BEFORE: Geez, it's really a difficult time of year, isn't it? Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season is upon us, so if there wasn't enough pressure and stress in your life before, just wait, it's coming. Work is weird because we all know that the holiday shutdown is coming, there's going to be a week or two weeks or a month where just nothing is happening, or you're told that you need to take some time off, and you can't get anything done because, like, what's the point, everything's about to shut down.
I'm just watching one movie this week, and that also feels weird, to not be watching a movie every day. Next week I may just watch one more, and the week after that another two, maybe, because that spaces out the six films I have planned for the rest of the year and pushes the Christmas-ey films closer to Christmas. Yeah, it's been a wild ride this Movie Year, but then when it's over or when I have to space out my films like this, I feel adrift, like there's nothing to do and nowhere to go. So there's a bleak feeling in the air, like something's about to end, and I don't know if it's my primary job or if I need to make some big life change or stop reading comic books, but the end of one year and the beginning of the next is kind of all about change, and I don't handle change well. So then there's THAT level of stress and anxiety on top of everything else.
Hope Davis carries over from "The Myth of Fingerprints".
THE PLOT: When she discovers a love letter written to her husband by an unknown paramour, the distraught Eliza turns to her tight-knit Long Island family for advice.
AFTER: This film opens with a couple driving home from Thanksgiving, and really, what could be more appropriate? My last few films were Thanksgiving-based, and so that places this film right in that tough spot between the holidays I was talking about. I swear, I did not know that about this film when I programmed it here, in fact I've been second-guessing my choice to put this film here, because it felt so relationship-based, maybe it would have worked in February, but now we'll never know, will we? I'm proud of myself, I stuck to my plan and I believed in the linking system, which doesn't let me down as much as you might think. I should just trust my instincts and the system more, although I follow its advice, so isn't that enough?
While we're on the topic of stress and anxiety, this film is really about nothing BUT that - one stressful situation on top of another as a family tries to deal with all that comes with December, trying to fill the space between the holidays, trying to figure out if your whole life is going to change, trying to deal with the life you created by making the choices that you made that led you to where you are. Are you in a good place in your life, are you where you should be, is everything OK? And if not, what changes can you make to improve your situation, or at least improve how you feel about it? Do you have all the answers, or do you only THINK you have all the answers, and how can you possibly tell the difference? And then if you find out that things aren't what you thought they are, or you're not where you think you should be, how do you feel about that?
So there's maybe a lot to unpack here, maybe not. Eliza finds a note written to her husband, which could be a love letter, however maybe it's just a note from somebody who likes poetry, it's tough to say. Her husband Louis works in publishing in Manhattan, so he might just know a lot of literary types who know a lot of poems. She asks her family for advice, and sure, the simplest thing to do would be to call him at work and ask him about the note, but then we wouldn't have a movie, would we? So instead the whole family decides to get in the station wagon and head into the city to confront her husband. Sure, face to face is better, it's so easy to lie over the phone - plus you need to look into someone's eyes sometimes to tell if they're lying. Makes sense.
Wouldn't you know, Louis isn't in his office, his boss gave him the rest of the day off, but there is a book release party later in the day, and he's probably going to be there. So the family heads down to an apartment on Spring St., where they think his part-time lover might live. And they do see him leaving that apartment with a woman, and getting into a cab. But circumstances once again prevent the family from catching up with Louis, and they lose his cab in the Manhattan traffic. They regroup, but then Eliza's mother faints, and they're forced to seek shelter in a random nearby apartment. Suddenly this is starting to feel like a 10-minute narrative that got stretched out to almost 90 minutes. It's delay, delay, delay until the final confrontation.
It's maybe worth pointing out that this film came out in 1996, it was part of the FIRST edition of the Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. If you're not familiar with Slamdance, it happens in the same city as Sundance, at the same time, only it's much more indie. I think it started out by showing the films that Sundance rejected, but it's become its own thing over the years, still there's a rule that a film can't be in both festivals, so in some ways it's still showing the films that Sundance rejected. But it's also managed to carve out its own niche, I think for a long while it was just catering to first or second-time directors, which is kind of cool. I was just talking on the phone yesterday with somebody from that festival, but I can't say why, not just yet - maybe in a few days.
But the other thing about 1996 is that it was SO long ago, and things that would be shocking in a movie back then are maybe not so shocking now. We've come a long way in some aspects, and while it's still not a cool thing to have an affair, I think there's maybe more of an understanding now that these things do happen. Jeez, just looking at the personal lives of the actors in this film, that's not much help because some of them seem quite messy and complicated. Let's face it, nearly everybody's personal lives are messy and complicated, can we all just agree on that point? Sure, once in a while you see somebody who's been married for 20 years or more, but that's become such a rarity. I think I saw a BuzzFeed post the other day about long-term famous couples and really, there aren't very many left. It's almost disheartening when you start looking into the personal lives of actors, but perhaps those are more messy and complicated than those of non-famous people. But then again, maybe not, things are tough all over.
I guess the point of the film is that if you're going to fight for your relationship, that's going to take effort, and sometimes you have to fall back on your family if you need help dealing with it all, and other times you have to confront your partner and say, "OK, what's really going on here, where do we stand?" especially if you haven't had that sort of check-in conversation in a while. And then sometimes you have to be in that other mode, where you're just in the car while somebody else's relationship is falling apart, and you help out however you can, even if you just provide some moral support.
Part of this film is set in Long Island (Deer Park and Huntington, places I've been) and the rest in Manhattan, where I spend about half my time. I tried to pay attention to the backgrounds, to see if I could tell where in Manhattan it was filmed, but I was only partly successful, because so much of the city has changed since 1996. I would see a block full of stores and restaurants and I thought, "Geez, I bet ALL of those places are now out of business, either they failed over time or they closed during COVID." And I really only recognized one block for sure, when the station wagon was coming up 8th Ave. and passed FIT on 27th St. My office used to be RIGHT near there, and I still walk down that block often, when I have to travel between the animation studio and the theater. Or if I want to walk up from the theater to get dinner from my favorite deli.
Also starring Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Conspiracy"), Pat McNamara (last seen in "Blue Thunder"), Anne Meara (last seen in "The Boys from Brazil"), Parker Posey (last seen in "Scream 3"), Liev Schreiber (last seen in "Asteroid City"), Campbell Scott (last seen in "Jurassic World Dominion"), Marcia Gay Harden (last seen in "Moxie"), Douglas McGrath (last seen in "Café Society"), Peter Askin, Stephanie Venditto (last seen in "All About Steve"), Marc Grapey (last seen in "Captive State"), Jill Rowe, Andy Brown, Paul Herman (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Amy Stiller (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Marcia Haufrecht (last seen in "The Night Listener"), Carol Locatell, Adam Davidson, Tracey Barry, Ford Evanson, Rik Walters, Greg Mottola (last seen in "Hollywood Ending").
RATING: 6 out of 10 cups of herbal tea
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