Someone to Love

Someone to Love (1987)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This film from Henry Jaglom has him playing a director who invites a bunch of people to an old theatre that is about to be demolished. Once there he wants to discuss with everyone the subject of love. Why do we need love? Should we need love? Why are people still single at their age?

I was aware of director Jaglom before I watched this film, which was actually the very first I've seen from him. I've read that he's the type of director that likes to put a personal diary out there on film and that he often hires friends and family members for the roles in his films.

SOMEONE TO LOVE isn't the greatest movie I've ever seen and I wouldn't even call it a good one but it does have a certain feel and look that keeps it mildly entertaining. I do think it would have worked better as a short film or one that lasted around a hour. Clocking in at 108-minutes, the film runs on way too long to keep the viewer completely glued to the stories that people are telling.

The performances are good for the most part and as I said the film has a certain feel and look that makes it fascinating to say the least. Orson Welles, playing himself here, is seen through various clips as he talks about the subject at hand. This here turned out to be his final film appearance so that alone makes the film memorable.

My feeling for Henry Jaglom's movies made in the eighties is most definitely ambivalent. While they are somewhat intriguing, they are also annoying. "Someone to Love" is a prime example. As with other works of his, Jaglom tends to use lovers, friends and acquaintances who are then afforded the opportunity to reveal their psychological makeup in thinly disguised characters. His preferred method is the talking head closeup.

Jaglom was fortunate enough to count Orson Welles as a personal friend, (he named his son after him). In "Someone to Love" Welles is allotted a couple of minutes of riveting screen time. It's only then that the movie really comes to life. The problem is, as always, Jaglom's characters are far less interesting to audiences than they are to him. One finds oneself not really caring too much about their problems in making lasting relationships, the central theme of the movie.

The most praiseworthy aspect of Jaglom's career is that he actually managed to emerge from this lengthy self indulgent phase and began making movies with a far wider scope. ("Last Summer in the Hampton" and "Déjà vu", his finest work to date.) Welles mentions that nobody makes movies like Jaglom. He is right, but that can be construed negatively. While Jaglom is notoriously self indulgent, there is a redeeming honesty and lack of pretentiousness in his artistic motives.

Music enthusiasts (of albeit lesser known performers) will enjoy short interludes performed by Stephen Bishop, Dave Frishberg and Andrea Marcovicci.

In the waning days before the demolition of the Mayfair Music Hall in Santa Monica, California, the brilliant and unconventional director, Henry Jaglom, created this unique film featuring the final screen performance of Orson Welles, and utilizing Jaglom's customary methods of actor improvisation coupled with perceptive editing, with the result being a moving tour de force of romantic sensibility. A gathering of single entertainment types meets by Jaglom's invitation at the theater on Valentine's Day, sharing perceptions of relationship success and failure as the director's powerful sense of angst rises to the surface with the camera being his investigative companion. Acting honors shall go to Sally Kellerman, whose performance explores most deeply of all her self-awareness of vulnerability and emotional need, and to Andrea Marcovicci, who plays a part as Jaglom's current love, and who sings beautifully as well, and as always. Jaglom's output has been remarkable because of his steadfast determination to create genuinely independent cinema and SOMEONE TO LOVE is a prime example of his talent for showcasing a personal point of view in such a manner that it touches upon the universal.

Typical artsy fartsy film in which only a few hardcore fans would enjoy. I'd pass on the whole mess.

If you are an Orson Welles buff, you must see the first few minutes and last few minutes of this film, which are the only times that Welles appears. Welles is seated behind a wall of theater chairs, I'm guessing because the aging and arthritic Welles was becoming increasingly self conscious about his appearance and immobility. Only his head, shoulders and hands are visible. His legendary booming-from-the-heavens voice has become a little crackly, and yet he is energetic and intellectually alive. At the end of the film, Welles engages in an interesting and apparently ad-libbed conversation with Henry Jaglom, the lead actor/director of the movie, in which they ruminate about the end of the movie, and how it relates to the end of life itself. As the credits roll, Jaglom -- no doubt aware that this is the last film appearance of the ailing Welles -- is reluctant to say "cut," but an unusually jovial and even "sweet" Orson Welles booms the word out for him, as though he were eager to wrap things up. But Jaglom *still* can't bring himself to end the film, so an upbeat Welles laughingly shouts out "cut" for a second time. I'm probably not doing justice to this scene with my poor writing skills, but I've watched this ending several times and am haunted by it.

As for the rest of the movie: I suggest watching the first couple of minutes where Orson Wells speaks, then fast-forward through a long and somewhat tedious bedroom scene with Jaglom and Andrea Marcovicci, then watch the rest of the movie, which takes place in an old theater that is scheduled to be demolished. Much of the film is clumsily directed, in an apparent effort to impose Wellesian cutaways and cross-talk into the movie. But there are great moments in the some of the dialogue and interactions actions in that theater. And I was particularly glad to see Sally Kellerman and Andrea Marcovicci, two of the most beautiful, intriguing, and mysterious actresses to come out of the 1970's and 1980's. They are in top form here.

BOTTOM LINE: Come for a few last fascinating moments with Orson Welles, stay for the frequent nuggets of gold in this film that are worth mining for.