A Cooler Climate

I hadn't intended to watch it, but from the beginning I was engrossed. It moved along at a rapid pace with no long gaps in action. I found the characters to be well defined and enchanting. I highly recommend viewing this movie.

What a treat to see Sally Field and Judy Davis appear together in a film that offered them roles to sink their acting teeth into. However they hold the tired old Formulae together in a film dealing with situations in such a way that we can safetly say, "we've seen it all before". But still worth a view just to catch the grande dames in action. It's a cross between "Murphy's Romance" meets "Men Don't Leave". But I still scored it a 9 because of the acting. Love Sally, love Judy.

Always enjoy the acting of Sally Field, (Iris) who plays the role of a woman who is divorced from her husband and he has poisoned the mind of her daughter not to see her or have anything to do with her. Iris seeks employment as a housekeeper in the home of Paula, (Judy Davis) and Paula is always trying to tell Iris just what to do and is rather critical of Iris's behavior which she does not understand. Paula wants Iris to keep an eye on her teenage daughter, Beth, (Carly Pope) who is wild and is rather self destructive and eventually winds up in trouble over in England. There are many twists and turns to this film and eventually Iris and Paula seem to become great friends only because of some tragic circumstances. Sally Field and Judy Davis gave great performances and Beth, Carly Pope gave a great supporting role. Enjoy.

"A Cooler Climate" isn't exactly a film of great brilliance. It's adequate in its execution, not really outstanding in any way. Susan Seidelman is clearly interested in the actors, but doesn't offer much regard to the technical aspects. I watched it for Judy Davis and Sally Field (why else would anyone bother, really?), and they're good enough. But it's possibly two of the least challenging performances I've ever seen from them, all shallow and out on the surface. The music by Patrick Williams is pure cheese, derivative of at least a dozen other similar films. The secondary characters are all cartoons, unconvincing and poorly acted.

This is made-for-TV film at it's least impressive. Normally, it's a low quality I'd never even encounter, but it's the acting talent involved that makes it so disappointing. Never mind with this one.

I've read all the reviews of this film and wonder at some of them. I wonder why people think women's films are somehow exclusive to women, that men would not understand them. I wonder why others think a chick flick is somehow inferior to so called male films.

Women's films represent the most critical event in human relationships. We need to understand dreams, broken dreams, promises, broken promises, aspirations, reduced aspirations, truth between people, lies we tell, moral paths followed, moral paths abandoned, elation, depression, acceptance, rejection, power and pain. That's quite a list to get into about 90 minutes.

This film centers around 2 women who have endured a prickly relationship. Iris (Sally Field) divorced her husband after 26 years of marriage because she was bored with him and had an affair. The film makes clear that she made a mistake in not accepting 1/2 his net worth and alimony. Because she was "stupid", she took job housekeeping for a woman (Paula -- Judy Davis) who was brittle, unfeeling, arrogant, bossy and hopelessly unsympathetic to what Field might be going through (which included debt that would make most of us think of bankruptcy). Iris will endure almost anything except intrusion into her life.

That is the beginning of her introduction to the problems of humanity. Field cares enough about her to become angry and correct her (Paula). The film gently shifts as Iris declares her own needs. Iris begins to distance herself from Paula by developing outside interests, and in so doing strengthens herself to deal with Paula's collapse when her husband leaves her.

Paula must at last face herself, and what she sees is devastatingly destructive in its thoroughness. Her pain consumes her. Iris treats her with compassion, though Paula does not think so. She forces by constant nagging to get Paula out and their friendship such as it is, develops through anger to a deep honesty.

In the end, this film is about failure, about betrayed trust, about ignoring the reality of current circumstances, about getting up off the floor and breathing in and breathing out (as Tom Hanks said), about making the best of what is near us. It does not take divorce and pain to reach that conclusion. It takes only recognition of our own humanity.