Three stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather generously, despite blunt sexual candor and sexuality
By Derrick Bang
As a movie, this is an odd
experience.
 |
| The ritual is the same every morning: Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) comes downstairs to a breakfast of two eggs and a single strip of bacon, faithfully provided by his wife, Kay (Meryl Streep). He never talks to her, instead burying his face in the daily newspaper. Her attempts at actual conversation — forget about intimacy — are met with bewildered indifference? And this is a marriage worth saving? |
Vanessa Taylor’s plot is spare to
the point of minimalism: Kay and Arnold, going through the motions of a
loveless marriage, struggle to resurrect the original magic while seeing a
celebrated couples’ counselor.
That’s it.
What this means, in practical
terms, is that we spend nearly all of this 100-minute film watching Kay,
reduced to almost helpless insecurity by years of neglect, as she attempts to
survive her proximity to a grumpy, emotionally abusive husband. Not much fun.
But because these roles are
played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, both superbly adept at subtle
gestures and expressions that speak volumes, the result certainly is more
interesting than would be the case with lesser performers. When speaking of our
finest actors, I’ve occasionally confessed that I’d pay to watch them shop for
groceries, because even that would be fascinating.
Well, at one point Kay and Arnold
do shop for groceries, and Streep and Jones do turn it into a fabulous scene.
No argument.
But the overall result, in sum,
still feels more like an extended acting exercise than a feature-length film.
Matters aren’t helped by director David Frankel’s pacing, which is deliberate
and sluggish. His scene compositions are lackluster to the point of monotony,
and he favors tight-tight-tight close-ups that quickly become tiresome.
We really don’t need to see every
crease in Jones’ craggy features, nor does he need that sort of “cheating” to
help sell a scene.
The story is restricted, almost
entirely, to Kay, Arnold and Dr. Feld (Steve Carell, effectively modulated).
Elisabeth Shue gets one quick scene as a cheerful bartender; Becky Ann Baker
scores twice, as a tart-tongued waitress in a small-town diner; Jean Smart has
two similarly brief moments as Kay’s best friend. The performers who play Kay
and Arnold’s son, daughter and son-in-law register not at all; they’re
practically blank slates during their quick appearances.
So we’re left strictly in the
company of Kay and Arnold, collectively miserable both on their own, and during
their mostly calm, uncomfortable and infrequently tempestuous therapy sessions
with Dr. Feld. Is this enough to sustain a film? Perhaps; viewers sensitive to
the chips and flaws in their own relationships may become emotionally invested
in this journey toward awareness, sensitivity and healing. Others may find Hope Springs to be a yawning bore.
Kay and Arnold, years into their
empty-nesting phase, have drifted so far apart that recovery seems unlikely. From the outside looking in, though, they seem the epitome of the American
dream: a gorgeous house in an Omaha suburb, careers outside the home, grown
children successfully raised. But Kay and Arnold share this house like office
colleagues, not like husband and wife.
Arnold comes downstairs each
morning to an unchanging breakfast of two eggs and bacon; he reads the paper
while Kay, waiting for him to finish before eating herself, watches the weather
channel on her small kitchen TV.
Arnold grabs his suitcase and
clumps off to work, telling her — to the minute — what time he’ll be home.
Every day, we’re led to assume, this routine repeats without variation. I
simply can’t imagine what they do on weekends, when Arnold has no excuse to
leave for eight hours.
They apparently never socialize.
Kay has the one friend, at the upscale clothing store where she works; Arnold
has one amiable colleague — I hesitate to call this guy a friend — at his
office.
Each evening, Kay and Arnold eat
a quiet dinner, sharing no idle chatter, and then he falls asleep watching the
Golf Channel. He retires to a separate bedroom, a habit established — and then
never broken — when he threw out his back years ago, and was forced to sleep
alone for a bit.
Kay occupies the master bedroom
by herself. Attempts at intimacy — we watch her build up the courage for just
such a foray, as the film begins — are met with genuine bewilderment by Arnold.
And that, right there, soon
becomes a problem. Arnold’s behavior is so self-absorbed and anti-social, that
we can’t help wondering why he has slid into such a rut. As we quickly
discover, he’s also an irascible bully, his displeasure with the universe
conveyed in generalized rants — everything costs too much, people are no damn
good, and so forth — that rain like physical blows on poor Kay, causing her to
flinch.
Taylor’s script provides no back
story, which gives us little cause for sympathy as Arnold’s attitude quickly
escalates far past unforgiveable. It’s easy to believe that Kay would be much
better off without him, as she has come to fear; we see the dismayed
resignation in the expressive set of Streep’s features. Surrender is probably
only one more thoughtless snub away.
But Kay still recalls happier
times — we eventually learn of these — and decides that their relationship is
worth fighting for, at least for one more round. She therefore drags Arnold,
bitching all the way, to a week of sessions with Dr. Feld at his quiet office
in bucolic Great Hope Springs, Maine.
These close encounters are raw
and painfully real, with Frankel allowing uncomfortable silences to build to
the point of agony. Our presence, as viewers, feels invasive; the fitful
attempts at actual communication — Arnold radiating hostility — are
shatteringly personal.
Even more intense, later, are Kay
and Arnold’s clumsy efforts at sexual intimacy, depicted to a detailed degree
that mocks this film’s PG-13 rating. It’s difficult to determine who is more
embarrassed: Kay and Arnold, as they flail about, or us, as we witness the
soul-shattering carnage.
But we're definitely invested in
the process, because by this point, Streep and Jones have turned Kay and Arnold
into complex, thoroughly compelling people, despite — indeed, because of — all
their flaws.
We ache for Kay, her self-esteem
buried so deeply that finding it seems beyond her ability. Streep’s hands
flutter, her lips twitch into reflexive, false smiles that represent a game
effort to conceal her shame from the world. Indeed, the fact that Kay does feel
shamed, so frequently, is heartbreaking; this woman has no reason for such an
insecure response.
Streep suppresses the strong,
authoritative personality of so many previous film roles; she turns Kay into
such a fragile, frightened bird that we fear one sharp blow would shatter her,
like glass, into thousands of pieces that never could be put back together.
Jones has a tougher assignment:
to keep Arnold somehow sympathetic — to us — while being such a mean, cranky
curmudgeon. Impressively, Jones succeeds, at least partly, his sour expressions
and slouchy approach to the world — watch how he walks out of a room — both
amusing and subtly intimidating. But I’m not persuaded that Jones allows Arnold
to reveal enough of the kinder, gentler man with whom Kay originally fell in
love.
Much of Arnold’s behavior, and
his snarling diatribes, are held up for ridicule; Jones makes these outbursts
funny, in many cases, because this guy is such a grouch that we can’t help
laughing ... at him, certainly not with him. He’s simply too pathetic for
words.
At other times, though, Arnold’s eruptions
— and Jones’ delivery of same — are inexcusably mean, even scary. Not the
slightest bit amusing.
Jones seethes with fury and
anxiety, the latter surfacing when forced to acknowledge and confront his
feelings during the therapy sessions. This is not a 21st century guy, at one
with his inner self; he’s more a throwback to the Cro-Magnon era, when men
could hunker down in caves and brood in silence.
Taylor deserves credit for the
complexity of her dialogue, and the degree to which it illuminates and informs
Kay and Arnold: depicting inter-personal tragedy while allowing unexpected
bursts of humor. We laugh because we must; it’s essential to find relief amidst
so much emotional catastrophe.
But do I buy where this
angst-ridden journey eventually leads? Absolutely not. Were “Hope Springs” a
stage play — and, more often than not, it feels like one — its tone, atmosphere
and approach would demand an outcome that Frankel and Taylor lack the bravery
to embrace.
Instead, we depart the theater
oddly dissatisfied, wondering if the abrupt resolution — unfolding mostly
during the film’s end credits — has been worth the investment, even allowing
for the mesmerizing, breathtakingly subtle work by Streep and Jones.
Probably not.
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