O Amor é Estranho

My wife and I were both moved and touched by this sweet sad drama of romance near the end of life's long and winding road. When a couple really complete each other's life it is a joy even when things turn rougher because that very important someone is there, next to you to divide the sorrows and multiply the joys.

But when circumstances beyond their control force them to separate briefly friends and families who offered to help become tested, tried and like most of us will fail at some point.

We are big fans of John Lithgow (we grew up near his home town and he's a local legend) and the great Alfred Molina and Marisa Tomei. The script, direction and performances were all like the music and art used in the film – wonderfully filling in all the colors of life.

As for it being a remake, the great comedy director Leo McCarey (Laurel & Hardy films, the Cary Grant screwball comedy The Awful Truth, An Affair To Remember, etc.) wanted to make a film about the problems of old age. Here is the plot description of Make Way For Tomorrow (1937), "At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. As the days become weeks and then months, everyone gets stretched until they must except being separated permanently and go out for one last fling before saying goodbye forever."

Both films are wonderful dramas that ask us to treat each other with more compassion and civility – and to be prepared for the end.

Leo McCarey was nominated for an Oscar eight times and when he won Best Director in 1937 for The Awful Truth in his acceptance speech he said thank you but it was for the wrong film (meaning he thought he should have won for the more important feature Make Way For Tomorrow.)

I recommend seeing them both and then go and hug everyone you know and cherish while you can.

It doesn't say in the title, but it's not "only" love that is depicted here. And while many issues would have been similar, we get treated to gay love and what that means to the people (friends, family & other relatives or people connected somehow) to our two main characters in this one.

Lithgow and Molina also are elderly. It's not like they play something they are not and it's rich roles they get here. But everyone in the supporting cast is phenomenal too. Most of the things are understated, things are not always spoken or said in a dialog. The acting is so good, that looks are more than sufficient to tell us the story. And even when the dialog does not tell us the what the character is feeling exactly, we always know.

Great script and great drama of married life in a big city. The question is, if you're interested in a story like that ... if you are, you'll love this movie. If not, don't bother watching

OK. We have Ben & George, two gay men in their late 60s/early 70s,who have been together for almost 40 years. So far, so good. Finally they get married and as a result, George is fired and they find themselves having financial trouble, which forces them to sell their apartment and to move in with some friends (George) and some relatives (Ben).

The acting was OK, Ben and George really came across as a devoted couple, genuinely loving each other, and devoted to each other.

The rest was a bunch of nonsense.

Ben and George have been living together for almost 40 years. They do not seem to live the high life, or to be extremely extravagant. They have a nice apartment, comfortable, but not overly luxurious. Even their own wedding party is fairly simple: they did not even order a cab to the ceremony, but tried to find one on the streets. They did not throw a big party, or even have dinner with their friend and family in a restaurant, they just had some drinks at their own home. OK, they went on an expensive honeymoon, but if that is the only extravaganza they allowed themselves over all the years they were together, it is not over the top.

So all in all, they come across like people who have a simple lifestyle, do not overspend and are content with simple things.

Yet, when George is fired, they do not have a penny in the bank. Really? No savings, no insurances, nothing? That seems totally out of character.

But pennyless, they have to resort to moving in with friends/relatives. They do not seem to do any effort to stay together, if even in a single room. Just like that, after 40 years together, they decide to separate. George moves in with some neighbors (young gays), Ben goes to live with relatives (a young couple with a teenage son), where he has to share the room with this boy. Really?

Where did they leave all their stuff, their furniture, the paintings, the books? Did they just sell it all, or what?

Ben lives with those relatives, who seem wealthy enough (he is a businessman, she is a novelist), they have a maid, but they are still living in an apartment the size of a shoebox. Somehow, the only son has bunk beds in his room (why?), where Ben has to sleep. This son also has a friend, Vlad, with whom he spends hours and hours in his room. Why? Nobody knows.

Somehow, Ben, who is a painter, decides to make a picture of this Vlad on the roof top of the building. Why? He does not know this boy, he hardly has spoken to this boy, but somehow this boy Vlad agrees to pose for him. Does this make sense? No. Wouldn't it have made more sense for Ben to paint a picture of his nephew Joey on that roof top, which he than could have presented to the parents as a small "thank you" for taking him in?

In the mean time, George is living with this young gay couple, who are partying all the time, and meets a young guy. They get along very well, and somehow they end up having dinner together and looking at his apartment, which is for rent, as he is leaving for Mexico. Although they seem to have some sort of connection, no sexual attempts are made (really?) while they are alone in that apartment. It is mentioned that the rent is 1400 dollars a month, and somehow George suddenly has the means to pay that amount of money (earlier in the movie, George and Ben where house hunting and could not even afford 600 dollars...).

Than there is that whole issue about Joey and Vlad having stolen French literature books from the library. Really? Teen boys stealing Cyrano de Bergerac and other books like that? It is never explained why or how that ends, so what is the meaning of that?

And there are more issues that made this movie in itself a strange thing, the love between the two main characters was the most logic thing in the whole movie... SO no "Love is strange" here. But the rest was strange as hell.

There is only one thing I didn't like about this film: the title. It's so bland. And it doesn't even have anything to do with what this film is about. It's not about a strange love affair, but about a very normal one.

Apart from that, I liked everything about 'Love is Strange'. It is a film about how people live, love, talk, help each other out, appreciate each other and sometimes work on each other's nerves. Maybe that doesn't sound too exciting, but it's enough to keep on watching, and be moved by what you see.

The film tells the story of an older couple, who are forced to leave their Manhattan apartment after one of them is fired from his teaching position. They temporarily move in with relatives and neighbours, until they have found a new place of their own. The film shows the interaction between civilized and polite people who are all perfectly willing to help each other, but nevertheless are increasingly annoyed by the uneasy situations caused by the arrangement.

Some scenes are funny in an understated way, and make you softly chuckle in your seat. Others are emotional, but never melodramatic. I think the word that best describes the general mood of the picture is 'heartfelt'. The director does a perfect job in balancing the emotions. Some scenes are very elongated and show little action, which gives an intense effect in combination with the wonderful and very prominent soundtrack consisting of piano pieces by Chopin. The music has a special meaning, because it is the music that one of the lead characters teaches his piano pupils.

The couple is gay, but that doesn't really matter. The film could just as well have been about a straight couple, with some minor script changes. But the couple fits in perfectly in the liberal, open minded, intellectual New York circles where the movie is set. (The sort of people who think it's almost impossible to survive in Poughkeepsie when you're used to Manhattan). In fact, those are exactly the same circles Woody Allen prefers for his films, and sometimes 'Love is Strange' reminded me of Allen's best films, like 'Blue Jasmine', minus the usual neurotic behaviour by the lead characters.

LOVE IS STRANGE, a film, unaffectedly directed by Ira Sachs, is so natural and unassuming in its portrayal of relationships that the divide between audience and the characters on the screen disappears; we are directly slipping into their lives with the ease of familiarity. There is a formal beauty to the movie, thanks to the cinematography of Christos Voudouris - the way he captures each space - delineated not only through décor, but through the light which mutates with the atmosphere, very much like a Chardin still-life painting, classic in its grandeur and silence.

The plot revolves around two gay men who have lived together for 39 years and finally get married, a decision that will alter their lives in ways that are unexpected and transforming. We first meet Ben, a seventy-one year old artist, (John Lithgow in a breathtaking performance) and his partner George (Alfred Molina in an equally fine portrayal,) a music teacher in a Catholic school - both excitedly, and nervously preparing for the ceremony and the post- wedding party. From the moment we first view Lithgow and Molina singing a duet together - their voices and theatrics in synch and at odds - tender intimacy is apparent. Ira Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias have created two remarkably gentle and loving individuals, their intimacy and enduring connection, is both understated and powerfully passionate.

The consequences of ultimately legitimizing their union bear witness to the harsh realities that accompany that choice. Soon after the nuptials, George gets fired from his job, and the economic demands of existing in NYC, forced to sell the apartment in order to find more affordable housing, interrupts their former cadence of living. Having no alternative, George and Ben, temporarily separate to move in with friends and relatives till they can find a home of their own. Molina and Lithgow stunningly convey the anguish of living apart and the intense longing of being united again. It is as if one person is sliced in half – going through the motions, but not fully functioning without the other.

LOVE IS STRANGE also references the mysterious corridor of generational diversity - both fractious and enriching. The anxious, rebellious teenager slowly embracing life's uncertainties embodied by Joey, Ben's great-nephew in an excellent performance by Charlie Tahan who is likable, secretive and obnoxious – an eternal artifact of an adolescent's growing awareness of life's promises and aching discomforts. And approaching mid-life, are his parents - Kate (Marisa Tomei - a natural wonder) - a writer trying to meet the demands of motherhood and still do her own work and Elliot (Darren E. Burrows) a father too wrapped up in doing business (supporting the family?) to notice the splintering family dynamic. Tomei's facial expressions convey a woman's inner tug-of-war between being a caregiver and accomplishing her own ambitions, shifting from haggardly frustrated to a luminous empathy, particularly for the growing pains of her son on the cusp of adulthood.

Director Ira Sachs has given us a tone poem to the beauty, delight and fragility of living in a city - New York - dynamic, diverse and constantly changing, echoing the vicissitudes of life as we stumble through our own personal unfolding. A love story that has depth and endurance - delicate and supple, both romantic and mundane, LOVE IS STRANGE is wrenchingly lovely and generous, but also a reminder that nothing is permanent.