BEFORE: Nora Dunn carries over from "Together Together", and I debated about including this one, it's a last-minute addition and the middle film of three with Nora Dunn, so I COULD drop it, and save it for next year. It links here, but it also links to films that didn't make the cut and so I could make a case for saving it, but nah, let's get rid of it now so it doesn't take up space on the DVR. I'll worry about next year next year. Anyway one of the films it links to might be a better Mother's Day film than a romance film, we'll have to see where it lands.
Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 14:
Best Cinematography Nominees:
6:00 am "Captains of the Clouds" (1942)
8:00 am "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952)
10:00 am "Northwest Passage" (1940)
12:15 pm "Lassie Come Home" (1943)
2:00 pm "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)
4:00 pm "Blackboard Jungle" (1955)
6:00 pm "Strangers on a Train" (1951)
Best Cinematography Winners:
8:00 pm "Laura" (1944)
9:45 pm "The Defiant Ones" (1958)
11:30 pm "MIssissippi Burning" (1988)
1:45 am "Ryan's Daughter" (1970)
5:15 am "The Good Earth" (1937)
Another 4 seen out of these 12 ("Somebody Up There Likes Me", "Strangers on a Train", "THe Defiant Ones", "Mississippi Burning") brings me to 61 seen out of 172, or 35.4%, thankfully I've seen every Hitchcock film ever and also a lot of boxing movies and prison movies.
THE PLOT: A reclusive author of spiritual books is pursued for advice by a single mother and a bookstore owner fresh out of rehab.
AFTER: There's a lot of stuff going on in this one, and most of it is pretty solid - so no matter how the linking shakes down, I'm glad I dropped this one into the chain at the last minute. I've kind of reached the "romance AND" stage of things, where a film sort of doesn't have to JUST be about romance, it can be a romance and a comedy, or a romance and a historical drama, or a romance and a sci-fi film (could happen), well you get the idea.
I'm also falling back on that theory I mentioned the other day about screenwriters, they don't want to highlight a character who's got their act together, because people who don't have it together, or whose lives are falling apart, are much more interesting in the long run. And so we have reclusive author Arlen Faber, whose "Me and God" books have been publishing staples for almost 20 years, and there's a whole franchise built around them, kind of like those "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books from a few years back. Other people have written books ABOUT Faber's books, there's the "Me and God" cookbooks, and his publisher reminds him that he's manage to corner 10% of the "God Market" in the self-help section.
So he's doing OK financially, successful in his career, but he lives alone, and even when the mailman comes to the door he pretends to be his own employee, not the author himself - and every day he throws a bag full of mail into a pile in a spare room of his Philadelphia brownstone. Successful in his career, but not necessarily in the romance department, at least not until he has terrible back problems and visits a very attractive chiropractor. There is a certain percentage of people who do fall in love with their doctors or therapists, I've heard. Part of that comes about because someone is paying attention to them and also making them feel good and healthy, so the love thing is sometimes an added side effect to all that.
Meanwhile, there's Kris, a young man who runs a nearby independent bookstore who's just gotten out of rehab, and he's going through the 12 steps, trying to change the things that he can and also deal with the things that he can't change, like the fact that his father drinks all the time. It's also hard for him to go to A.A. meetings, and this might have something to do with the fact that they demand that you surrender yourself to a higher power, not necessarily God but you have to pick something, even like a tree or a rock to surrender to, and admit that you yourself have no control over your drinking, but maybe the tree does? I'm not sure how that all works.
Kris' bookstore is in trouble, because he left it in the care of Dahlia, who lost her keys and couldn't open the store while he was in rehab. For a month. So the bookstore couldn't make any income if it couldn't open, I've got to call a NITPICK POINT here, though, because couldn't Dahlia have worked this out somehow? Broken a window or called a locksmith? We all know a business can't make any money if it doesn't open to customers, she had like 28 days to figure something out, and she just didn't - really, Kris should fire her for this, but he doesn't for some reason. The characters all come together when Arlen, the reclusive author, tries to sell some of his excess books on religion to the store, only the store can't afford to buy any books because there's no budget for that. Arlen even offers the books FOR FREE to the store, but Kris still refuses. (That's N.P. #2, if you run an independent business and somebody offers you stock for FREE, you should always say YES to that.)
But this sets up an exchange, once Kris learns the identity of the man who's been coming in to his store trying to unload books. Kris will ask questions about life and God to Arlen, and after each set of questions, he'll also take five books for his store. This is really quite contrived, because I saw right away that there were better ways that this best-selling author could help out his store, which happens to sell his books. Why not a book signing, despite the fact that this author has not appeared in public for 20 years and almost nobody knows what he looks like? Still, that would be a great idea, and a public relations event beyond compare! OK, the film eventually gets there, but it takes a long time - so I guess I can say I saw this plot point coming a mile away, I was way out in front of the plot for once.
Meanwhile Arlen and Elizabeth, his chiropractor, keep growing closer, however Arlen doesn't seem to know much about how relationships work, maybe he just hasn't had much experience. Every time they grow a bit closer, like they go for a walk or he shows her his collection of movie monster figurines, there's also two steps back, like Arlen will try to tell her how to parent her son or freak out when his monster figurines aren't put back in exactly the right way. (I feel you, Arlen, but you've got to learn how to relax, and not show your girlfriend just how bad your OCD is...)
There's a lot this couple needs to work out, and part of why Arlen is the way he is goes back to taking care of his father, who had dementia, and he's still processing the loss - also he's spent two decades hiding from the world and his fans, and so he may be a little rusty when it comes to interacting with other humans and showing empathy for them. But that's not to say that Elizabeth isn't over-protective of her son, of course she is - but there's a reason for that, too, and it's going to take her time and patience to both accept the criticism and try to change her ways. (It's a somewhat similar situation to "Your Place or Mine", with the helicopter mom and the new man in her life, who just wants to be her son's friend and have fun with him, even if that means breaking Mom's rules...)
Finally, there's the big book signing at the independent bookstore, and Arlen also uses the opportunity to admit to the crowd that God never really spoke to him (DUH!) but he used that as a narrative technique to get his ideas about the answers to life's questions into a format that people would be willing to listen to. I see what you did there - make everyone buy the book BEFORE you admit that you're a complete fraud. Elizabeth, however, is disappointed that he's been lying to his fans for 20 years (again, DUH!) but shouldn't she also be proud that he's finally chosen to reveal the truth, and stop living the lie? They agree to start over from scratch, but that just kind of leaves things open, we still don't really know if this relationship is going to work out. But this all feels very real, like it could happen, I'd just love to know what the inspiration was for this tale.
Also starring Jeff Daniels (last seen in "2 Days in the Valley"), Lauren Graham (last seen in "Sweet November"), Lou Taylor Pucci (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), Olivia Thirlby (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Kat Dennings (last seen in "Friendsgiving"), Tony Hale (last seen in "Quiz Lady"), Annie Corley (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Max Antisell (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), Thomas Roy (last seen in "Game Change"), Peter Patrikos (last seen in "21 Bridges"), Richard Lyntton (last seen in "Creed"), Richard Barlow (last seen in "Where'd You Go Bernadette"), Charlie Corrado, Sylvia Kauders (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Sandra Landers (last seen in "School Ties"), Ginny Graham (last seen in "Up Close & Personal"), Conor O'Brien (last seen in "Serenity"), Morgan Turner (last seen in "Jumanji: The Next Level"), Brandon Hanson, Steven Pasquale (last seen in "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem").
RATING: 6 out of 10 pieces of soy protein bacon ("FACON!")
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