Love is Strange - Film Review
Posted on: 2015-02-23
Our rating:
This is a film about moments, nuanced character interactions, smart dialogue, observations, life, the fragile thread on which we all hang and how our fortunes can turn in the blink of an eye. It's charged with a beautifully tender heart and soul.
John Lithgow and Alfred Molina share a sublimely unexpected on-screen chemistry in Love is Strange, the beautiful, tender tale that spans the tricky, emotional complexities of friendships, families and lovers.
The story sees erudite, funny artist Ben (Lithgow) and his partner of nearly four decades, music teacher George (Molina), finally tie the knot. Not long after, however, things take a turn for the worse when George is fired from his Catholic school, where the bishop doesn't share such open-minded, liberal views. With Ben not earning and in deteriorating health, the two have to sell their apartment and move elsewhere - Ben with his novelist niece (Marisa Tomei), husband and their son, George with two gay cops.
Patience starts to run thin, however, as the garrulous Ben distracts his niece from finishing her novel while her teenage son Joey (Charlie Tahan) exercises his teenage angst while loathing the fact he has to share his room and lose his privacy.
George, meanwhile, is beginning to feel the strain of sharing an apartment with NYPD's finest who love nothing better than watching endless episodes of Game of Thrones and throwing all night parties. One of the most heart-wrenching scenes hits an emotional crescendo when it all proves too much for George, who walks out, alone in the rain, to walk miles to see Ben and collapses into his arms, in tears and overwrought with sadness. It's powerful, lump-in-the-throat stuff.
Lithgow is an actor who usually hams it up, but as Ben he completely pulls back the reigns and gives a wonderfully honest, emotionally raw portrayal of a man in his twilight years, dealing with old age, the prospect of loneliness and the helplessness of the situation he's been plunged in to.
This is a film about moments, nuanced character interactions, smart dialogue, observations, life, the fragile thread on which we all hang and how our fortunes can turn in the blink of an eye. Director Ira Sachs creates a deceptively simple film that plays out at a leisurely pace, peppered with humour and nice touches on generational differences, and it's all charged with a beautifully tender heart and soul.
4/5
Review by Jamie Caddick for 365Bristol - the leading events and entertainment website for Bristol
Article by:
Born and raised in the suburbs of Swansea, Jimmy moved to Bristol back in 2004 to attend university. Passionate about live music, sport, science and nature, he can usually be found walking his cocker spaniel Baxter at any number of green spots around the city. Call James on 078 9999 3534 or email Editor@365Bristol.com.
