Classic romance today – one funny, one earnest. Two fairly funny-looking heroes. And just for fun…a little poetry.
Film 32: “The Goodbye Girl” (1977)
Written by Neil Simon (“Biloxi Blues,” “The Odd Couple,” “Barefoot in the Park”)
Directed by Herbert Ross (“Footloose,” “Secret of My Success,” “Pennies From Heaven”)
I had to watch the comedy first, of course. Even if it starred Richard Dreyfuss – an actor whose frequent “witty and charming” faces can tire me out, so that I sometimes miss his occasional brilliance.
Neil Simon spent most of the 20th century trying to keep big ideas updated for the modern era – love, patriotism, success. Here he’s drawn two intelligent New Yorkers – single working mom Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) and struggling actor Eliot Garfield (Dreyfuss) – and forces them to share an apartment. I’ll leave the love story for the poem. What really works for me in this movie, though, isn’t the relationship; its issues of commitment and balance and trust (post-divorce and pre-2nd marriage) are honestly explored, but little about it now resonates as new insight (though I’m sure it did at the time).
Me being me, I was riveted by McFadden’s exploration of power as she reinvents herself in the wake of her new attraction. This flick really acts as a time capsule of sexual politics in the 1970s. Can McFadden be sexy and vulnerable and still independent? Does emotional intimacy equal weakness? Should it? Does it have to?
The 1970s being what they were, the answers disappoint me. I feel like the heroine gives in too easily to the notion of her own weakness. She feels abandoned every time Garfield leaves for a bagel, and the self-righteous neediness that squirls in grates my 21st century teeth. It’s not terrible – certainly better and less apologetic than Jane Fonda’s Corie Bratter managed a decade before in Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park.” What actually fascinates me about it is how often “women’s films” revolve around this issue of love versus independence – especially with so many of them being written by men.
Anyway, on to the goofiness.
Film 32: “The Goodbye Girl” (1977)
Written by Neil Simon (“Biloxi Blues,” “The Odd Couple,” “Barefoot in the Park”)
Directed by Herbert Ross (“Footloose,” “Secret of My Success,” “Pennies From Heaven”)
I had to watch the comedy first, of course. Even if it starred Richard Dreyfuss – an actor whose frequent “witty and charming” faces can tire me out, so that I sometimes miss his occasional brilliance.
Neil Simon spent most of the 20th century trying to keep big ideas updated for the modern era – love, patriotism, success. Here he’s drawn two intelligent New Yorkers – single working mom Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) and struggling actor Eliot Garfield (Dreyfuss) – and forces them to share an apartment. I’ll leave the love story for the poem. What really works for me in this movie, though, isn’t the relationship; its issues of commitment and balance and trust (post-divorce and pre-2nd marriage) are honestly explored, but little about it now resonates as new insight (though I’m sure it did at the time).
Me being me, I was riveted by McFadden’s exploration of power as she reinvents herself in the wake of her new attraction. This flick really acts as a time capsule of sexual politics in the 1970s. Can McFadden be sexy and vulnerable and still independent? Does emotional intimacy equal weakness? Should it? Does it have to?
The 1970s being what they were, the answers disappoint me. I feel like the heroine gives in too easily to the notion of her own weakness. She feels abandoned every time Garfield leaves for a bagel, and the self-righteous neediness that squirls in grates my 21st century teeth. It’s not terrible – certainly better and less apologetic than Jane Fonda’s Corie Bratter managed a decade before in Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park.” What actually fascinates me about it is how often “women’s films” revolve around this issue of love versus independence – especially with so many of them being written by men.
Anyway, on to the goofiness.
Modern Romance via “TGG”
No, wait.
Hello, sexy.
No, wait again.
Get out of here.
Hang on.
You’re cute.
You’re hairy.
You’re impossible.
You’re a…a…a man. [spit]
Well, actually, I’m an actor….
Film 33: “Love in the Time of Cholera” (2007)
Adapted by Ronald Harwood (“The Piano”) from the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Directed by Mike Newell (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”)
One of the seminal novels of Magical Realism, on film here for the first time. Producer Scott Steindorf (“Empire Falls”), according to IMDB, courted Marquez for 3 years before obtaining the rights. And I have to say, I’m glad he did.
The off-beat rhythm of Spanish actors speaking English, the goofy Monkees hairdo of Javier Bardem, and the all-arts-flick pacing combined to kill this movie for the critics. Audiences, including me, believed them, as we so often do, and now, per usual, I kick myself for listening.
The movie, had it been filmed in Spanish, might have become florid instead of stilted, magic instead of marooned. Javier Bardem, had he not just won an Oscar for playing a sadistic, steely-eyed killer, might have won us over more quickly as the slump-shouldered, shy lover. But there’s still a lot here to enjoy, provided you’re the type who can enjoy the occasional languid indie film. (Merchant Ivory’s “The Golden Bowl” comes to mind in terms of pacing. No race track, but the car does eventually cross the finish line.)
With the notable exception of Bardem’s aging hero, the movie is gorgeous. (Okay, not ALL of him is unattractive. In fact, some parts are quite the opposite. See poem below.) Old Spanish Colonial buildings from the Columbian location crumble slowly, and rich Edwardian interiors suggest all the pampering a Jane Austen heroine could want or require. And hey, stuff happens, too.
Messenger boy Florentino (Bardem) falls in love with Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) even before he grows a beard, and she reacts to his illicit love letters with appropriate panting. Then mood-killer Daddy-kins (a sinister John Leguizamo) breaks the whole thing up, betting that Fermina can pull richer tail than Florentino.
He’s right. (How annoying.) Doctor Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) wants her, and how. Fermina fights it, but after seeing Florentino again for the first time in a year, and feeling nothing, she accepts Urbino. In a Catholic country without divorce, most men would give up here. Not our Florentino. He decides to wait – for Urbino to die. Then he’ll woo Fermina all over again.
In the meantime, Florentino discovers a new hobby that helps clear his mind of his walking grief. Liev Schreiber makes a too-brief appearance (too brief: not for any cinematic reason, purely personal) at a whorehouse to help our hero along this new path.
What is it? Well, here’s the little ditty that springs to mind.
Clearly Crazy in the Land of Cholera
Bardem buttocks
Old man leer
Waxy mustache and lip sweat –
Irresistible to legions.
Fifty-three virgin years
Waiting for
one woman.
(The other 622,
a pressure valve.)
Old man leer
Waxy mustache and lip sweat –
Irresistible to legions.
Fifty-three virgin years
Waiting for
one woman.
(The other 622,
a pressure valve.)
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1 comment:
Okay, I just have to go on record here---as I have publicly elsewhere---to say that I would do just about anything to do Javier Bardem. But only if I had an entire week to do it. :)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel is so incredible and intense and poetic, there is no way it could possibly translate to screen. I do love the casting of Bardem but Bratt as the doctor? Not at all how I pictured it either time I read it.
But I will add this, too, to la queue, per your review. Yikes. It's getting crowded over there on my Netflix line up.
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