Today was an "age disparity" double feature.
THE HUMAN STAIN (2003)
Set against the backdrop of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal (hence the title's double entendre) the story opens with a college scandal based on another word with two different meanings. That is to say,
if you're familiar with the slang expression of the word "spook".
While the professor who used the word has a very good case based on common sense, the pressure of political correctness decides that his career as college professor has to be terminated.
Not very cool since he's spent his entire career building up the prestige of said college. Naturally, that itself wouldn't make a genuine racist comment less racist, but that is not the case here.
Or so it seems.
On top of everything, his wife is so upset by the whole thing that she literally dies because of it.
Sometime later, the former professor (Antony Hopkins) befriends a seclusive writer and also begins a romantic relationship with an emotionally scarred and much younger woman (Nicole Kidman).
Initially he contacted the writer to write a revenge-memoir because he felt that the people who voted against him were responsible for his wife's death, but for reasons not stated specifically the project fails to materialise.
The story is interspersed with flashbacks of the younger version of Anthony Hopkins' character and that's when we learn, most bafflingly, that he is in fact a black man with a pale complexion.
This part of the story builds up to a dramatic conclusion while the present day narrative reveals the shocking trauma of Nicole Kidman's character, including a homicidal ex-husband.
Meanwhile, the couple has to deal with the community's disapproval of their May December relationship.
I must say that everything that's happening on screen looks very good to me. Nicole Kidman may not be the most suitable choice for a trailer trash character (to use their own words) but I always like her when she plays "dirty" and she doesn't hold back.
However, to say that there's a lot going on in this story would be the understatement of the year.
There's the story of college controversy and the narrow-minded community, the controversy of the relationship itself, the excruciatingly traumatic past of Kidman's character, and then there's the meatiest part of the white Afro-American man who betrays his heritage for personal gain, and even develops racist feelings against his own race, which retroactively makes the "spook" word controversy interestingly ambiguous.
But this is mostly me reading between the lines, they don't actually do very much with it.
And then at the end the whole story is hijacked by the crazy ex-husband which is actually enjoyable in a FARGO type of twist, but still I feel that the peculiar story of the white black man deserved a much more dramatic payoff.
I think it's a good film about a muddled and ultimately unsatisfying story.
MAY DECEMBER (2023)
I guess it's better not to say too much about the story of this new-ish film so I'll just describe it as a drama with dark and tragic undertones.
And I mean very subtle undertones because nothing is being spelt out.
If this would describe
all of the film then I'd say "fantastic!", but it's also got some satirical undertones that gave the false promise of something slightly more outlandish.
Julianne Moore - who already has a flair for "nouveau camp" - tells her somewhat plump daughter "I'm so proud of you that you're not afraid to show your arms in that dress. You are a modern woman".
And then the daughter, initially ecstatic about her choice, returns to the changing room to try on another dress - with sleeves, of course.
The MAY husband tells his father that it's going to be very quiet now that the children are going to leave their home.
His father comforts him by saying that he'll have more time to focus on other things, to which the non-smoking son responds with ligthing a cigarette, followed by a close-up of the father's ashtray filled to the brim with cigarette butts.
That's not drama that's satire. And there are many more examples.
I don't have anything against satire - on the contrary - but it made me feel as if something was missing here. Something like. for example, the frog rain in MAGNOLIA.
But if I'm willing to overlook that one missing ingredient that could make it look more complete then I'd say this is a very good film. Even the score from the GO-BETWEEN seems to work better in this one.
Long live streaming!