Love is Strange

LOVE IS STRANGE (Ira Sachs, 2014)

After being together for thirty-nine years the wedding of Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) is the happiest moment of their lives, but the big day also leads to the hardship that follows in LOVE IS STRANGE. Ben teaches music at a Catholic school. While his relationship with George has not been a secret, news and photos of their marriage catch the attention of the archdiocese. George is considered to be in violation of the Christian witness statement he signed as terms of employment, so just like that he’s terminated from his job.

George intends to teach private lessons and look for other work, but for now his income and Ben’s pension are not sufficient to afford their Manhattan apartment. They must sell their place and find family and friends who will take them in during the transition. Ben’s niece Mindy (Christina Kirk) has ample space for them in Poughkeepsie, but their lives are oriented around New York City. Elliot (Darren E. Burrows) agrees to house his uncle Ben, although the 71-year-old painter must share a bunk bed with his great-nephew Joey (Charlie Tahan). George ends up staying on a couch with their police officer friends Roberto (Manny Perez) and Ted (Cheyenne Jackson).

Naturally, the arrangements are less than ideal. Ben often interrupts Elliot’s wife Kate (Marisa Tomei) while she tries to work from home. Joey acts as if having Ben around so much is cramping his style. George is staying with a couple whose frequent entertaining and socializing are at odds with his more introverted personality.

The set-up for LOVE IS STRANGE makes it sound as though it will be a message movie about the lack of legal protections for gay men and women in the workplace. Instead the instigating event points toward a study of the challenges in living with those you love, especially when being an outsider in a household also makes things difficult for the hosts. Ben and George try not to be nuisances, nor do they complain about the concessions they’re making, yet they can’t help but notice that they don’t fit in the places they’ve been forced into. They shoulder the burden as best they can and try to see each other when too few opportunities allow.

Frustration touches everyone in LOVE IS STRANGE, but this gentle film resists large emotional outbursts. The blame for tension in these homes points both ways, and director and co-writer Ira Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias spot the humor in the little things people do to annoy one another. Sachs watches how routine things in one place can set off those unaccustomed to them in their domain. What’s normal and implicitly accepted in one living space can drive others crazy, particularly within a family striving to be polite under the circumstances. As George tells a piano student imposing her ideas on a Chopin piece, you can’t make your own rhythm. Everybody is trying to keep in time in LOVE IS STRANGE, but inevitably not all can maintain a beat that isn’t familiar.

Restraint marks the performances in this close-knit circle of family and friends. Molina and Lithgow do tender work as longtime companions so at ease in their home together and so ill-fitting in their replacement environments. They display dignity in a situation that takes swipes at it. When Ben and George get a night on the town, it’s as though the film relaxes with them. They’re free to be themselves without disrupting their hosts. The love they’ve shared for almost four decades has faced interference while they try to be polite guests, but this beautiful scene allows them to express the relief of fully being who they are together. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 describes love as patient and kind, among other qualities. Strange isn’t one of those listed characteristics, yet seeing the others demonstrated in this film reveals that something oddly wonderful exists when people try to rise up to such an example.

Grade: B

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE (Jon Turteltaub, 2010)

In THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) has searched for hundreds of years to find the rightful successor to his master Merlin. Balthazar was one of three apprentices to his legendary mentor. When one of them, his friend Horvath (Alfred Molina), joins forces with an evil sorceress and kills Merlin, Balthazar is entrusted with the responsibility of identifying the Prime Merlinian, who will be the proper inheritor of the Arthurian wizard’s powers.

In the year 2000 Balthazar finally stumbles upon him in the form of ten-year-old Dave, but the kid’s training is stalled when he accidentally releases Horvath from the Grimhold, a Russian nesting doll that imprisons evil sorcerers. Due to circumstances too convoluted to go into, flash forward ten years when Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now a physics major at NYU. Balthazar returns and begins training his protege to keep evil magicians at bay.

Whether intentional or not, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE plays like Disney’s stalled attempt to launch a stripped down Harry Potter-like franchise. While the special effects are suitably impressive and Cage brings the occasional flourish of oddball humor to the affair, the film as a whole lacks a strong idea of what it should be. In trying to be everything to everybody, it amounts to a fitfully entertaining nothing.

In the best sequence, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE calls back to the FANTASIA cartoon with Mickey Mouse that the film draws its name from. Dave uses magic to set the mops into action in the workshop with disastrous results. It’s one of the rare spots when effects, humor, and action work in concert. As for other highlights, a Chinese dragon puppet made flesh and blood and a Chrysler Building eagle turned into an unconventional mode of transportation are a couple of the visual effects technicians’ more inspired creations.

Nevertheless, a little bit of CGI sizzle isn’t enough to hinge a film on these days, especially when it’s so commonplace in big studio movies. As the 20-year-old brainiac Dave, Baruchel can be a nice foil for Cage, but he’s never given enough to work with to allow his twitchy nature from solely defining the character. That awkwardness served Baruchel well in the comedy SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, but here the trait is too prominent. In theory Dave’s training would be front and center, but it often takes a back seat, especially to a halfhearted romantic subplot about a reunion he has with a grade school crush played by Teresa Palmer.

If magic relies on misdirection, then THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE knows well enough to be distracting enough to divert attention for awhile. If only there were a satisfying payoff to the feature-long trick.

Grade: C

An Education

AN EDUCATION (Lone Scherfig, 2009)

AN EDUCATION'S sixteen year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a very clever girl and she knows it. Jenny peppers her conversations with French phrases and imagines what awaits her beyond the suburban London home of her working class parents in 1961.

One rainy afternoon after orchestra practice Jenny meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), a friendly man driving a maroon sports car. He offers to give her cello a ride home so as to protect the instrument from the elements. Easily charmed and flattered by this handsome older fellow, Jenny eventually hops in the car beside him and quickly bonds with the stranger.

Despite their age difference, David persuades Jenny's parents that spending time with her, such as taking her to a concert in the West End or to Oxford overnight, is all about broadening her knowledge and making important connections.

AN EDUCATION showcases several fine performances in this story about the dangers of youthful cleverness. Jenny isn't as worldly as she feels she is, and Mulligan, in her first major role, does keen and sensitive acting to peel back the effects of the schooling the character gets in prizing her own intelligence to a fault.

Jenny may think too highly of herself, but what teenager, especially a smart and studious one, doesn't think she has everything figured out? The naive confidence with which Mulligan plays the part is what makes Jenny's awakening to reality so heartbreaking and what makes her so attractive to David.

Sarsgaard excels as a smooth operator whose words and behavior around Jenny and her family misrepresent his true intentions. One's sixth sense suggests there is something creepy about him, yet he appears perfectly respectable.

While the title of AN EDUCATION refers to the instruction Jenny receives, it applies just as well to the lesson given to her father Jack (Alfred Molina). While suspicious, Jack permits himself to be persuaded by the elegantly enticing David because he believes the stranger can give his daughter social and economic advantages. Molina exudes love for his on-screen daughter and misguidedly acts in what he thinks are her best interests.

In the hands of director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby, Lynn Barber's memoir is treated with a youthful innocence rather than an adult's experience and perhaps jadedness. It's a critical distinction because taking an older view of this story would taint how it is observed and reconciled. AN EDUCATION has sort of an abrupt climax to resolve the question at its center, but overall the cast and crew are graceful in telling this coming-of-age story.

Grade: B+