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Here are reviews of a film and a book that let
me down. Sigh!
I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (2015)
Directed by Brett
Haley
Bleeker Street Films,
92 minutes, PG-13
*
I'm a huge Blythe Danner fan. I think she's a way better
actress than her more famous daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, and in her youth she was
more attractive. I was excited to see what sort of role she would play now that
she's 72 (and still striking). Alas, there's very little that's as embarrassing
as presenting elderly people as if they are twenty-somethings with wrinkles,
which is what is done in I'll See You in
My Dreams. It centers on Carol
Petersen (Danner), who has been widowed for twenty years and is bored out of
her mind in sunny California. Her BFFs—Georgina (June Squibb), Sally (Rhea
Perlman), and Rona (Mary Kay Place)—try to convince her to leave her house and
move to their retirement community, but she can't imagine being in such a
place. The death of her beloved dog, Hazel, is the tipping point.
Something—anything—has to happen. She's so desperate that she even goes to a
karaoke bar with Lloyd (Martin Starr) the young, lost guy who cleans her pool,
where she dazzles patrons by reviving her youthful past as a singer. Will this
be a December-April romance? There are creepy suggestions that might happen,
but she begins a new relationship with a man her own age, Bill (the always
delightful Sam Elliott). No spoilers here, but I will say that it doesn't go
where you might expect.
The film is tagged with the line "life can begin at any
age," but that's as deceptive as the film's vague title. Elliott and Banner have
real chemistry together and Danner also has a few poignant scenes with her
daughter Kath (Malin Akerman). These prevent the film from being a total train
wreck, but more cars are derailed than remain on track. There are scenes of smoking
pot, snide cougar jokes, a cringe-worthy speed dating setup, and giggly pleas to
kiss-and-tell. I detest films that infantilize older people by treating them like
post-menopausal teens, and this one gets added to that list. Not even Ms.
Danner can redeem such offensive material.
THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES (2015)
By Alice Hoffman
Simon & Schuster,
369 pages, #145169393591
*
I'm also a fan of Alice Hoffman's novels. By all
indications, I should have loved this one. Its subject matter is a
fictionalized look at Rachel Pomie, the mother of my very favorite
Impressionist painter: Camille Pissaro. Rachel had a very unorthodox life, the
early part of which reminded me of a Judy Collins song with the line, "My
father always promised me/That we would live in France/We'd go boating by the Seine/And
I would learn to dance." Rachel was born and raised on the Danish West Antilles
island of St. Thomas—now one of the US Virgin Islands––and her Jewish merchant
father indulged her dream to one day go to Paris. Life, as they say, had other
plans. Her father's financial troubles led her to become the wife of Isaac
Petit, a much older widower, while she was still in her early twenties. The
marriage came with three young children and in the six years before Isaac died,
Rachel bore three children of her own. She was a widow with six children under her care
by the time she was 29!
The novel delves into marriages of convenience and passion,
as her next connection was a lusty one to Isaac's nephew, Frédéric Manzano. Many
islanders viewed the relationship as scandalous, but she bore four more children, the
next to last of which was Camille. Toss in island experiences such as having a
mixed race best friend and claiming Jewish European heritage (though she was
probably Creole and her own children, including Camille, were forced to attend
all-black schools) in a land full of dark-skinned descendants of slaves, and
you have the elements of high drama.
Alas, I found Hoffman's treatment so dull that I
managed to read just a third of the book before giving up. Hoffman's usual
magical prose disappears in passages that are prosaically descriptive rather
than illuminating. Perhaps the pace quickens when Rachel takes up with Frédéric but I bailed around page 120. The
Marriage of Opposites has been compared to the works of Gabriel García Marquez, but from where I sit, such
praise is badly misplaced. But
hey, not every Camille Pissaro painting was a masterpiece.
Rob Weir
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