Take my advice, I’m not using it

(A continuation of the lists of “Good lord, have you not seen that?? you totally should”.)

Films to watch when you’re suffering a broken heart

The End of the Affair – well, obviously. A stunning film starring Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes, complete with a moral dilemma, passion, suffering, loss and a stirring soundtrack.

Brief Encounter – well, maybe if you’re a masochist. They are madly in love, after all. But really – if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s not famous for nothing.

Before Sunset (the sequel to Before Sunrise, which I am less enamoured of). Well, again – maybe if you don’t want to see two people who clearly love each other, this isn’t the time. But if you want a really true, natural depiction of love, attraction and something that shrieks “meant to be!” then this is it. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy make a walk around Paris, non-stop yakking and not a single fight-scene/bomb-blast an unexpectedly riveting 80 minutes.

Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) – utterly appropriate. Roberto Rosselini directed his then-wife Ingrid Bergman in this tale of a couple whose marriage is disintegrating on their trip to Italy – while their own marriage was on the rocks. It’s amazingly true to life, sometimes shocking, upsetting, it may hit a nerve, but at least you won’t feel as though nobody understands what you’re going through.

Closer – why not? Nothing better to shatter any remaining romantic illusions and haul you up by your breeches, slap you round the face and bellow “Snap out of it!”.  Men are bastards – check.  Women are weak – check. Sex can be a devastating tool to hurt people with. Crikey – good acting and a snappy script, though.

Films to avoid when suffering a broken heart

Love, actually – simply because it’s appalling. Undeniably popular and yet I loathe it – except for the devastating Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman story line. In any event, obviously not a film to watch when you’re out of love.

(There are quite a lot more films not to watch when romantically compromised, but the list would be too long and I think people will just have to use their initiative.)

Reality really can bite

Closer

(Yes, spoilers of course – but as the whole film spoils one’s concept of love, who cares??)

I re-watched this piece of urban, middle class, romantic dystopia last night, for the first time since it was in the cinema back in – (quick check on IMDb) – 2004.  And no, I haven’t seen the play.  Though I think one hardly needs to, since Patrick Marber wrote both that and this screenplay, and several moments in the film are decidedly stagey (which is not intended as a criticism of the acting, but the script makes it hard for it not to appear quite theatrical at times).

I remember feeling utterly bummed out when I first saw it, so cruel and superficial were the characters, so selfish their actions, such a pessimistic view of men and women and their attitude to sex, love and fidelity.  So I watched through metaphorical fingers this second time, being recently single myself and decidedly heart-broken, and not really wanting to believe that all men are such bastards.  (As a woman who is not quite as fickle, though nor sadly as beautiful, as Julia Roberts’ Anna, I can reassure myself that the film doesn’t, at least, speak for all women.) 

Somehow, this time round I liked it more.  The characters are still largely loathsome – you start quite liking Clive Owen (if only because he’s not cheating on anybody when he hooks up with Roberts – though the trigger for their encounter doesn’t exactly present him as a paragon of gentlemanly intention), then the rug is pulled with the revelation of his own indiscretion with the “whore” in New York, and his subsequently misogynist and vile interaction with Alice (a superb Natalie Portman) in the strip club.  Similarly, Anna wins us in the beginning as she rebuffs Jude Law’s adulterous advances – but then ricochets back and forth between the two men in a completely unsympathetic and unflatteringly cold portrayal of a woman who doesn’t really know what she wants.  Jude Law’s Dan is a bit of a weak-chinned weasel throughout the film, and yet ends up rejected and alone.  Still, did I think of him kindly as I switched off the telly and went to bed?  No.  He had it coming!

But that’s the story.  And putting the plot aside, as a film I thought this was terrific.  The acting is consistently excellent, and the characters’ delivery of their lines (even those that suggested they were suddenly transported to a West End stage, rather than on a set in Clerkenwell) was punchy, realistic and totally riveting.  All four actors portrayed the darker side of their characters with neither sympathy nor judgement, which is no mean feat when playing people as odious as this.  In managing to keep it real, the audience is swept along with their romantic travails, and still cares about what happens (even if one doesn’t care about the individual him or herself). 

If it doesn’t enhance my view of modern love, and only increases my fear that humans are, at heart, potentially weak-willed and unfaithful, at least it restores my faith in the power of good writing and the well-told story of human frailty.