Sometimes you see an Oscars list, and you’re happy to see not what IS on it, but what isn’t. Some idealistic prognosticators theorized that this buzzy little tennis film called Challengers (2024) would get a bid. After all, its music had won a Golden Globe.
The only thing more annoying than the film, I can safely say, is that music.
I watched the movie out of lethargy. Anora (2024) had just completed, and Challengers started playing. I watched for a bit, idly thinking, “This has to get more interesting.”
Forty-five minutes in, I thought, “No, it really doesn’t” and turned it off.
I turned the movie on again a week later, committed to discovering what others saw in it, and can now say I liked it–the last five minutes, that is. I yawned through every minute of the rest.
So here’s what I saw:
There are some scenes of tennis, in which I had no stake.
There were some characters, so thinly developed I felt nothing for them–not even dislike. They reminded me of the fly that got into my home the other day after surviving the cold. It buzzed here. It buzzed there. No one could say why. I did watch it. I watched Zendaya too. She’s pretty. I liked her clothes. She flitted here; she flitted there. She frowned a lot, sometimes in sunglasses.
There are two other characters. There’s some implication they all want to have sex. The preview suggests that, as does the brief scene it captures. Actually, they don’t. They don’t seem to like anything, including sex. A sandwich is eaten with more relish than they gaze at each other. The sandwich was my second favorite part.
The tennis was at least more active than the characters’ faces. Right when I would wonder, “What is the point of this?” some loud, abrupt, terrible music would come in, but only after a very awkward pause, kind of like an angry teenager turning on speakers full blast to drown out parents, but a teenager unaccustomed to how speakers work. Then the music would go away for no reason, and then come back. Much like my fly. EDM is bad enough at any time, but I’ve never experienced a less artful use of music in any film, at any time. Apparently, this is what wins an original score award at the Golden Globes these days.
And besides the last five minutes, which I did enjoy?
Laura is a curious film. I always think of it as the male gaze on steroids, as we know so little of the heroine apart from the versions we get from the men who surround her: the portrait artist, the boyfriend, the best friend and the cop. All are obsessed with her, and all want their version of the murdered heroine to supersede the others.’
That’s why I chose the film for A Haunting Blogathon: In the Afterlife, hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association. Crime writer James Ellroy once said something about Laura being the ultimate film for cops, and I think he’s right: the victim you only learn of from diaries, from photos, from others’ words. You never quite know who she was.
Surely, it would be easy for those driven to solve a homicide (especially one that remains out of reach) to become possessive about what they know and haunted by what they don’t. (Ellroy, whose mother was murdered, explores his own haunting in My Dark Places, a fascinating read, as is the book that inspired him: Joseph Wambaugh’s true-crime masterpiece, TheOnion Field.)
It’s not hard to imagine becoming enamored with and fascinated by a victim who looks like Gene Tierney. In this particular story, however, the hauntings turn from reasonable to pathological.
What I love about the film is that the versions of Laura these men (and one woman) tell don’t quite add up. Her housekeeper, Bessie (Dorothy Adams), describes Laura as the sweetest lady on earth, and certainly Gene Tierney’s perfect face and that sentimental theme song seem to confirm those impressions.
But would such an angel be best friends with Waldo Lydecker, enjoying his poisonous remarks about her admirer and fellow party guests, as we see her do (in his version of her story, of course)?
Is she really a woman who, as fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) claims, will indulge any visitor, day or night? He has treated his bride-to-be like a doormat. Since he wants to continue to do so, this tenderhearted version of Laura is convenient for him. But Laura does, in fact, dump him, and despite occasional remarks seems little affected by the poor woman (cheater or not) who got killed in her doorway. Not exactly the heart-on-her-sleeve, always-forgiving softie he takes her for.
Of course, Lydecker isn’t wrong in accusing Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), Laura’s most recent admirer, of being a creep. McPherson wants to buy a portrait of her when she’s dead and becomes instantly possessive of her after she returns to life.
Who instantly hits on a stranger (worse than that, assumes she’s already his) while she’s still in shock?
Even if she is vulnerable enough to think she’s in love too, it would be wise and kind to wait–I dunno–48 hours? He also chooses for the moment of his wooing a party during which the following things are happening to his new love:
Her fiancé has basically just said to her, “Yeah, I know you killed my lover, and that’s cool,” after inviting said lover into Laura’s home and into her clothes during the latter’s wedding week.
Someone has just been murdered in Laura’s home, and this cop/admirer has invited people over to it for a gathering before she’d had time to sage it, obsessively clean it, or call a real estate agent to put it on the market.
Her aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), has confessed–casually, I might add–that she’s toyed with murdering Laura herself.
And oh yeah, our heroine is still in grave danger from the best friend who tried to off her.
Our infatuated cop follows up this uproariously fun party by pretending he’s arresting her, ruining her reputation in front of her friends, because he can’t control his feelings without taking her into the police station. Ummm, what?
McPherson is right that Laura has surrounded herself by “dopes”–if by dopes he means a heartless group of friends and lovers, with some sociopathy in the mix. He’s just wrong not to include himself in the description. Andrews is quite handsome and feigns calm (with his trusty toy), so it’s easy to think of this detective as the hero in the beginning, but that impression soon wanes.
Right after returning home and shocking Bessie, Laura says gently, “I’m not a ghost, really,” and then jokes, “Have you ever heard a ghost ask for eggs?” But her claims ring hollow. Though she’s physically in the room, I would argue Laura still is a ghost through no fault of her own. Real/imagined impressions of her haunt her admirers and herself.
Actual men are also looming in her life, refusing to let her be who she wants to be, love whom she wants to love, or take five minutes to recover from life-altering trauma. And then there’s the method her best friend chose to kill her with: buckshot (interesting that Waldo doesn’t even reconsider that method during his second attempt). It’s not bad enough he wants to kill her. He wants to obliterate her.
If I were Laura’s true friend (or her therapist), I’d say, “Hey, honey. It time to hightail it out of town. A transfer overseas would be ideal. Also, you may want to keep that phone number unlisted.”
Episode 2 of the femme fatales season of Nobody Knows Anything is up!! Dangerous Liaisons, a film that pits the dueling wits of Glenn Close and John Malkovitch against each other in a fight over love and power . . . . and also, Keanu Reeves is there, being strangely perfect in eighteenth-century dress. We ask this critical question: Can the femme fatale ever win? (Just why Close didn’t get the Oscar for this is a big mystery.)
The first time you see Van Heflin (Lord Gerald Waring Gaythorne) in A Woman Rebels (1936), his debut role, you do a double take.
I had to look closer, to make sure it was indeed Van Heflin and not Leslie Howard. A word I never thought I’d apply to him is slight. He’s quite slender in it, but it’s not so much his form as his lack of presence–such a strange first impression of a gravely-voiced, burly sailor-turned actor who is riveting as a farmer in Shane, a suffering family man in 3:10 to Yuma, a powerful adventurer in Green Dolphin Street and hero in The Three Musketeers. The actor who would later fairly sing with physicality and gravitas seems so forgettable in his first moments onscreen, even timid. Luckily, he has a promising second act late in the film.
The story begins with Heflin playing the rake who tempts a Victorian heroine, Pamela Thistlewaite (Katharine Hepburn). We don’t see the charm and sex appeal that are so seductive and sinister in The Prowler and charming in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. (It seemed fitting that the repeat scene of his seductions is literally Madame Tussauds wax museum.) Later love interest Thomas Lane (Herbert Marshall) comes across as more attractive than Heflin. Read that sentence again. Yeah, that bad.
But late in the film, Lord Gaythorne returns as a bitter middle-aged man who despises his wife (who is not Pamela). And suddenly, in a lounging jacket of all things, you see it: THERE HE IS.
The slow confidence of Heflin’s stroll. HIs measured way of speaking. His intensity as he describes his hatred of his spouse. There is the compelling actor I fell hard for in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. The always naturalistic performer whose moments onscreen are so believable, visceral and real. The man who isn’t conventionally attractive, yet is so sensual because he’s so confident and alive. The kind of actor he will be is not fully on the screen yet, but you see his promise.
The film itself is not great but ahead of its time, based on a 1930 novel by brave feminist Netta Syrett, who also had feminist artist sisters–or, as they were called then, “new women.” And while everyone around her is lackluster, Katharine Hepburn nails the role.
Pamela has a child out of wedlock, passes it for her sister’s, and then has a stunning career as an outspoken writer/editor speaking out for women’s rights and other issues. In between, she has a funny meet-cute scene with Thomas.
The film and many of the characters (I won’t reveal which) refuse to shame Pamela for her actions, even when her secret threatens her and her daughter’s happiness. The movie falls in the same camp as Hepburn’s other intriguing feminist roles from the 30s, such as Christopher Strong.
The story is unevenly told with some weird plot holes, and you have to suffer through some weak female performances and the aforementioned drags-down-everything Marshall. He doesn’t have quite as sleep-inducing of an effect as George Brent, but close. Sadly, this may be his most charming performance, and yet–look at this expression and tell me you don’t feel like you took a sedative.
You have to wonder with some smoother plotting and better acting around her whether the film could have really been something, as fascinating and unconventional as it was, instead of yet another bomb that got her in box-office-poison trouble. It doesn’t help that Hepburn has zero chemistry with either of her love interests.
Luckily, there’s enough in Hepburn’s performance and the surprises of the story to keep you watching. And to see that beginning of Heflin’s allure is quite fun. You have to love Hepburn recommending Heflin’s casting after seeing him in a play. (And how much would you have liked to have seen them perform on stage together with his version of the Jimmy Stewart character in The Philadelphia Story?) She knew even in the mid-30s what he had in him. Yet another of the thousand reasons to adore the great Kate.
Check out other striking debuts and final acting performances in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Screen Debuts and Last Hurrahs blogathon this week!
I walked into Barbie with sky-high expectations. I had been tracking the career of its co-screenwriter (and Greta Gerwig’s spouse) Noah Baumbach since 1995’s Kicking and Screaming played on my VCR in college. My roommates and I–and my sister–had fallen deeply and completely into lifelong loyalty with him the moment we pressed play. Baumbach GOT us.
Far more than Reality Bites or other Gen X standards, Kicking and Screaming captured my life and my friends’ and siblings’–not in a literal sense, of course, most of us being female and at large state schools. We were certainly not young, privileged men at a small New England college. But in spirit. He got our reluctance to move on with our lives, our fear of door-to-door salespeople, our reluctance to complain to servers, our laziness (putting a sign stating “broken glass” on the floor instead of cleaning a mess up), all our ridiculous rituals we couldn’t break.
I remember the year I paid roommates for their time if I told a bad story or joke, thanks to the film’s influence. I recall my excitement when TheSquid and the Whale (2005) finally showed me others had recognized the writer-director’s brilliance. (Though I don’t think he’s equaled either of those films since; I’m not a huge fan of Marriage Story, for example, and thought Margot at the Wedding cold and half-baked.)
Gerwig won my admiration–though to a lesser extent–with Ladybird and by capturing Little Women‘s Jo so well. She pictured the heroine’s future as Louisa May Alcott would have, had the times she’d lived in been less sexist than they were.
To have THESE TWO creating a funny Barbie movie? I was in–especially with Ryan Gosling starring. I admit I had some apprehension, given Baumbach’s caving to Wes Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Where WAS he in that?)
There is A LOT to like about Barbie: The opening scene is brilliant–& the first half is so funny. “Beach” as Ken’s theme for life and his joy at realizing he’s the beneficiary of the patriarchy are so amazing. The costumes and production design are so well done, and Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie is an inspiration.
But then, there’s that by-the-book speech delivered by America Ferrara and the muddled second half. Until the ending, which I loved, the film lost its focus.
I don’t question the lack of an Oscar nomination for Margot Robbie. Best actor/actress awards rarely go to men or women in comedies. (It’s all about supporting with comedy nods; this year’s two best actor comedy nods are the exception, not the rule, and both men are starring in dramedies, not comedies, like Barbie.) In addition, the male characters in this film are better written and thus the men have better roles, which is hardly surprising, since Noah Baumbach, the better writer of the pair, has been perfecting this kind of arrested-development male (aka, Ken) since Skippy of Kicking and Screaming. (Actually, arrested-development male describes nearly every character in that film.)
I do think–given its innovative spirit and how much it had to offer–Barbie deserved to be in the best picture mix, especially with undeserving films like The Holdovers, Past Lives, and Oppenheimer on the roster.
Did Gerwig deserve an Oscar nomination for director? It depends on how you look at it. If I ask, “Do I think this film, with its muddled second half, deserves a directing Oscar nomination?” I would answer no. But does she deserve it MORE than Christopher Nolan for his poorly developed, uninspiring borefest? You better believe it.
In the end, I realize Gerwig just tried to please too many audiences with Barbie. And given that, I’m grateful for what I got, and for the joy I felt in wearing pink with Barbie-loving peers at the theater (my first theater return post-COVID). But I hope she and her spouse streamline their styles a bit more because what amazing potential that duo has. We’ve seen what they can do (in Barbie) if they get it half-right. Can you imagine what they can accomplish, once they get it right?
For those of you who love both versions of The Thomas Crown Affair (and why wouldn’t you?), it can be tough to determine which of these slick, funny, seductive films is superior. But today I’ll make an attempt. I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments–1999, or 1968?
The crime. This may be an unfair one, as there have been too many good bank robbery movies between 1968 and 1999 for me to give 1968’s crime its due. Still, I preferred the 1999 one–the heaters were such a nifty trick. But both films’ clever capers hold up.
Male leads: Pierce Brosnan is not as attractive as Steve McQueen (who is?). But Brosnan is more convincing as a rich dude who pulls a crime because he’s bored. Also, McQueen’s lack of affect starts to grate after a while. Brosnan oozes charm. That said, McQueen’s laugh when he pulls off his caper is phenomenal.
Female leads: I am a lukewarm Dunaway fan. I like her style, confidence, charisma. I found her mesmerizing in Network and Bonnie and Clyde. I loved her in Columbo. But I disliked her performance in Three Days of the Condor and thought her histrionics in Mommy Dearest insufferable. She fits this role, but Rene Russo just owns her film, and her range is fantastic in it. Russo is also really, really funny. Dunaway has a hard time pulling off humor that isn’t smug.
Music? Love “The Windmills of your Mind” song In both. 10/10.
Sexiest scene: Dance scene (1999) vs. chess scene (1968).
It’s a close one. Generally, I think Russo is sexier than Dunaway–plus thrilling music–and that dress!
That said, I’m not exactly on solid ground saying Russo is sexier in hers.
In terms of male leads, though, I know I’m right: McQueen out-cools Brosnan in every way, and is smoking hot in every scene.
However, I would still argue it’s Brosnan’s sexiest performance.
All told, I have to give it to 1968’s version for sexiest scene. First, because it deserves extra points for making chess seductive. Second, because Brosnan’s delivery of “Do you wanna dance, or do you wanna dance?” hurts me.
Other Characters. No one in the 1968 version is as fun as Dennis Leary or Frankie Faison. But Jack Weston is great at playing a sap.
The Fashion. A tie, I’d say. I prefer Russo’s impossibly luxe wardrobe and killer sunglasses.
I’m not a fan of fur, but that leather outfit in her break-in scene kills me.
Dunaway’s fashion is fantastic in The Thomas Crown Affair too, and those hats are amazing. Plus, the actress always looks like she was born in whatever she wears.
The Script. The writing is better in the 1999 film–though I will admit that many of the best lines are pulled straight from the original. But the characters are more likable and nuanced in the 1999 version. The inclusion of the sailboat crash scene nails Crown’s excesses. The 1999 film is funnier (which I prefer). And Russo’s Catherine is a more powerful feminist (with her smarts and savvy and outplaying everyone) than Dunaway’s Vicki is, though I think they make Catherine too vulnerable in the end.
Editing. I love the clever transitions and cuts in the 1999 remake, but the 1968 version is more streamlined. The 1999 one could use some trimming in the second half.
In-Jokes. Loved Dunaway as the snarky psychiatrist for Brosnan’s Crown. We assume her commentary on porcupines to be from her own experience (from her 1968 caper), right? That’s SUCH a fun twist.
The Ending. 1968 does it for me. It’s poignant, and far more probable than 1999’s.
Because of the script and Russo’s performance, I’d give it to 1999, but it’s a tight one! How about you?
Romeo & Juliet. This guy was in love with another gal last week. This is not a romance for the ages; this is a guy who can’t handle being without a girlfriend. Juliet, why didn’t you hold out for something better?
The Teens of Say Anything. Diane (Ione Skye), I’m sure you’re going to have a great time on your British adventure while your boyfriend, Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack), is hanging out in your apartment watching kickboxing videos all day. I know your daddy, the embezzler, set the bar for men low, but come on.
The Cheaters of Something Borrowed. Hollywood has such a low opinion of us really. We’re asked to get behind Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin), who had sex with her best friend’s fiancé, Dex (Colin Egglesfield). We’re supposed to root for the cheaters’ love to prevail because the betrayed friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson), is vain, and Dex used to like Rachel. Ummm, what??
Heathcliff & Catherine of Wuthering Heights. Ahhh, the sociopath and the narcissist. Now that’s a coupling that we all want to see, right?
TheUnnamed Heroine & Maxim de Winter of Rebecca. So, when you find out your husband killed his ex in a rage, the proper reaction is NOT to feel better (because now you know he didn’t love her). That makes you almost as creepy as he is. I’ve never rooted so hard for a (dead) villain of a story.
Those are five of the least ideal couples that novels, plays, and movies would have us celebrate. I can come up with ten more without trying. Which couples do you find the most laughably awful?
Have you ever wondered why Winona Ryder’s character in Reality Bites has friends? Or why Julia Delpy doesn’t have legions of men following her off the train in Before Sunrise? Or why every person in customer service doesn’t watch Clerks? So have we. Join my friends’ and me for our second series on our podcast, Nobody Knows Anything.
It’s always bothered me that Olivia de Havilland; the passionate, strong-minded, long-lived Hollywood star; is best known for a meek maternal role.
Did she perform it well? Oh yes. She imbued Melanie with incredible strength, empathy, and grit. But to be best known for Gone with the Wind in your obituary isn’t exactly a selling point in 2020. The mawkishness of the role has always annoyed me, especially because Olivia de Havilland is most riveting when she’s hard boiled. (She would have been great in noir.)
This was, after all, not a meek woman, convincingly as she nailed that famous steel magnolia part. This is the actress who sued her studio for extending her contract—and won. (A stupefying victory, given the long list of actresses whose studio fights got them nowhere and killed their careers.) And so I’d like to highlight a few of my favorite roles, which bear no resemblance to Melanie.
The Heiress (1949). I’m not alone here. This film won her an Oscar, an award she richly deserved. She plays a shy, undervalued, vulnerable “spinster” wooed by a handsome man (Montgomery Clift) who is likely after her wealth. Her growing strength as she begins to suspect him and question her father is something to see. Wow.
My Cousin Rachel (1952). A sexually and socially confident, cosmopolitan widow (de Havilland) meets the naïve young cousin/heir (Richard Burton) of her dead husband. At first, he suspects her of murdering her husband, then he falls for her, and then he suspects her again. Did she, or didn’t she? The book version leaves the answer open, the movies less so. The 1952 film itself is a mixed bag, but when it comes to embodying a fascinating heroine, de Havilland knows what she’s doing. (You know I think so when I say Rachel Weisz, whom I love in everything, couldn’t hold a candle to her in the remake.)
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). I love some bonkers Bette Davis-de Havilland banter. Is it as fun as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? No, what could be? But it’s still a blast to watch, thanks in large part to de Havilland’s scheming character.
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938). OK, this is a bit of a sentimental choice, but de Havilland doesn’t play a weakling version of Maid Marian. She’s got some serious spirit, especially for the time this film was made. de Havilland’s stunning beauty in it explains the string of hearts she left in her Hollywood wake. And Errol Flynn’s and her dazzling chemistry, not to mention their ridiculously good looks, reveal why they were paired together so frequently. Plus, the film is just a hoot, with the cast clearly having Ocean’s 11-level fun on the set.
There’s much more to say about de Havilland. This list alone shows her incredible range as an actress. I don’t have the expertise to discuss her recent lawsuit, sister feud, or any of the myriad other topics that make her a compelling subject. I strongly recommend you check out some of my peers’ posts on The Classic Movie Blog Association’s blog roll (see right column). de Havilland has never been one of the stars I follow. Frankly, I find her a bit scary. Intimidating. Hard to know. (About as far from Melanie as it’s possible to be.) But you can’t ever discount her. And when she’s on the screen, you don’t want to watch anyone else.
Do I watch this film in front of others? No. Do I recommend it to others? No. Do I praise it anywhere public? No. Have I watched it many times? Oh yes.
There’s something to be said for that first love story that gets you as a kid. I was quite young when I first saw Somewhere in Time on TV–I have a faint memory of my mother recommending it, but whether I watched it with her, I don’t know. What I do know is that at whatever single-digit age I was when I first viewed this film, it became the MOST ROMANTIC STORY EVER for me.
A man traveling through time for a woman? A woman giving up big stardom for a man? Both of them finding their longer lives without each other worthless in comparison with the time they had together? I mean, what kid wouldn’t swoon? But now, as an adult far more comfortable expressing sarcasm than sentiment, I have to confess: I like it still.
I feel reluctant to share the plot, as anyone reading this probably already knows it, but here it goes: An elderly woman approaches playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) after a party celebrating his first college production. She gives him a pocket watch, saying, “Come back to me,” goes back home, and smiling, dies. In the meantime, Collier moves to Chicago to work on his plays. Eight years later, experiencing writer’s block, he books a room in the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for a night away. The island is near his former college, and its rules forbidding cars give the place an otherworldly quality.
Waiting for the hotel’s restaurant to open, he wanders into one of those little museum nooks in the hotel, documenting the history of the hotel. On the wall is a photo of a breathtaking woman.
Collier, intrigued and quickly becoming obsessed, asks Arthur (Bill Erwin), an elderly hotel employee who spent his youth at the hotel, about her. Collier learns that she was Elise McKenna, a stage star who put on a play in 1912 at the hotel theater. Collier goes to the library to discover more about McKenna and learns she became the old lady who gave him the pocket watch at his play. Through a visit to McKenna’s old caregiver (played by Teresa Wright!!), Collier discovers that the stage actress pored over a book about time travel written by his professor in college. Naturally, Collier hunts him down and discovers the professor once tried self-hypnosis into another time. The professor believes if you have no modern trappings around you, it’s possible to go back, however briefly. Collier, with an early 1900s suit and old coins, begins his attempt. Eventually, he’ll succeed, woo his love, be chased away by her oppressive manager, William Fawcett Robinson (Christopher Plummer), and finally get to be with her in time for her to take the photo that inspired his journey. What happens next, I won’t spoil, but trust me, it doesn’t get any less sentimental.
I found Christopher Reeve’s Richard Collier (what a name!) adorably awkward and smitten. I particularly enjoyed his affectionate treatment of the young version of hotel employee Arthur (Sean Hayden), and his refusal to be embarrassed even though he’s wearing a suit that (in McKenna’s day) is completely out of fashion. He also doesn’t seem to mind that he keeps sleeping in and dirtying up this suit, which must be disgusting by the time he unites with McKenna. But it’s that oblivious, single-minded attention to his lover that is so attractive in the film (though in real life, it would be alarming).
Jane Seymour’s Elise McKenna is stunning. The woman Seymour played was the person I wanted to be as a kid: an artist, accomplished, passionate. I wanted her hair, her clothes, her allure. For years afterward, Jane Seymour was my vision of unattainable beauty, and while my other 80s standards faded with time and/or growing sense and taste, that one didn’t. Because seriously? How ridiculously beautiful is that woman now, much less then?
And Christopher Reeve was so handsome, two years after Superman fame. Just check him out in his period duds:
If fact, it took this most recent viewing of the film for me to even note Christopher Plummer’s shockingly good looks, so distracted was I by the others.
Of course, the best parts of the film are the perfect music choices, just lovely enough to elevate the film: John Barry’s haunting score, and the The 18th variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
I became intrigued about the novel on which the film was based, and learned the early stage actress Maude Adams and her manager/producer, Charles Frohman, were the loose inspiration for McKenna and her manager. Best known now for putting Peter Pan (with Adams in the lead) on the stage, the pair were tremendously successful. She never married. Frohman’s personality is captured sympathetically by Dustin Hoffman in Finding Neverland. The producer comes across as charming, friendly, and well loved in true accounts as well, not as the lonely, bitter figure Plummer portrays in the film; clearly, the cruel figure fit the film’s plot better (though I found myself sympathetic to his annoyance–if not his responses to–Collier’s puppyish behavior this time). I found the real producer’s final brave hours and words on the doomed Lusitania moving.
In more lighthearted research, I learned that the hotel in the film STILL has Somewhere in Timecelebration weekends, that its fan club has a playful quiz on the film. For someone abashed about loving such a sentimental film, I admire this group’s openness. My embarrassment at liking it, however, does make sense too: there’s too much use of slow-mo, some stilted dialogue, and a disturbing approval of the lengths the couple goes to for love at the end of the film.
But Seymour’s sincerity in the role and Reeve’s earnestness and good humor made me love the movie again, despite my reservations. I decided, as before, to dispense with judgment and just live in this world a while. (As with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, when I just accepted the flying as a given.) There is some wistful magic to the couple’s commitment to one another; there is charm in the ease of Collier’s time travel, suggesting their love was destined. The narrative seems to borrow heavily from the film Laura (also with captivatingly sweet music, also with a picture of the heroine that haunts a man) and from Portrait of Jennie, which likewise gets longing right. The actors’ chemistry is perfect; they truly seem in love. Just check out these expressions as they look at one another.
It’s not surprising that the two remained lifelong friends.
And you know, this kind of nostalgic story is never going to lose its appeal. Witness the book and TV series Outlander, winning new audiences into enchantment at the idea of time-crossed lovers as I write.
This blog post is part of The Leap Day blogathon, hosted by Taking Up Room. I love this idea of celebrating February 29th by reflecting on time-confused/unexpected films. Check out the other entries here!
