A beautiful film. Briefly: Streep—I imagine her as a somehow resurrected Sophie, twenty-some years on, the accent dropped, the soul at peace—is a super-successful bakery owner with three kids who falls into bed with her estranged husband at New York’s opulent Park Regent hotel. Later a marijuana trip brings tensions to a head. Baldwin perfects the blank look of haunted desire. The ever-present blackberries and laptops drive it home: we are all a bit technology-obsessed. A very cold night in Brooklyn and my boots, though comfortable, are not warm.
Sometimes, when a character is trying to patch up a sticky situation, trying with rhetoric and pity to win the conciliation of her miffed antagonist, I, in my seat, in the darkened theater, anticipate and provide the hoped-for nod. Literally moving my head—before I catch myself. To concede complication is only a beginning. To unlearn is the great thing.
And who would dare to say, it’s simple. It is as impossible to be here, pierced and unfolding, piercing others where they unfold, as it is impossible that these linked impossibilities—that we—ever come to an end. With the ker-thunk of the main switch before the theater is locked for the night? Or the dimming of the lights signaling the screen’s imminent blaze? The movies are more complicated than life. I thought the son was Zac Efron but it’s actually that hottie from Weeds.
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