BEFORE: More stress dreams this morning - I want to stay informed, but I should probably stop watching MSNBC between 3 and 5 am before turning in, because the damage is taking its toll. Surprisingly, I don't tend to dream about the virus, or hospitals, or even sick people, the stress draws upon the fears that are already in my brain and jumbles them together to torment me. This morning I dreamed that I was back in college, and got an assignment to draw some new animated characters for a proposed ad campaign, and it was like figure drawing, only the character had to be a sporty woman, who also looked smart, and I think the parameters kept changing. I looked in some Playboy magazines for some inspiration in drawing the figure, but even though I could see in my mind what the character should ultimately look like, I couldn't seem to capture that on paper in a drawing. Meanwhile the assignment time was running out, and I could hear other students presenting their work in the class and getting applause and good marks, but I was still having trouble making that first drawing, and this went on and on. Meanwhile my roommate walked by and asked me if I could do a drawing for him, and I had to refuse, because I couldn't even get my own work done, and I just had that sinking feeling of failure, again and again. So I woke up at 1 pm, just feeling defeated and worthless.
Helen Mirren carries over from "The Good Liar". Another film about old people tonight, this couple takes off on a road trip in a Winnebago, which is another thing that people definitely should not be doing these days - I saw on the news how they've had to close down some national parks, including the Grand Canyon, because of the outbreak. And a Manhattan woman got publicly shamed on Instagram for posting photos of taking her family on a cross-country road trip to get out of NYC, in defiance of the stay-at-home order. Forget that people were mad at her because not everyone has the resources to just rent an RV and take off for parts unknown, it's irresponsible because this woman or her kids could have the corona virus and not know it, and then they're spreading it to other parts of the country. Or they could all catch it at a rest stop or service station, you never know - so the only really safe thing to do is stay home for the next month, even if that means we all go a little stir crazy while waiting for the pandemic to ease up.
THE PLOT: A runaway couple goes on an unforgettable journey in the faithful old RV they call "The Leisure Seeker".
AFTER: It's a simple enough story, an older couple gets in their Winnebago and drives down to Key West, somewhere they've always wanted to go. Turns out John Spencer was a literature professor and a big fan of Hemingway, so this makes sense - Hemingway had a house down there, and it's the home of an annual Hemingway festival, plus there's some great key lime pie served nearby, so I can see the appeal. And his wife Ella just LOVES to travel, and to talk to everyone along the way and tell them their life story. Does this remind you of anyone? It should, that's basically every senior citizen mom or grandmother around, right?
But wait, there's more to the tale here, because their adult children, Will and Jane, are very concerned about their parents being out on the road. And it's not just because their parents are at the age where they've basically circled around again to acting like children, or people who need constant care. We soon learn that John has memory problems, dementia if not Alzheimer's, and he keeps forgetting where he is, or where they're going, or even why he stepped back into the camper, even if that was just to make some tea. Yeah, this is probably not the person you want behind the wheel of a vehicle. Ella's got her own health problems, though they're not specified until later in the film, she's often queasy and she wears a number of wigs. You feel me?
It took me a while to figure out where they left from, too - Ella referred to John as a Yankee, and there's a prominent copy of Boston magazine in the camper, but the description on Wiki of the novel this is based on says they left from their home in suburban Detroit, traveled hrough Indiana before heading east to Pennsylvania and then turning south toward the Carolinas and then Key West. Some parts of this film were shot in Indiana, but most of the locations listed were in Georgia and Florida. Actually, scrap what I said before, that itinerary makes no sense. The best way to get from Detroit to Florida doesn't even go through Indiana, even Pennsylvania doesn't make much sense, unless there was some campground there they were familiar with that they wanted to re-visit. The best route to South Carolina should have taken them through Ohio, then West Virginia. But I guess when you've got someone driving with dementia, maybe all bets are off.
(UPDATE: The IMDB says the couple left from the Boston area, and a double-check of Wikipedia says they lived in Wellesley, Mass. I guess this makes more sense, it explains the Boston magazine, but not why they stopped at a campground in Pennsylvania. Everyone knows if you're headed to Florida from New England, you're probably going to take I-95 and hug the East Coast. But again, dementia - plus if it's their last road trip, maybe they're trying to stop in as many states as possible? Ah, the novel "The Leisure Seeker" has the couple traveling from Detroit along Route 66 to Disneyland, so the film changed both the starting point of the trip and the destination.)
Along the way they watch old slide-shows of family photos, birthdays and vacations and such. This is great for jogging John's memory, he's got good days and bad days when it comes to things like remembering how old his own children are, or why he's not waking up in his own bedroom. But this also has bad effects if there should happen to be some relationship in his past that he might have been hiding from his own wife. So, yeah, it's possible that spending too much time in a small space with your spouse can have negative effects. It cuts both ways, because Ella finds out about John's past misdeed, but John, in his addled state, gets hung up on Ella's relationship with her first boyfriend, and keeps accusing her of having feelings for Dan Coleman, and finally they have to track him down and visit him in a nursing home while on their road trip just to finally put the past behind them. Only there's no guarantee that John will remember that they did that.
Kudos to Dame Helen Mirren, who really nails the accent of an American from South Carolina who's been living up north for a few decades. You may even forget that she's British after seeing her in this. I think the first film I'd ever seen her in was the sci-fi film "2010", where she had a prominent Russian accent. As I've said many times, the sign of great acting is when you're not aware that you're watching an actor acting, because the actor has essentially disappeared into the character. Watch this (and yesterday's film, too) for prime examples of experienced, talented actors (that's McKellen and Sutherland, also) who really have a handle on how to do that.
The use of dementia as a plot device is very sneaky, it allowed for information about John and Ella's past to be revealed slowly and intermittently, as John remembered (or mis-remembered) it. Most other films these days would do a lot of flashbacks or time-jumping, which is just another way of doling out the information to the audience as needed, slowly revealing the hidden truths, and allowing each new bit of information to change what had been previously known. This is a very smart way of doing the same thing, but I don't recommend that filmmakers make a habit of using a mental disability in this way. Still, I think I may have to bump up my rating by a point, now that I realize that the linear nature of the story was preserved, and that I really hate excessive time-jumping and flashbackery.
Eventually, though, you start to realize midway through that both of these characters are essentially circling the drain, and one way or another, this could be their last road trip together. John really belongs in a home somewhere with supervision, and then Ella's condition seems to be getting worse. So how could there possibly be a happy ending for these two? I guess it all depends on how you look at it. But if you think about it, any road trip could be your last road trip, you just never know, so it's up to you to enjoy each one. As soon as we can all get out of quarantine or isolation, I bet there are going to be a lot of people going on their "bucket list" vacations. I finally called the airline yesterday to cancel our May trip - because even if we went, since we're coming from New York, the state of Florida would want to detain us for 2 weeks, and it's only a 5-day trip, so that hardly seems worth it. Epcot Center's not open, anyway, plus we'd never get out of quarantine in time to go there. Thankfully the airline's allowing us to change our flight to any time between now and February, so we could even book the same flights next February to fly next May - that's a whole year's delay on this trip, but what else could we possibly do?
My wife and I have been to so many places - three cruises in the Caribbean, the last one went all the way down to Aruba, Curacao and Colombia, even the Panama Canal, then to Vegas twice with one side-trip to the Grand Canyon, two road trips across the South (Dallas to Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville, then Dallas to San Antonio to Houston to New Orleans) plus we've been up to Maine and over to Niagara Falls and Toronto, upstate to Lake George and Kingston, several trips to the Poconos, plus Hershey Park and Jim Thorpe, and we've lost count of how many road trips to Atlantic City. We can't wait to get back on the road in some fashion, fingers crossed for May or June. I've been to the West Coast many times, San Diego and also Portland, but we've never been there together. At this point, I'd settle for just three days in A.C. when the casinos re-open.
Also starring Donald Sutherland (last seen in "Ad Astra"), Christian McKay (last seen in "The Young Messiah"), Janel Moloney, Dana Ivey (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Kirsty Mitchell (last seen in "The Hitman's Bodyguard"), Dick Gregory, Robert Pralgo (last seen in "The Boss"), Mylie Stone, Gabriella Cila (last seen in "Table 19"), Matt Mercurio, Marc Fajardo, Jerald Jay Savage and the voice of Donald Trump (last seen in "Bombshell").
RATING: 6 out of 10 pecan logs from Stuckey's
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