Love, Sarah: A scrumptious confection

Love, Sarah (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Not rated, and — aside from brief profanity — suitable for all ages

By Derrick Bang 

Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for a well-crafted foodie movie.

 

Particularly one that involves desserts.

 

Having decided to put their new pastry chef to the test, Mimi (Celia Imrie, left),
Clarissa (Shannon Tarbet, center) and Isabella (Shelley Conn) marvel at the
chocolate masterpiece he has prepared.

Director Eliza Schroeder’s Love Sarah — available via Hulu — is a gentle, low-key relationship drama (definitely not a comedy, despite what IMDB claims) set in London’s Notting Hill district. There’s nothing special or unusual in the script — co-written by Schroeder, Jake Brunger and Mahalia Rimmer — which follows a fairly routine path to an entirely predictable conclusion.

Here in the States, these ingredients probably would generate a puerile melodrama on the Hallmark or Lifetime channel. Happily, Schroeder and her cast are much better than that; the narrative may be conventional, but the execution is charming.

 

The story begins on a happy note that quickly turns tragic. Longtime best friends Sarah (Candice Brown) and Isabella (Shelly Conn) are poised to open their own bakery shop. Bicycling across London with the keys to the empty storefront where Isabella eagerly awaits, Sarah is killed in a traffic accident.

 

The world … stops.

 

Except that it doesn’t; it never does. 

 

Isabella, stuck with a business space she no longer wants anything to do with, despairs over trying to break the lease. Sarah’s 19-year-old daughter, Clarissa (Shannon Tarbet), numbly continues her dance training, all passion drained from her efforts. To make matters even worse, she’s dumped by her callous jerk of a boyfriend, leaving her nowhere to live.

 

In desperation, Clarissa turns to her estranged grandmother, Mimi (Celia Imrie), who — also grieving — welcomes the company.

 

Not long thereafter, having had time to process the situation, Clarissa realizes that they need a pathway out of their heartache. She confronts Mimi and Isabella, insisting that they must continue with the bakery plans. “It’s what Sarah would have wanted,” she implores.

 

But Sarah was to be the baker, Isabella protests. Fine, Clarissa replies, so we’ll hire a pastry chef.

Colette: A not entirely satisfying quest for identity

Colette (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for nudity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Dick Francis’ fans were astonished to discover, in late 1999, that all the novels by the former champion jockey-turned-thriller author had received “substantial input” from his wife, Mary.

When Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley) balks at her husband's demand that
she "ghost" another novel that he can publish under his own name, he locks her in the
study until she begins to produce.

Depending on opinion, said input ranged from research and editing to full-on ghost-writing. I favor the latter theory: Francis’ lone solo effort following Mary’s death on September 9, 2000 — 2006’s Under Orders — was substantially weaker than all that had come before. No surprise, then, that his final four books were collaborations with his son, Felix.

I’ve often thought about Mary Francis, working in absolute secrecy on 38 novels and a baker’s dozen of short stories, over a period of almost four decades. Did she regret being absent from the spotlight that so illuminated her famous husband? Was she amused to know the truth?

Such thoughts resonated anew while watching director/co-scripter Wash Westmoreland’s biographical depiction of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the French novelist known solely by her last name. Her most popular novel, 1944’s Gigi, was made into a French film five years later, and transformed into a 1951 stage production starring newcomer Audrey Hepburn — chosen by Colette herself — and then, of course, the Academy Award-winning 1958 Hollywood musical with Leslie Caron.

But all that came much, much later. Westmoreland’s film — co-scripted by Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz — focuses on the roughly two decades Colette was married to Henry Gauthier-Villars, during which time she produced her first four novels … all of which were published under her husband’s name.

And therein lies the tale.

Colette depicts the creation of the young author as her own entity and (more or less) emancipated woman, although it could be argued that Westmoreland is equally obsessed with her budding bisexuality. The film’s second half spends considerable time with enthusiastic bedroom coupling and Colette’s blossoming relationship with the scandalously “butch” Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf, affectionately known as “Missy.”

(In the press notes, Westmoreland waxes enthusiastically about his “progressive casting philosophy” of hiring trans actors for cisgender roles. Methinks his focus is a bit skewed.)

Even so, we never lose sight of the growing degree to which Colette wishes to control her own literary destiny, and free herself from the invisibility of uncredited authorship.

In this regard — actually, in all respects — the film’s strongest asset is the gifted starring performance by Keira Knightley. She smoothly navigates the transition from naïve country girl to an accomplished sophisticate wholly at ease among the snooty, avant-garde intellectuals with whom her husband socialized.