied cast of characters played - Jesus, Ming the Merciless, Father Merrin, Brewmeiser Smith, Blofeld in "Never Say Never Again", Leland Gaunt in "Needful Things", Lor San Tekka. I'll have more to say later - I mean, the guy was 90 so this doesn't come as much of a shock, but damn, what an actor.
Wallace Shawn carries over from "Marriage Story", which will probably beat this film in the early round of the March Marriage Madness Tournament - but let's make sure!
THE PLOT: Four lifelong friends have their lives changed forever after reading "50 Shades of Grey" in their monthly book club.
AFTER: OK, while this isn't the treatise on marriage that yesterday's film was, there's enough related material, I can make this one qualify for the tournament. Of the four older women in the book club, only one is married, but one is divorced, one is widowed and the fourth one defiantly never got married, but even that's sort of on track - if a character is purposely NOT getting married over the course of 50 years, that says something about them, their views against marriage, and it's worth examing.
Unfortunately, the structure here allows for liberal jumping between the stories of these four women, they're not exactly intertwined except that they're all friends and they're all reading the same book, but at the same time, the movie is pretty much admitting that none of the four stories are interesting enough to be the focus of their own movie - so slamming them all together isn't going to improve them. And in fact toggling between them all, advancing each story incrementally, then switching over to the next one ended up being very jarring. I couldn't help thinking that something exciting is happening to one of these women somewhere else, but I'm probably missing it because THIS one's having a stupid crisis over how to get a ladybug out of her house safely. (Umm, I'm thinking maybe just open the window, rather than turn this into a complicated home-improvement project, but what do I know?)
Yes, it's an original idea, to show all four ladies reading "50 Shades of Gray". But it's not really a direct connection between that S&M based story and the resulting changes in their lives - they could have been reading ANY steamy romance novel here, and that could have had the same effect. It's not like these four women in their 60's suddenly developed an affinity for bondage play, or jumped into bed with a young, fabulously wealthy man who wanted to spank them, that doesn't happen. Thank God, because when I programmed this one I didn't exactly sign up for GILF porn.
Look, I know that actresses over a certain age have been complaining about the lack of suitable roles available for them in movies as of late, but this is not the answer. These are incredibly talented actresses, with many many notable movies on their resumés, and this just feels like they're all slumming. Wouldn't they be better off transitioning to producing or directing? Come on, they're not going to get offered roles in "Tomb Raider" or "Wonder Woman", that much is clear but doing anything else has got to be better than appearing in this inanity.
Ugh, it's so contrived, from the tech problems that result from a woman in her 60's trying online dating for the first time, to the married woman being somehow unable to seduce her own husband. They've been married so long, wouldn't they have worked out some kind of signal system, or you know, be able to express themselves by using words to say what's on their mind? How did this woman lose the ability to communicate in English, to the point where she gets so frustrated that she has to scream? Now, is she screaming AT her husband (because that's not really going to help the situation) or out of frustration over her inability to be blunt, or at least communicative? She's angry over a problem that she clearly had a hand in creating, unless I miss my guess.
Then the widowed one has a similar problem, her daughters want her to move to Arizona so she can be closer to them, but they're at a point where they think they need to baby her, and she just met this great guy who's also a pilot and seems really into her. How can she tell her daughters that she's not ready to live in a basement apartment in Sedona? Again, maybe try using your words. The best story is probably the one with Jane Fonda's never-married character, who re-meets an old lover from the 1960's and tries to get something going again, only it's her many (ultimately) non-successful relationships that seem to be holding her back here, and that should never be an excuse to justify not trying again.
I think the title is ultimately misleading, because there's very little discussion of books, and the majority of the action takes place in between the book club's meetings, and not during. Sorry, but I'm just not seeing the direct connection between reading "50 Shades of Gray" and thinking, "I've got to join a dating service" or "I've got to put Viagra in my husband's beer." It's a shaky line at best connecting the dots here, so it's an easy cakewalk for "Marriage Story" to win the match-up and head into the next round of play. Well, I did say it was probably the top seed.
Also starring Diane Keaton (last seen in "Town & Country"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "Our Souls at Night"), Candice Bergen (last seen in "Home Again"), Mary Steenburgen (last seen in "Last Vegas"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "The Mule"), Don Johnson (last seen in "The Other Woman"), Craig T. Nelson (last heard in "Incredibles 2"), Richard Dreyfuss, (last seen in "My Life in Ruins") Alicia Silverstone (last seen in "Butter"), Katie Aselton (last seen in "The Sea of Trees"), Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "What's Your Number?"), Lili Bordan, Tommy Dewey (last seen in "The Front Runner"), John Shartzer, Ravi Kapoor (last seen in "Flight"), Mircea Monroe with a cameo from E.L. James.
RATING: 4 out of 10 bottles of wine
No comments:
Post a Comment