BEFORE: It's the big night, Oscar day - I'll definitely finish this film before the Oscars air, but I may not be able to post until after the ceremony ends, that's just the way it goes. I'll do some kind of Oscars wrap-up tomorrow, but I really haven't had a chance to see most of the nominated films, despite having access to Academy screeners. I promise to get to them starting in April - which is well after the nomination and awards season is over, so there's no need to prosecute my boss for letting me borrow the screeners. I'm going to eventually get every film I want to see on either DVD, cable or streaming, so Hollywood's not losing any money from me watching screeners, I'll just be speeding up the viewing timetable - again, starting in April.
I still have to finish the romance chain, but I have to rely on indirect linking tonight. I know, I feel terrible about it. Michael Stevens had an uncredited role in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", and he was also in a film called "Luck" with Luke Kirby, one of the male leads today. (Alternately, Andrea Martin was also in a film called "Bogus" with Jennifer Podemski. Either way works.)
I should have found a better way, I know - but I can't change course now. The only other option to me was to follow the Rosie O'Donnell link and watch a documentary called "Being Elmo", but I'm just not ready for documentaries right now, and that would take me too far away from where I want to go.
THE PLOT: A happily married woman falls for the artists who lives across the street.
AFTER: Now, I could have sworn this film was available on Netflix, but of course, just as I go to sit down and watch it there, it's gone. I realize all films on that service are there for a particular length of time, but each time I put something on my list, program it, then find it missing a few months later when I genuinely want to watch it, that costs me $2.99 or $3.99 to then watch it on iTunes, assuming that it's available there. Yep, removed on 11/22/17, that's probably just a couple weeks after I found it there. This is why I have to keep making films on Netflix a priority...
So here I am, suffering from romance film burnout, and is it fair to take advantage of me for an extra four bucks at this point? OK, so I paid it and watched the film, now I don't really know what to do with it, because it's a really complex little drama. This woman Margot works for the Parks Department in Canada, which involves some traveling in order to write about the events at the parks, and on her way back from a trip she meets Daniel, who happens to be her neighbor. They joke around and flirt a bit, get to know each other on the plane, and there seems to be an attraction forming. The only problem is, she's married to Lou, a cookbook author.
And there's nothing wrong with Lou, really. Margot and Lou have their own running jokes, their own ways of expressing affection, their own little routine, but apparently after five years together Margot needs a change of pace. Or it's more like she found the change of pace in Daniel, and didn't realize that she needed it. This is just going to happen to some people, meeting the right person - or another right person - at the wrong time. It's not something that can be controlled, it's not something that she asked for - but trying to put Daniel out of her mind only has the complete opposite effect, because once you try to not think about something, well, guess what, you're thinking about it when you're trying to not think about it.
Again, nothing wrong with Lou, if there were it would make her choice easy, but it's not easy. She tries a desperate play of scheduling a date with Lou to happen 40 years in the future, figuring by then she'll either forget about Daniel, or things will be over with Lou, one way or the other. But this would never work, how can you schedule something 40 years down the road and then spend the next 39 years not thinking about that?
You may even develop a preference for what choice Margot should make, which man she should be with, but I think it's so 50/50 here that your preference would end up saying more about you than it would about the situation at hand. And this shows the terrible truth of a love triangle situation - assuming one person is at the crux of the triangle, it's essentially a no-win situation. If she tells Lou that she's attracted to Daniel, that's going to ruin the relationship with Lou, and then she'll always wonder how long it could have gone if only she could have stayed faithful. And if she tells Daniel that she's going to stay with Lou, then she'll always wonder about the road not taken, whether her life could have been better if she made the other choice.
I'm certainly not going to reveal her choice here, because it hardly matters. What I appreciate here is the acknowledgement that even letting yourself get put in that position, where you have to make a choice between two very different people - it's just not where you want to be. I think most films romanticize the love triangle, or the quadrangle, but there's nothing positive about it, when you're in it. Someone's heart is going to get broken, maybe even more than one someone, no matter what happens. I'll say no more about the plot.
But there's something about Margot, she's a very complex character, with a lot of emotions. I don't know if she's supposed to be bi-polar or just fickle, but since there were no easy answers here about which path to take, I was hoping for a little more internal information from her, about what led her to consider an affair in the first place. It can't just all be because she met another cute guy, that's all coincidence and happenstance. She kept choosing to spend time with another man, and that's not a wise choice, because the more time you spend with another potential partner, the more chance you give for the new relationship to supplant the old one. Sure, all married people are going to be out in the world, meeting new people at some point, and there's always a chance of recognizing another potential mate that way. But seeing that person again and again, that's a conscious choice. It may or may not be a positive choice in the end, but it's a conscious choice.
It's also not 100% your spouse's job to make you happy. Clearly, on some level, she's not happy but there's no reason to completely blame that on her husband. Maybe she's just not a happy person, and she needs to work on that herself - because if she doesn't, then changing partners might make her feel happy at first, but if she can't learn to be satisfied, or at least content, then she's likely to end up right back where she started.
Also starring Michelle Williams (last seen in "Manchester by the Sea"), Seth Rogen (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Jennifer Podemski, Aaron Abrams, Diane D'Aquila, Graham Abbey.
RATING: 6 out of 10 chicken recipes
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