Although director Daniel Minahan draws achingly persuasive performances from the five core characters in this bittersweet melodrama, it’s hard to be satisfied with a story that concludes as this one does.
 |
| Lee (Will Poulter, left), his bride-to-be Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and his brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) anticipate an upcoming move to California ... but nothing will work out as planned. |
That said, Minahan and Kass deserve credit for treating gender issues and uncertainty with the same respect and sensitivity that highlight Pufahl’s book.
Events begin in the mid-1950s, as brothers Lee (Will Poulter) and Julius (Jacob Elordi) have returned from Korean War service. They gather in the small-town Kansas house that Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) inherited when her mother died. Lee, having long been sweet on Muriel, proposes; she accepts.
The long-standing plan — driven by Lee — is that the three of them will move to San Diego, get jobs, and make enough money to eventually buy a house; Julius will be welcome in a second bedroom.
However...
As this sequence unfolds, the glances that pass between Muriel and Julius are laden with unspoken intensity: hungry, yearning and forlorn. Edgar-Jones and Elordi’s body movements are flirty; the air drips with sexual tension. The snap assumption, at this early stage, is that Muriel will be torn between the two of them.
But no; things aren’t that simple. For starters, Julius is gay ... but perhaps not entirely. He’s also much too free-spirited for such a conventional life; he’s a thief and card cheat — which Lee has long known — and thus heads to what he imagines will be a more exciting time in Las Vegas.
Yes, this is another story that decisively punctures the surface “wholesomeness” that many people naïvely assume the 1950s represented. Much of what follows takes place within all aspects of the decade’s closeted gay community.
Lee and Muriel duly move into a small San Diego apartment, but she refuses to sell her mother’s house. He gets a factory job; she becomes a waitress in a small diner. In Vegas, having observed what happens to cheaters who get caught, Lee takes a job as a casino “watcher” in the stifling attic above the gaming tables. He and a co-worker, Henry (Diego Calva) closely monitor the action via binoculars through the casino’s two-way ceiling mirrors, and report any “irregularities” to the nattily dressed bouncers.
(This detail is fascinating, before casinos upped their monitoring game ... although it must’ve been physical torture in such an enclosed space, with no air conditioning, during Vegas’ notoriously hot days.)
Julius and Henry begin an intense affair; the latter, impatient to enjoy the “finer things” in life, persistently threatens to end the relationship unless Julius agrees to potentially dangerous schemes that are beyond his comfort zone.
In San Diego, not entirely aware that she’s merely going through the surface motions of a marriage, Muriel eavesdrops on the trainers, bookmakers and ex-jockeys who frequent the diner. She impulsively takes notes one day, then timidly heads to the track, places a bet ... and wins. The rush is euphoric, almost sexual; Edgar-Jones shivers with delight.
Tellingly, Muriel doesn’t share this with Lee ... and she does it again. This secret excites her in a way she cannot experience as a “housewife.”
Minahan and Kass subsequently bounce back and forth between these two storylines, which intersect only fleetingly, via occasional letters and postcards exchanged between Lee and Muriel (their contents read aloud in voiceover).
Lee becomes impatient; it’s taking too long to achieve his dream. He pressures Muriel to sell her mother’s house; she initially balks, and then “surprises” her husband with some of her track winnings, lying that the $3,000 came from selling the Kansas house.
They purchase one of the first completed homes in an outlying, up-and-coming housing development. Muriel meets Sandra (Sasha Calle), who lives alone in a farmhouse adjacent to the development, and makes a little money selling eggs and olives. What should have been a simple transaction once again is laden with flirty sexual tension, in the silences between Muriel and Sandra’s brief sentences.
What follows, although inevitable, develops slowly.
The point of all this is revealed through two comments, the first of which Muriel hears from the luxuriously garbed and coifed Gail (Kat Cunning), during a chance encounter at the track: “We’re all just a hair’s breadth from losing everything ... all the time.”
(This certainly describes our rising concern for both Julius, who could get killed; and Muriel, who could get mugged — or worse — for her track winnings.)
On the other hand, Julius later muses that “Everybody deserves a chance to be happy,” which seems reasonable ... but that’s a difficult goal for people incapable of being honest with themselves.
Lee is a kind, hard-working and regular guy, and he adores Muriel. Poulter plays him as honest and direct, if perhaps too conventional; Lee is content as long as the planned path is followed. Although the subject never comes up, it’s significant that one of their bedrooms has wallpaper appropriate for a nursery. But we grieve for him, as events proceed; he’s perceptive enough to eventually recognize that Muriel isn’t who he imagined.
Poulter’s expression and line delivery, during a climactic conversation/confession Lee has with Muriel, are heartbreaking.
Edgar-Jones has an even tougher challenge. Although Muriel succumbs to hitherto unexplored aspects of her personality and desires, she doesn’t want to hurt Lee. Edgar-Jones’ performance is sublime, her subtle glances and movements revealing what words couldn’t convey. Will Muriel sacrifice newfound delights to keep Lee happy?
Elordi has a similarly complex role. His Julius is a charming rogue, but that’s superficial. He’s actually miserably unhappy, uncertain about what to do next ... or with whom to do it. Elordi radiates wanderlust and excitement, but Julius’ gaze rarely matches his smile.
Calva’s Henry is obviously bad news, too easily allowing impatience to overcome common sense ... or survival. Calle’s Sandra is a carnal, teasing seducer who impishly turns Muriel into a lover ... but expects something in return.
Occasional sequences enhance the story’s atmosphere of uncertainty, none more disconcerting than Julius’ presence amid a crowd of outdoor Vegas partygoers, who cheer and applaud a distant atomic bomb test.
On the other hand, the unexpected presence of a horse, during the third act, is completely baffling. Perhaps Pufahl’s book somehow turned this into a metaphor — acknowledging the title — but it sure doesn’t make any sense here, and the final scene is ridiculous.
Composer Mark Orton’s somber, piano-driven score enhances the atmosphere of despair that hangs over these characters like a shroud.
All things considered, I’d rather have those two hours back.
No comments:
Post a Comment