Chaos Theory

Year 13, Day 58 - 2/27/21 - Movie #3,760

BEFORE: Here in the last few days of February, it feels like I've maybe reached the "It's complicated..." portion of the romance chain.  But isn't love always complicated?  It's been that way from the start, even if I didn't want to acknowledge it as such. 

Emily Mortimer carries over again from "Rio, I Love You". 

THE PLOT: The story of an obsessively organized efficiency expert whose life unravels in unexpected ways when fate forces him to explore the serendipitous nature of love and forgiveness.

AFTER: You know, some movies kind of feel like they've just been thrown together randomly, or perhaps they feel that way because they were made by committee, and all the little details had to pass through the hands of so many people before making it on to the screen that perhaps nobody ever stops to take a look at the big picture, or to look at the small details from a distance, just to make sure that they make, you know, sense.  This feels like one of those movies, in which a man's very organized life begins to unravel one day because of a small event - the intent was to show that our lives are maybe like knitted sweaters, and everything is maintained as long as we don't pull on that little loose thread...

But the event here that causes all the cases is essentially a mistake - it's a movie flub, one that easily could have been fixed, only it wasn't.  This main character's wife, realizing that he lives his life in a very organized fashion, changed the clock one morning in order to give him more time to return some rented movies. Normally if one were to do this (but really, nobody does this) one would set the clock on the wall ahead, say, 10 minutes and by doing so, you've perhaps given your life partner a gift, 10 extra minutes to get out the door early and get something done.  But since this needs to be an event that disrupts his life, it's clear that they intended for the wife to make a mistake here - the simplest plot point would therefore be that she MEANT to turn the clock ahead, only she set it 10 minutes BACK, therefore making him late, too late to return the movies, too late to catch the ferry, and so on. 

But that would make the wife stupid, it would show that she doesn't understand how time works, or that she'd be making him late, which he HATES, by setting the clock back. And we can't portray a normal, thinking human as stupid, especially a woman, because then we'd imply that all women are stupid, so it feels like somebody spoke up and changed this plot point.  So since she didn't do THAT, we're left with the fact that she moved the clock ahead, and still somehow this made her husband late - that doesn't make any sense!  The whole sequence doesn't work anyway, because the guy wears a watch, and is very organized and efficient to boot, so changing the clock on the kitchen wall wouldn't have made him late any more than changing the clock would have changed the actual time in the world.  This whole sequence needed to be rewritten, or removed and replaced with something else that worked. 

(Also, Daylight Savings Time is coming up in about two weeks, so I'd like to point out, once again, that changing the clocks twice each year does NOT change time itself, it's just a mass delusion that we've all agreed to, it causes MANY more problems than it solves, it's an expensive waste of money across the board, and should be dispensed with as soon as possible.  Look, I know there are a lot of bigger problems in the world right now, but maybe next year if some things get better we can somehow lobby to get rid of DST?  Like, come on, who's really in favor of keeping this antiquated system going?  Who benefits?)

But let's move on, because the film clearly does, it just glosses over this big mistake and then shows Frank Allen missing the ferry, and being late for his seminar on time management.  Yeah, that looks really bad, I don't know why everyone at the seminar didn't just demand a refund. After the seminar he hangs out in the hotel, and for some reason his best friend, Buddy, is there (this also makes no sense) and tries to get him to join in on hitting on two women - nope, this doesn't work either, because why would his best friend be encouraging Frank to cheat on his wife?  OK, I guess maybe Buddy just wanted a wingman, but this is still clunky, clunky, clunky.  And the best friend is named "Buddy", for Chrissakes - this shows how little thought went in to the details here.

Anyway, Frank doesn't act as Buddy's wingman, instead he has too many drinks in the hotel bar with another woman, one who invites herself up to his hotel room and tries to seduce him.  She's apparently got a thing for sleeping with married men. Why?  Just because - again, don't get bogged down in the details here, because clearly the writer didn't. Frank doesn't cheat on his wife, he excuses himself from the situation, and leaves the hotel without checking out (another thing that nobody does, because that's not how hotels work, either...).  On the long drive home (the ferry doesn't operate at night, we're blatantly told), Frank encounters a very pregnant woman trying to drive herself to the hospital, who then crashes her car - so he drives "Pregnant Nancy" (that's her name in the credits, I swear...) to the hospital, sort of half-fills out the admission forms, and Pregnant Nancy gives birth, then she disappears.  Umm - how?  Why?  She checked herself out of the hospital and left her baby behind?  That's beyond weird, and it's yet another thing that doesn't happen, for a number of reasons.  

Look, perhaps nothing is meant to be taken seriously here, because it's just too far-fetched in general, and people are seeing just not acting in reasonable ways, but remember there is a framing sequence, Frank is telling this story to his daughter's fiancé just before their wedding, so given that memory is unreliable, and Frank might be trying to illustrate a larger point about the randomness of life and love overcoming adversity, so he may be enhancing a few of the details here to bring about the result that he wants.  There's no way to know for sure.  What's important is that all these unlikely events create a scenario where Frank's wife sees evidence that Frank has been cheating on her, and possibly had a baby with another woman.  But it has to bend itself over backwards in order to get there, and cut a few corners here and there to make THIS unlikely situation dovetail with THAT one, and so really, what are the chances of the pieces fitting together well when there's no real quality control? 

A bigger story-telling sin is probably to be found in conflating several personality quirks - being organized, having OCD, and not taking any risks.  These are three DIFFERENT lifestyles, but they're all sort of lumped together here as if Frank suffers from some over-arching condition - which results in him being a person so controlled by lists that he can't do anything in the real world without writing it down on the list first.  As someone who maintains several lists of my own, I feel the need to speak up here.  Just because I keep a list of movies to watch, it doesn't mean the list controls me - I made the list, so I'm in control of whether I follow it, or not.  Yes, I like to think of myself as an organized person in some respects, but I've been known to leave the house or head out of town on a whim.  OCD is a completely different problem, which often involves going back to check that the office door is locked even though I've already taken the elevator to the ground floor - I'm just not going to be able to relax until I'm 100% sure that door is locked, and if that means going back and double-checking, so be it.  But yeah, if you reach the point where the list controls your life, or you're (essentially) rolling a die or flipping a coin to determine your next course of action, you may have a problem. 

It's weird seeing Stuart Townsend in this - he's one of those actors I just don't see very often, and maybe I start to wonder about some actors, like, where do they GO when they're not making movies? I guess maybe some of them work in theater, or they take time off for personal reasons, not every actor feels compelled to make a blockbuster every year like Tom Cruise does. But I'm also reminded that we're WAY overdue for a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" sequel - or a reboot, whichever.  Is this in the works or did somebody really drop the ball with that franchise?  Maybe the first one didn't make enough money, but I really liked that movie, even though it was a bastardization of the comic book's first volume in some ways.  And now Sean Connery's passed away, just like his character.  But the whole point of the book's second volume was that the team could just recruit new members, there were so many great literary characters to steal - I mean, borrow - to join the League.  This franchise could easily continue with new old characters like John Carter and Dr. Moreau joining Dr. Jekyll and Captain Nemo, facing off against the Martians from "The War of the Worlds".  Jeez, I'd watch that, somebody make it happen.  (Ah, apparently this was in the planning stages in 2016, but Disney's acquisition of Fox's assets scrubbed it.  Disney may eventually get around to exploiting it again...)

Also starring Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Stuart Townsend (last seen in "Aeon Flux"), Sarah Chalke (last seen in "Mother's Day"), Mike Erwin (last seen in "The New Guy"), Constance Zimmer, Matreya Fedor, Elisabeth Harnois (last seen in "A Single Man"), Chris William Martin (last seen in "The Age of Adaline"), Jovanna Huguet, Christopher Jacot, Alessandro Juliani (last seen in "Love Happens"), Jocelyne Loewen, Ty Olsson (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Donavon Stinson, Daryl Shuttleworth (last seen in "Watchmen"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 index cards

Rio, I Love You

Year 13, Day 57 - 2/26/21 - Movie #3,759

BEFORE: Emily Mortimer carries over from "The Bookshop" and she'll be here tomorrow as well - it almost seems counter-productive to slip this film, with such a large cast, here in between two films with the same actress.  Usually, I'd save this one to maybe get me out of a linking jam, like who would expect to find Emily Mortimer, Harvey Keitel and Rodrigo Santoro in the same movie?  This could have been of better use to me perhaps, but it is what it is.  

This year may go down as the banner year for me where foreign films are concerned - already it's the most global chain I've attempted, except maybe for 2012 when I finished Movie Year 4 with a TCM-programmed trip around the world, based on where each film's story was set (not necessarily filmed) and I started in San Francisco with "They Call Me Mister Tibbs!" and ended in San Francisco with "The Lady From Shanghai".  (Then I did a victory lap by watching with the 1956 version of "Around the World in Eighty Days", so really, it was twice around.). This year I'm watching more films MADE in different countries, starting with "Parasite" and "Okja", then spending over a week in Sweden with my Bergman marathon and the three original "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" films.  Since then I've been all over with "The Seagull" (set in Russia), "Third Person" (partially set in Italy and Paris) and "Life Itself" (partially set in Spain). Now, after three days in the U.K., I'm off to Brazil. (Not literally, I haven't been outside of the state of New York since last May - but that could change very soon.)

FOLLOW-UP TO: "New York, I Love You" (Movie #782), "Paris, Je t'Aime" (Movie #3,446)

THE PLOT: Third installment of the "Cities of Love" series - this collective feature is made up of 10 stories of romance set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

AFTER: It's hard to believe that it's only been a year since I watched "Paris, Je t'Aime", but it's been TEN years since I watched "New York, I Love You".  And I kind of watched those two in the wrong order, the Paris-based film was released in 2006 and the NYC-based follow-up came out in 2008.  But then it was another six years before this Rio-based film hit theaters in 2014, and I'm really always playing catch up, no matter what I do. But I'm only seven years late this time, instead of fourteen, and if I can work in "Berlin, I Love You" next year I'll only be three years behind.  Yes, even given two films in the same series with enormous casts, there's no acting link between today's film and the next one in the series (even though Natalie Portman was the link between "New York, I Love You" and "Paris, Je t'Aime" and then Emily Mortimer was also in two films, the Paris one and the Rio one.  So it's ALMOST like the producers meant for all the films to link together by actor, except for when they don't.)

I've only got "Berlin, I Love You" (or is it "Berlin, Ich Liebe Dich"?) left on my list after this, but there are more films in this "Cities of Love" franchise than I was aware of - I kid you not, in 2014 the same producer also released "Tbilisi, I Love You", and I can't even tell you what country Tbilisi is in. (It's Georgia - did Moscow not have enough audience appeal?). And the next installment, "Shanghai, I Love You" is in the works - they want the franchise to also cover Jerusalem, Venice, Delhi, Marseille and New Orleans before coming to your town.  Why not Rome, wouldn't that be a no-brainer?  Las Vegas, with all its quickie drive-through wedding chapels?  Bangkok? (nah, don't go there...). I'd think of Sydney, Australia as a viable topic before I'd associate Jerusalem or Delhi with love, but maybe that's just me.

I think any franchise stands a chance of delivering diminishing returns as it progresses, and this one seems to be no exception.  Some of these segments don't seem to deal with the topic of love or romance at all, and the main complaint that people seem to have about it is that it seems to present stories that were approved by the Brazilian Board of Tourism.  Sure, come to Rio, fall in love, they have people of every kind of skin color there - which seems to sound a little like the country is pimping out its people's diversity. (Almost as if "Bangkok, I Love You" were to showcase Thailand for its many in-between genders...)  I think the main problem here is that "Rio, I Love You" chose to switch back and forth between its many stories, only advancing each one a little bit before jumping to another, in the style of "Third Person". The previous two installments, to my recollection, all told each story completely, start to finish, before moving on to the next one.  Needless to say, toggling between stories makes the whole thing confusing - I had trouble figuring out where each story began, and then I was never sure when each story was done, or if the film was going to circle around again and add to each one, just a bit more. 

The stand-out tale here, for me, was called "Texas", in which Texas, a boxing champion, was in a terrible car accident, caused by his drunk driving, and he lost his arm in the crash, while his wife Isabel was paralyzed.  But he can still fight with one arm, so he participates in underground "fight club" style matches to win money so that she can have an operation, and perhaps walk again.  This story's got so much drama to it, it really deserved to be a full feature film by itself!  More drama comes along when a rich British widower has noticed that Texas' wife closely resembles his own, who died before giving birth to his child. He challenges the boxer to a fight, and he makes a rather daring wager on the outcome, which feels a bit like "Indecent Proposal" meets "Creed" or something.  I really would have loved to see this story fleshed out a bit more, or even learn who won the fight - but I guess Texas sort of lost either way?  What a shame that the film followed up with all the other stories and brought some of them to a satisfactory ending, but not this one.  I guess somehow there wasn't enough time?  Or did it not matter, because Texas loved Isabel so much he was willing to sacrifice his relationship with her so that she could walk again.  Perhaps it's a bit melodramatic in the end, and over the top, but I think this was the strongest of all 10 stories in this anthology.  

One of the other stories almost made the grade - "Acho que Estou Apaixonado" is about a Hollywood movie star who comes to town and annoys his limo driver, who then intentionally brings him to where a bunch of his teenage girl fans are hanging out.  Then when the movie star spies the famous Sugarloaf Mountain, he decides that he MUST climb it, freestyle, even though his press junket starts in just half an hour.  The limo driver has to go with him, because he's responsible for the star while he's in Rio, and the star nearly dies while climbing the mountain, but the limo driver saves him.  When they reach the top, they both see a vision of a beautiful singer, who kisses them and floats off.  OK, this ending made no sense, unless both men actually died while climbing Sugarloaf, and their souls imagined the singer.  But then when the story circles back to this pair, there's a very different fate for these two men. 

The rest either fell flat, or were very confusing to me - I had the subtitles on, but perhaps there was still some kind of language or cultural barrier at work. "O Vampiro do Rio" was just about a waiter at a restaurant, who spends his nights off turning Rio's street denizens into fellow vampires, and they all come out to greet him and they dance.  No real story payoff there. "O Milagre" was about Harvey Keitel, perhaps playing a fictionalized version of himself, as an actor playing a sinful priest in some kind of telenovela, who later goes for a walk (weak story point) and then he and his co-star pretend to be Jesus and Mary on the phone to fulfill the fantasy of a young street kid. I thought these stories were supposed to be about love, only this one wasn't.  Another story, "Dona Furlana" didn't seem to fit the theme either, it was just about a man who discovers his grandmother living on the streets of Rio, and his parents had told him she was dead.  He tries to "save" her from living on the streets, but she then shows him that it's not such a bad life. 

"A Musa" was about a sand sculptor who imagines different music for everyone who walks by, or something.  This could have been interesting, but he feels an attraction for a woman who walks by, has trouble finding her again (hearing her "music" among all the other types) and then when he sees her again, she's with a boyfriend - so he tears down the sand sculpture he made, and then makes a new one, of her feet?  This just didn't seem to progress logically at all. "Pas de Deux" was about two ballet dancers who are also lovers, and one has received an offer to join a more prestigious dance company, and the other hasn't, so they have to decide what to do about their relationship.  Ho hum, who cares? And "Quando nao ha Mais Amor" was about an American man and French woman living together and arguing, but honestly I couldn't even tell what they were fighting about - and again, I had the subtitles on, I was reading along!  

I'm betting the most controversial segment, though was "La Fortuna", which told the tale of a young-ish woman married to an older man, and he's seen in a wheelchair, though at the start of the film we see him sleeping on the plane, so deeply that his wife thinks he has died.  That's not even funny, so we're not off to a great start here.  The wife gets to eat chocolate, smoke and swim in the pool, while he doesn't get to do any of those things - so he suggests they go to the beach (even though he doesn't like the beach, or sitting in the sun) but he knows that this beach has infamous riptides, and eventually she'll want to go for a swim, so he gets to smoke and eat her chocolates while she gets pulled out to sea?  That's a pretty funky definition of "love", if you ask me. It feels very wrong, more like something that belongs in a horror film than a love-based anthology.  As REO Speedwagon once sang, "That ain't love - I believe you've got the wrong emotion..."

And the last segment, "Inutil Paisagem", was just about a man on a hang-glider who flew around the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer, and he yelled at the statue, because he was very angry at God.  Umm, I think.  This was another non-starter of a story that also went nowhere.

I'm not sure how this franchise has managed to survive, this installment cost 20,000,000 Brazilian umm, dollars (?) to make, and only grossed $31,000 US and $601,000 worldwide.  That's a huge loss, so who the heck invested in the next film in the series?  They found a fresh set of suckers, I guess. 

Also starring Basil Hoffman (last seen in "The Box"), Rodrigo Santoro (last seen in "Hemingway & Gellhorn"), Bruna Linzmeyer, Harvey Keitel (last seen in "The Irishman"), Nadine Labaki, Cláudia Abreu, Fernanda Montenegro, Eduardo Sterblitch, Hugo Carvana, Michel Melamed, Vincent Cassel (last seen in "The Reckoning"), Marcio Garcia, Marcelo Serrado, Ryan Kwanten (last seen in "Supercon"), Bebel Gilberto (last heard in "Rio 2"), John Turturro (last seen in "Grace of My Heart"), Vanessa Paradis (last seen in "Yoga Hosers"), Land Vieira, Laura Neiva, Jason Isaacs (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), Wagner Moura (last seen in "Elysium"), Tonico Pereira, Roberta Rodrigues, Diogo de Lima, Cassi Abranches, Cleo Pires, Caio Junqueira, Cauã Antunes, Débora Nascimento, Paulo Campani, Stepan Nercessian, Xando Graça, Regina Casé, Sandro Rocha, Lais Correa, Jéssica Barbosa, William Vorhees, Marcio Rosario (last seen in "The Expendables"), Henrique Pires. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 palm trees

The Bookshop

Year 13, Day 56 - 2/25/21 - Movie #3,758

BEFORE: February's almost over, but remember that my romance chain is going into overtime, it's going to extend into March, and that's OK.  Love is too large and varied of a subject to be contained to just one month, especially the shortest month.  Remember that there's young love, old love, past love, happy love, sad love, confusing love, hook-ups, make-ups and break-ups.  Then there's the kind of love where you somehow end up fooling around with a duplicate of your spouse in the guest house of a weird resort, but I think that only happens in movies.  Also this time around I've covered love found in schools, pizza places, banks, restaurants, coffee shops, retirement communities, hotel rooms, a zoo, an olive plantation, and lately the scenes have shifted to a number of homes and country estates, thanks to "The Seagull", "Hope Gap" and "Emma."  Maybe today we're going book shopping?

I'm still seeing encouraging signs of life returning to New York, thanks to vaccination progress and warmer weather we can actually sit and have a meal in a restaurant again, plus there are plans in place to re-open concert venues and family entertainment centers, and there's talk now about movie theaters re-opening on March 5, with limited capacity.  I just borrowed an Academy screener of "Wonder Woman 1984" from my boss, so I'm less concerned now about how I'm going to watch that one in March, and this means I can start thinking about how I'm going to connect to "Black Widow" in May - that may be my first film I see in theaters this year.  Also I'm going to start applying for jobs at movie theaters, as I've been hoping there will be a wave of hiring that I can take advantage of.  I worked in movie theaters 30 years ago, it's a relatively fun job - sure it's minimum wage but maybe I can just pick up some night and weekend shifts for a little extra spending cash while I figure out my next career move.  If I can get hired, that is - my last bid to work at a comic book shop didn't pan out - but to be fair, there are a LOT of people looking for work right now. 

Bill Nighy carries over from "Emma."

THE PLOT: England 1959 - in a small East town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. 

AFTER: I think the key to understanding this film is noting the year it takes place, which is 1959. I didn't realize this at first, because with some of those quaint little English towns, it can be difficult to determine the year at first in a movie setting - some of that architecture still standing today has been there since the Victorian era, and when dealing with older characters, maybe  their fashion sense hasn't changed since the 1960's either.  But when the bookstore manager started wondering about whether she should stock the book "Lolita", and I realized she had very little clue as to what the book "Lolita" was about, I started to think, "Hey, something's not right here."  (Something's also not really right about "Lolita", and I think probably Woody Allen's a big fan of that book and the 1962 movie...)

This is a sort of sweet and also sort of sad little film, about Florence Green, a woman opening a bookstore in the UK coastal town of Hardborough (I wonder how far it is from Seaford...) - but what a scandal, a woman running a business!  I guess people back then probably thought that women could only work in factories, while the men were at war - but during peacetime, they defaulted to the concept that a woman simply couldn't understand concepts like basic accounting, maintaining inventory and interacting with customers without swooning or getting "the vapors".  Plus, genetically since she'd always be getting pregnant or being controlled by her hormones, how could she possibly have any time to properly run a business?  

It could almost be easy to mistake this for a pandemic-based film, because there is one character, Mr. Brundish, who never leaves his house, but it turns out that this is not because he's afraid of getting sick, I think he just hates people. Which is understandable, especially for a British person.  But I'm now questioning whether this film qualifies as a romance, it's more like an almost-romance, clearly there was something developing between this man, who the townsfolk assume to be a widower, and the central character, who for sure is a widow.  They connect after he asks her to supply him with random books, and she wisely chooses Ray Bradbury novels and also wisely avoids sending him anything from the Bronte sisters. Their relationship might have really gone somewhere, if only British people were able to reveal their emotions to each other, without being embarrassed about, which, as evidenced in THREE films this week, they clearly do not. 

Also, the town's against Ms. Green from the start, as the controlling Violet Gamart would much prefer that the "old house" which Ms. Green purchased be developed into some kind of arts center, and Violet doesn't let the simple fact that Ms. Green owns the house get in her way.  Mrs. Gamart thinks that the fish store on the brink of closing would make a MUCH better location for a book store - because who doesn't love the lingering smell of old fish while they're buying books?  And once the gossip around town gets going that the book store is moving, it very nearly becomes a fact - but Ms. Green persists and starts unpacking her boxes of books, anyway.  

The store does enjoy some success, despite the fact that most of Hardborough's residents don't really care for reading, and Mr. Brundish is practically the only constant customer. Mrs. Gamart tries every possible avenue to get the bookstore closed down, even sponsoring a bill in Parliament that allows local councils to purchase historic buildings that have been unused for five years, and somehow the bookstore's location gets grandfathered in, despite being currently occupied by the bookshop.  Here in the U.S., we've got some similar laws that cover nationally recognized historic properies, and also eminent domain laws that allow the government to seize private property with compensation, but I'll admit I'm nowhere near an expert on this topic. 

The biggest problem here might be how telegraphed the ending is - you'd have to REALLY not be paying attention to be unable to figure out what's ultimately going to happen to the bookshop. And since this is 1959, the book store doesn't die a slow, agonizing death because everyone starts buying their books on Amazon...

Also starring Emily Mortimer (last seen in "Paris, Je t'Aime"), Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "Dogville"), Honor Kneafsey, James Lance (last seen in "Marie Antoinette"), Harvey Bennett, Reg Wilson, Michael Fitzgerald (last seen in "Love Actually"), Conor Smith, Jorge Suquet, Hunter Tremayne, Frances Barber (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Gary Piquer, Lucy Tillett, Lana O'Kell, Nigel O'Neill, Toby Gibson, Charlotte Vega, Mary O'Driscoll (last seen in "Brooklyn"), Karen Ardiff (ditto), Rachel Gadd, Richard Felix, Barry Barnes (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Nick Devlin and the voice of Julie Christie (last seen in "Nashville"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 sea scouts uniforms

Emma. (2020)

Year 13, Day 55 - 2/24/21 - Movie #3,757

BEFORE: There's a reason why I program two specialty months each year, February and October - because otherwise I'd be tempted to mix up the romance films with the horror films, and then I might just end-up see-sawing between the two and having thematic whiplash.  There are some actors and actresses who also seem to bounce between the two genres - Elisabeth Moss, for example, is also on my list for being in "The Invisible Man", "Us" and "Shirley", which all seem more suited for October's chain - so I have to find alternate links leading to and away from films like "The Seagull".  Anya Taylor-Joy is another, she's on my list for appearing in "The Witch", "New Mutants" and "The Witch", which also seem more horror-based, so she's no use to me today as a link.  But her appearance tonight is a reminder that I've been meaning to start watching "The Queen's Gambit", as apparently we can't even think of ending the pandemic before everyone has finished watching this show, it's like this year's "Tiger King" - so I'd better get to watching episode 1 tomorrow just so we can all get one step closer to normal-ish. 

Two actors carry over from "Hope Gap", Bill Nighy and Josh O'Connor.  This was planned as the middle of a three-film Bill Nighy section, but sometimes there's extra carry-over.  Actually, it turned out to be three actors carrying over, not two.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Emma" (1996) (Movie #2,252)

THE PLOT: In 1800's England, a well-meaning but selfish young woman meddles in the love lives of her friends. 

AFTER: It's been a long time since I watched the other version of "Emma", the one starring Gwyneth Paltrow - that was just about five years ago, in fact, and just over 1,500 movies back.  So I'd better read up on the plot of "Emma", the Jane Austen novel, tonight on Wiki just so I have everything straight.  But right off, I can tell you the biggest problem I have with this film, and as you might have guessed, it's Anya Taylor-Joy's eyes.  It's not that they're too big, which everyone seems to say, but I think it's just that they're too far apart.  She doesn't have those big, sad eyes like a Keane painting, there's just too much space, part of it's nose, but most of it's just face, between the two eyes.  I want to reach out into the TV screen and put one hand on either side of her face and just push them together, but even if that were possible, I just don't think that would accomplish anything.  But they're very distracting in that sense, and it made this film very hard for me to follow - and I just know this is going to bug me during every scene of "The Queen's Gambit", too, and if I ever get a chance to watch "The New Mutants", same problem.  (That film is down to a $5.99 rental price on iTunes, so after Easter or perhaps when it gets a bit closer to Halloween I'm going to try to figure out how to work that film in to my chain, ASAP. I'd watch it tomorrow, only I don't think that film probably belongs in my romance chain...)

But I'll admit I don't know that much about England in the 1800's - maybe the look on a woman that her eyes are much too big for her own face was in fashion back then, along with Brits having horrible teeth and being "pleasingly plump".  Emma is forced to make herself look better by hanging out with plainer girls, or at least that's what I took away from this story.  After her governess leaves her service to get married, Emma needs a new friend, and she chooses Harriet Smith, who is, let's be honest, a rather plain girl.  (If you want to look skinny, hang out with fatter people, if you want to look young, hang out with older people, it's just logical...).  And Harriet soon receives a marriage proposal from Robert Martin, who is a tenant farmer of the brother of Emma's brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley (we'll get to him in a bit).  Emma claims she's not interfering in Harriet's life, but she strongly implies that Harriet could do better. (She can't.). So Harriet rejects Robert Martin and then Emma falsely believes that Mr. Elton, the local minister, is in love with Harriet, and again, even though Emma promises to stay out of it, she can't help but set up Harriet with Mr. Elton, only to find that Mr. Elton was hanging around with the pair of girls in order to get closer to Emma herself. Emma somehow chose to hang out with the plainer girl, yet then is somehow surprised when Mr. Elton was more interested in the prettier girl?  There's. a bit of a disconnect there. 

Anyway, Emma's now bungled things for Harriet twice, and Mr. Elton goes on holiday for six weeks, then comes back to town with a wife, and the town is abuzz with gossip.  Two other people also come to town - Jane Fairfax, the niece of the talkative Miss Bates, and Frank Churchill, who's the son of Mr. Weston from his first marriage.  Mr. Weston, of course, is the man who married Emma's governess and set this whole crazy thing in motion in the first place.  I didn't quite get why Mr. Weston's son doesn't share his last name, though.  It wasn't really explained here - perhaps Mr. Weston's wife re-married and he was adopted by his step-father and took a new last name?  (I'll check this out later in the plot of the novel.  Ah - Frank Churchill was adopted by his aunt, there you go.). Anyway, Frank Churchill's a real hunk, and dances with everyone at the ball.  Mr. Elton's there, and he refuses to dance with Harriet - too many bad memories, I guess - but Emma's friend Mr. Knightley does dance with her (this becomes important in a bit).  Emma also dances with Mr. Knightley, and it seems they share a moment, they may be getting closer together....

But before Knightley can talk with Emma, Frank arrives carrying Harriet - it seems she was threatened by Gypsies or something on the way home from the ball, and he saved her after she twisted her ankle running away.  In all the confusion of remembering how to call for the doctor, since the telephone hadn't been invented yet, Harriet tells Emma that she's fallen in love again - naturally Emma assumes she's in love with Frank, who saved her from Gypsies, but she's really fallen for Mr. Knightley, who did a kind thing and danced with her when nobody else would. This whole situation would be a lot easier if anybody during the 1800's could just come out and TELL somebody they had feelings for them, but that just wouldn't be proper, because Britain.  Thus every romantic situation just turns into a big ball of confusion, and then Emma shows up to make it even worse. 

Emma then sets up a picnic, so that Harriet and Frank can spend more time together, and Frank suggests a "party game" where everyone tells Emma what they're thinking about.  But nobody likes this game, so they play another one where everyone is brutally honest with each other or something, and Emma ends up insulting Miss Bates.  Yeah, Frank's kind of a big douche, but once again, Emma just made everything worse with her honesty and advice.  Emma then has to make a round of apologies - to Miss Bates, to Harriet for screwing up her life twice, and then to Robert Martin, the farmer who proposed to Harriet way back at the start of the story.  Once she starts apologizing, and thinking about other people instead of herself, things start going her way - is that the moral here, am I understanding this right? 

Frank Churchill's sick aunt dies, and he no longer needs to care for her, plus he's now free to marry Jane Fairfax, and it turns out they've been secretly engaged all this time, he was never an option for Harriet or Emma.  This frees up Harriet to marry Robert Martin, and Emma can follow up on the budding romance with her brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley.  And if you're like me and notice the similarities here to the 1995 film "Clueless", where Cher ends up in love with her ex-step-brother, you may wonder how Jane Austen had the nerve to reach into the future and shamelessly borrow so many plot points from a film that was made 178 years after she died. JK. 

I'm encouraged after checking Wikipedia - Jane Austen herself said that we're not supposed to like Emma, because she's spoiled, headstrong and self-satisfied, over-confident in her matchmaking abilities, and blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives.  OK, so, great, I didn't like her - mission accomplished.  I also just re-read my review of the 1996 movie, and it seems I was able to follow the plot a lot better while watching this version - so this one's clearer, but is it BETTER?  I'm not sure.  My other complaints about the 1996 film were that Austen pulled the "man meant for Harriet falls for Emma instead" bit twice in the same story - yah, but now I see that they were very different situations - one time the confusion was based on the man's love for Emma instead of Harriet, and the other time it was based on Harriet's love for the man, who wasn't even interested in her.  Also, I'm reminded that the "mysterious benefactor sends a piano as a gift" was used by Austen in both THIS story and also "Sense and Sensibility", so what gives, Jane?  

But all in all, it seems this 2020 film version stayed a little more true to the original novel, only they added that pesky period in the title. For god's sake, WHY?  We've all accepted by now that book titles and movie titles are not to be treated like sentences, even if they are.  They're just phrases, and need no ending punctuation.  Though I suppose if Hollywood had it's way, every title would end in an exclamation point, like "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest!" or "Always Be My Maybe!"  Thankfully, things just are not usually that way.  

Also starring Anya Taylor-Joy (last seen in "Glass"), Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth (last seen in "Suspiria"), Miranda Hart (last seen in "Spy"), Callum Turner (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Amber Anderson, Rupert Graves (last seen in "A Room with a View"), Gemma Whelan (last seen in "Gulliver's Travels"), Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells, Oliver Chris (last seen in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"), Chloe Pirrie (last seen in "Youth"), Myra McFadyen (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Esther Coles, Suzy Bloom, Suzanne Toase (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2"), Nicholas Burns (also carrying over from "Hope Gap"), Lucy Briers, Anna Francolini, Christopher Godwin (last seen in "Mary Poppins Returns"), Vanessa M. Owen, Isis Hainsworth, Hannah Stokely (last seen in "The Duchess"), Charlotte Weston, Rose Shalloo, Angus Imrie (last seen in "The Kid Who Would Be King"), Letty Thomas.

RATING: 5 out of 10 traditional folk songs

Hope Gap

Year 13, Day 54 - 2/23/21 - Movie #3,756

BEFORE: I'm starting to see signs that things in New York City are getting back to normal-ish. Ads have been updated in the subway stations (I'm seeing fewer ads for last year's TV shows and Broadway plays scheduled to open in April 2020) and in the past two days I've eaten something in quick-serve restaurants that had open tables, TWICE.  And then today the news broke that movie theaters in town can finally open up again, on March 5, at 25% capacity.  Well, it's something, I guess you have to walk before you can run, and the suits at the major studios should be celebrating right now, because there's a chance that "Black Widow" and other blockbusters slated for release might get some attention and do some box office, and maybe by the time summer rolls around we can just pick a movie, buy a seat online and not even think about it any more, and we won't have to pay $20 just to watch a first-run film on our home TV, we can pay $20 plus $12 for popcorn and a drink to watch it in a dark crowded room that's not between our kitchen and our bathroom.  Here's hoping. 

Annette Bening carries over from "The Seagull". 

THE PLOT: A couple's visit from their son takes a dramatic turn when the father tells him he plans on leaving his mother. 

AFTER: Well, it seems I'm getting back into the "It's complicated" section of this year's romance chain. Grace and Edward have been married for 29 years and have an adult son, but Edward reveals to his son that their entire relationship is based on something of a misunderstanding - he met Grace after boarding the wrong train, told her a story about how he'd just mistaken a man for his deceased father, and she comforted him. This was apparently enough to build the foundation of their marriage on, but he's never really felt this emotion called "love" where Grace is concerned.  But as a typical British person, he was naturally unwilling to correct someone else's assumption and clear up this rather embarrassing confusion, so he just went along with it to avoid a confrontation. For almost thirty years. Yep, that checks out, very British of him.  (I'm reminded here of every episode of "Fawlty Towers", the lengths that John Cleese's character would go to just to never admit he was wrong, or to be made to feel foolish in any way, though that then just ended up happening even worse.)

But somehow they managed to raise a son, and both Edward and his son Jamie have endured endless criticism from Grace - now, it's only naturally on some level for a mother to be critical of a son, sometimes a mother will think she's being encouraging but is instead being condescending.  With a long-time spouse, on the other hand, she's been so demanding of Edward over the years that he just defers to her on everything, he's become a doormat that goes along with everything Grace wants, and that in turn drives her absolutely crazy.  She still wants what she wants, but she wants Edward to want the same things, too, and he just doesn't.  Plus, there's something of an expiration date on Edward's feelings, it turns out he can only defer to her for so long, and the clock has run out.  (Also, he's met someone through his teaching job that he has feelings for, and so he believes he's got a real chance at love for the first time, if only he can get out of his marriage.)

But separating from Grace isn't going to be easy, even though Edward's willing to part with his stake in the house - secretly he longs for something like his son's spartan bachelor-pad existence - and Grace still believes she's in love with Edward, even if her definition of love is more than a little screwed up.  She's a control freak, and most likely what she appreciates most about her marriage is being the one in charge, so when she's thrust into this situation that she can't control, you can just feel that she's not going to take it well.  Edward's forced to change his phone number, and Grace keeps demanding an in-person meeting before she'll sign any paperwork, which fits right in with her controlling personality.  Meanwhile their son is by default put into the position of being a negotiator between them, and insists that he won't choose sides, even though that's exactly what Grace keeps pushing him to do.  

This one feels very real because we do get to see both sides of their story, and I can't really tell if I'm supposed to side with Grace or Edward.  Of course it sucks to be left by a spouse, but on some level, it also sucks to be the one who leaves, who feels like there's no other recourse or way to regain self-worth except to pack a suitcase and head out.  Edward's just a bit luckier that he's got a new relationship on the horizon, something fresh to explore to take the sting out of it, while Grace spends days on end in bed, stops cleaning the house or taking in the mail, and starts going through the stages of grief, spending most of her time on "anger", with a brief stop-over on "bargaining" before heading straight on to "depression". 

Jamie's story sort of gets lost in the shuffle here - though his mother berates him early in the film over his relationship troubles, we never really find out exactly what those troubles are.  He makes a point of saying he's not gay, but he also can't seem to maintain a relationship of any length with a woman.  We can infer that something about being raised by these parents maybe broke something inside of him, watching them argue for over two decades may have soured him, at least unconsciously on long-term relationships.  But I really had to read between the lines to get there, it's not very obvious and I may even be wrong about this.  Maybe it's just the long hours he puts in as a web-site developer that affect his ability to form a partnership bond. 

The scenery is beautiful - Seaford in the U.K. has something called "The Seven Sisters", which are chalk cliffs similar to the White Cliffs of Dover, and the establishing shots show them again and again, from every angle.  I kept waiting for them to be important to the story, like if Grace was at any point considering jumping off the cliffs, but I don't think so, they're probably just nice to look at.  Hope Gap, in addition to having a sort of meaning in the title representing the loss of hope, is the real-life name of a beach below these cliffs.  Seaford was once known for its beaches, but creating a large breakwater 100 years ago in the nearby harbor ruined those beaches, and the shoreline there is now very narrow and composed of small boulders. (Perhaps there's another metaphor there for a relationship that's no longer what it used to be...). The U.K. tried a massive beach replenishment project there in 1987, but it was apparently bungled and didn't achieve positive results. 

Ah, and the IMDB trivia section tells me that the writer/director, William Nicholson, based this story on his own parents, who split up after 33 years together.  So that's probably why it feels so realistic. It presents to the viewer a rather interesting conundrum - when a couple splits, they sometimes say they'd be happier if they had never met in the first place.  But is this really true?  Since we don't get "do-overs" in life, how can someone ever know that they'd be happier or sadder if their life played out differently?  It's probably madness to even start thinking this way, and it's just not productive - it's better to just be aware of one's situation, and if things fall apart, try to move forward as best as you can, even though that may be difficult. 

I sure have seen a lot of films this February in which older single ladies have dogs, or suddenly get a dog as a companion to get by - this trope appeared in "Manglehorn", "I'll See You in My Dreams", "The Jane Austen Book Club" and today's film.  "Duck Butter", too, so it's not just older straight women...it just feels like screenwriters have single female characters adopt dogs when they don't know what else to have them do, symbolically I suppose it means they're OK being alone, like who needs a man in their life if they've got a dog for companionship?  (And what happened to Will and Abby's dog in "Life Itself"? We never found out...)

Also starring Bill Nighy (last seen in "The Constant Gardener"), Josh O'Connor (last seen in "Florence Foster Jenkins"), Aiysha Hart, Ryan McKen, Steven Pacey, Nicholas Burns, Rose Keegan (last seen in "Match Point"), Nicholas Blane (last seen in "The Illusionist"), Sally Rogers, Derren Litten, Finn Bennett, 

RATING: 6 out of 10 beach huts

The Seagull

Year 13, Day 53 - 2/22/21 - Movie #3,755

BEFORE: Elisabeth Moss carries over from "The One I Love", and this is the third film out of the last four with a bird in the title - "Duck Butter", "Blue Jay" and now this.  I didn't even see the connection there until just now. 

I really don't know much about Chekhov plays - never seen one, or read one, or seen a movie based on one, so this is bound to be educational in some way at least.  I know the NAMES of several Chekhov plays, but I'm probably more familiar with Jane Austen's works than his. 

THE PLOT: In the early twentieth century, an aging actress and her lover visit the estate of her elderly brother. 

AFTER: I'm the kind of guy who probably knows more about Pavel Chekhov than Anton Chekhov, if you know what I mean. I wasn't even sure this one belonged in a romance chain - Chekhov wrote about Russian people, right?  Are Russians even capable of being in love?  I was raised during the Cold War, so I was taught that Russia was the Evil Empire, and everybody living there was a godless Communist, and thought more about the state's needs than their own, and as I've said here, there's something inherently selfish about being in love, fulfilling one's own desires, and that doesn't seem like it fits in with the Communist ideology.  

Ah, but a little research tells me this story is set in the early 1900's, the play was written in 1895, so it's pre-Bolshevik, pre-Lenin, pre-Communist Revolution.  That could be significant here - plus it's set in the days of the Emperors (czars?), speficially Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor.  The Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party didn't hold its first Congress until 1898, so Marxism was kind of in its infancy when "The Seagull" was written, good to know.  Anyway, the cast here doesn't even seem particularly Russian, plus they seem to be rather upper-class, or at least well-off - these are the kind of people who owned lake houses, and they probably all would lose them in the redistribution of wealth that came along with the Revolution in 1917.  

I may be dealing with two different stories here - the original play version of "The Seagull", which I'm reading up about on Wikipedia now, and the film version, which may diverge from Chehkov's play significantly, I'm not sure yet.  But I'm here to learn.  I shouldn't have worried about the romance factor, it turns out, because there are at least four love triangles going on in the movie - in the first half, Medvedenko the teacher is interested in Masha, the daughter of the estate's manager - but Masha is in love with Konstantin, the young playwright.  Konstantin, in turn, is in love with Nina, the daughter of the rich landowner next door, and he writes a play for the estate's guests starring Nina.  Nina, however, slowly turns her affections toward Boris, the writer who is visiting the estate as the lover of Irina, the aging actress who is also Konstantin's mother.  So the whole crazy thing loops around and around, everyone loves somebody who is in love with somebody else.  Oh, and the estate manager's wife is having an affair with the doctor, so that's at least four triangles, or two squares, and maybe a hexagon or two.

In the midst of this crazy set-up at the lake house, Konstantin debuts his new low-rent free-form play (this reminded me of the scene in Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly") and his mother Irina just WON'T SHUT UP during the performance.  He stops the play halfway through and goes to sulk in the barn.  The next day, as Irina and Boris make plans to leave, Konstantin shoots a seagull - and I have a feeling this is some kind of important metaphor.  Boris's conversation with Nina suggests that the gull is a symbol for her, she's just a happy girl, living by the lake, flying free like a seagull, when a man comes and shoots her dead, just because he can.  But since the next day Konstantin tries to commit suicide with a gun, isn't it also valid to say that the seagull is a symbol for him?  

Konstantin's suicide attempt is unsuccessful - better luck next time, I guess - and there are various arguments among the lake house residents.  Irina argues with the estate's manager when he claims there are no horses to pull a carriage to take her into town.  Pyotr Sorin, Irina's brother and the owner of the estate, finds it harder and harder to get around - he's slowly dying, but aren't we all?  And young Nina runs away to become an actress, making plans to meet up with Boris the writer later in Moscow.  

The final act (which is also seen at the beginning of the film, I'm pretty sure Chekhov didn't arrange his play that way) takes place two years later, by which time Masha has given up on Konstantin and married Medvedenko the teacher, Nina became an actress in Moscow and lived with Boris for a while, but he soon got bored with her and returned to his relationship with Irina. Konstantin has had some stories published in a magazine, but he's still depressed, and Pyotr Sorin is still slowly dying. And through it all, people gossip and cut each other down, but always somehow manage to do this within earshot of their victims, so everyone can learn the nasty things that other people say about them after they leave the room. 

Some reviewers have noticed a connection to Shakespeare's "Hamlet", as Konstantin is unhappy that his mother has a new lover (one who's a better writer than her son is) and honestly, this casts a new Oedipal light on "Hamlet", like was Hamlet jealous of the new king, or that his mother was getting more action than he was?  But this only goes so far, because I don't recall Ophelia ever rejecting Hamlet's affection so she could get with King Claudius.  I saw a completely different parallel, perhaps because just before watching "The Seagull" I watched the first episode of "Allen vs. Farrow", the new 3-part docu-series on HBO.  If you ask me, Boris here seems like a good analog for Woody Allen (both writers) and that makes Irina the stand-in for Mia Farrow, the aging actress.  The tortured writer Konstantin is the Ronan Farrow analog (also a writer) and Nina is Dylan Farrow by default.  Only the real-life story is much creepier, since Woody was accused of molesting Dylan, who is his daughter - my analogy doesn't perfectly line up either.  

In the Russian performances of Chekhov's play, the suicide attempts took place off-stage, because at the time it was considered vulgar to depict such things in a play.  During the final one, the estate guests even make up excuses for what that gunshot sound really was, and thus they try to keep Irina from learning about the fate of her son.  But NITPICK POINT, how long can that family and friends keep her from learning the truth?  Isn't she eventually going to start asking where her son is, and why he hasn't shown up for dinner in the last week?  

Chekhov's play came up recently in the news, after Natalie Portman weighed in on the state of sexism and creepy men in America - she was cast as Nina in a Broadway production of "The Seagull" that played in Central Park in the summer of 2001. Working alongside acting legends like Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, Kevin Kline and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Portman sought advice from the play's director Mike Nichols, who encouraged her and helped her feel like she wasn't in over her head. She now calls Nichols the only older man who mentored her without there being a creepy element to it.  Therefore, by extension, every other older man she worked with was a creep - and wasn't she in a Woody Allen film?  Yeah, that checks out - but my lawyers have informed me that I can't list any of the other male directors she's worked for in this context. 

Also starring Annette Bening (last seen in "Life Itself"), Saoirse Ronan (last seen in "Little Women"), Corey Stoll (last seen in "The Report"), Mare Winningham (last seen in "Brothers"), Jon Tenney (last seen in "You Can Count on Me"), Glenn Fleshler (last seen in "Joker"), Michael Zegen (last seen in "The Box"), Billy Howle (last seen in "The Sense of an Ending"), Brian Dennehy (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Ben Thompson, Angela Pietropinto (last seen in "One for the Money"), Barbara Tirrell, Elsie Brechbiel, Pippa Pearthree, Thomas Hettrick, Paul Krisikos, Ramona Wright. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 bingo games

The One I Love

Year 13, Day 52 - 2/21/21 - Movie #3,754

BEFORE: One week left in February after this, and I'm pissed off tonight because I made a plan to watch "Wonder Woman 1984" in late March, that's what I'm working toward here, that's what's keeping me going, and now I just found out it's GONE from HBO Max.  What the hell?  It's only been on that service since Christmas, and now it's gone?  Films stay on Netflix for about two years, generally, and therefore I (more often than not) have enough time to work them in to my schedule.  And even if I can't, those films probably then pop-up on Hulu or AmazonPrime - and then even if that happens, there's always iTunes.  But just when you think you've got this whole streaming thing down, somebody goes ahead and changes all the rules. 

It turns out that the corporate strategy over at HBO/Warner is to release films simultaneously in the theaters and on HBO Max for just 30 days.  But how does this help me?  Also, who does this benefit?  I realize it's an unusual time, what with theaters still closed in L.A. and NYC - so naturally box office for any film will be less if the two biggest cinema markets aren't open.  HBO Max seemed like a godsend for me, but now I'm not so sure - rushing to watch films on THEIR schedule and not MINE seems very counter-productive to the whole stream-at-home concept. It feels a bit like the old "Buy now, supplies are limited" con game - "watch this film quickly, it could disappear at any time!"  Well, that just doesn't work for me.  Sure, I COULD have watched that superhero film at any time during January, then sat on my review until March 23, but I didn't know that the clock was ticking, that this new streaming film had an expiration date.  (Really, though, I should have known, the clock is ticking on EVERY movie streaming everywhere.  Everything is transient, nothing is permanent, after all.  Even DVDs wear out after about 25 years, VHS tapes in even less time.). But digital and streaming was supposed to be innovative and different, but it's the same old trick - "watch it now in theaters, before we take it away!" or "Buy this classic Disney film on Blu-Ray, before we seal it back up in the vault!"  

Hollywood, I'm trying to work with you here, promote your movies (OK, just some of them...) - can't you work with me and keep films available for a bit longer so I can get around to watching them?  What's your plan here for "Wonder Woman 1984", are you going to put it back in theaters if they open up again in NYC and L.A. in March?  I could travel to a theater in New Jersey to catch the film next week, but do I really want to travel across state lines just to see a movie?  That would take up the better part of my day, to get there and back again on public transportation!  Then again, what else have I got to do on my days off?  I don't know, now I feel like the release schedules for recent blockbusters are kind of holding me hostage - and will "Wonder Woman 1984" be available on DVD or cable in time for me to watch it in March when I want to, or am I going to have to pay $7.99 to AmazonPrime or $19.99 to iTunes just to see this on my schedule? 

I guess a lot could happen in a month - theatres could re-open, if the pandemic stats keep plummeting the way they are.  Or "Wonder Woman" could get a second release, or maybe they'd put it on HBO proper by then.  I'll have to wait and see - but HBO seems to have done away with its "Saturday Night Premiere" formula, last Saturday's big 8 pm film was "Argo", which is anything but new.  I guess there haven't been enough 2020 releases ready for cable yet, geez, if only there were a popular superhero film from 2020 that could air as a big Saturday night premiere.  Just saying...

HBO seems like a pretty good place to catch up on some animated films with Batman and Superman in them (if I program another chain of them), but how do I know those films aren't going to disappear from the service next week?  I think I need my streaming services to have a bit more permanence to them. 

Mark Duplass carries over again from "Blue Jay". 

THE PLOT: A troubled couple are sent by their therapist to a beautiful getaway, but bizarre circumstances further complicate their situation.

AFTER: Well, it seems like a thriller of sorts found its way in to my romance chain - though this is about relationships too, in some ways it's a head-scratcher of a sci-fi/fantasy film - or is it?  Better issue a quick SPOILER ALERT here, because it's going to be impossible to discuss this film with tipping off the surprises.  You've been warned, turn back NOW if you're planning to watch this someday.

Ethan and Sophie are a married couple who just aren't on the same page, for whatever reason.  They bicker constantly, haven't had sex in a long time and at least one of them is probably on the verge of calling it quits.  Their counselor suggests a weekend retreat to a secluded estate.  Upon arrival, they see a photo book of previous guests, and testimonials about how staying at this resort changed their lives - and at first, this weekend together, focused just on each other, seems to be just what this couple needed to re-connect.  

But slowly, something starts to not make sense.  They drink a little wine, smoke a little pot, and have sex in the guest house. But Sophie then goes back to the main house, and finds Ethan there, asleep.  How did he get from one building to the other so quickly?  And why doesn't Ethan remember their encounter in the guest house?  Something similar happens when Ethan goes to sleep in the guest house, his wife comes on to him and then cooks him breakfast in the morning, something she NEVER does.  Something funny is going on in the guest house, or else that pot they smoked was laced with something...

A little experimentation produces some odd results - when they go into the guest house together, nothing happens, but when one of them goes in alone, he or she meets another version, an idealized "Stepford Wives" version of their spouse, while the real version is somehow also standing outside the house.  Huh?  What gives?  My brain started running through all the possible scenarios to explain this, trying to second-guess the plot and figure it all out.  Maybe the guest house is haunted?  Mmm, possible, but the ghosts seem really nice - maybe it's a succubus that is trying to seduce both of them in turn.  But this film was labeled as a "thriller", not a horror film.  Aliens?  Same problem - though the aliens could produce replicas of people, as in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".  Perhaps they're both hallucinating, but you can't really have sex with a hallucination.  Virtual reality?  Same issue.  OK, maybe time travel, maybe that's their future selves in the guest house, or versions of them from another reality.  Yeah, I don't really see the Duplass Brothers making a time-travel film - though Mark Duplass was in "Safety Not Guaranteed".  

Well, I pretty much wasted my time, because the movie sort of never gets around to explaining how this weird situation is possible.  OK, it does and it doesn't, because the official explanation doesn't make any sense - really, what explanation would?  I think you just have to take this whole set-up as a metaphor - like if you could meet a "better" version of your spouse, would you leave your spouse?  If you met someone who looked the same, dressed the same, talked the same, but was more confident or didn't have any of your partner's hang-ups, would you trade up?  I'd have to think not, because if you've been with that person for 20 years or whatever, you'd not only have so much shared history, but also so many in-jokes, memories, and (one would hope) things in common. Assuming, that is, that during your time together you'd managed to grow together and not apart. 

So, rather than do the sensible thing and immediately pack their bags, Ethan and Sophie decide to stick around the resort and use their time there as a form of therapy.  Perhaps this is what their counselor somehow arranged, as an intimacy exercise, or some kind of relationship tester? (I know, it still doesn't make sense, but work with me here...)  They take turns going in to the guest house and interacting with the idealized versions of each other, and this only leads to more questions, such as "do the other Ethan and Sophie know that they're not real?" and "how can they look and talk exactly like us?" and then of course there's "Why?" and "WTF?"

I'm not going to post the answers here - you can always look them up on Wiki if you really want to know what's happening here.  Then of course, you'll have to decide if that explanation is enough, and if it makes any logical sense to you.  To each his own, I guess. But I think there's more value here in the metaphor, in thinking about what this might mean symbolically - only even there, I'm kind of scratching my head also.  Damn, I kind of had my money on "time travel", because the director of the film is Charlie McDowell, son of Malcolm McDowell, who played H.G. Wells in the movie "Time After Time" along with Mary Steenburgen, the director's mother, and she also is heard in today's film, as a voice on a phone.  

(There could be another idea for a film there - a couple having issues is visited by their future selves, who travel back in time from a future where time travel exists to try and fix their relationship. I'd watch that, but am I the only one?)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that me watching this coincided with Episode 7 of the Disney+ series "WandaVision", and they do seem to share something in common, namely a couple inhabiting a space (either a guest house or a whole town) where the impossible seems to happen, and at first the audience isn't sure what's real or how these things can be happening.  OK, so one's a thriller mixed with a relationship film and the other's a superhero story mixed with sitcom spoofs, but I can still see the connection. 

Also starring Elisabeth Moss (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Ted Danson (last seen in "Hearts Beat Loud"), and the voices of Mary Steenburgen (last seen in "Life as a House"), Mel Eslyn (last seen in "Duck Butter"), Drew Langer (last heard in "Duck Butter"), Jennifer Spriggs, Charlie McDowell. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 strips of bacon