The rainy gray weather of the past week kept us inside, and we focused on seeing newly released films, heavy ones with religion at the core, but also the somewhat frothy Book Club. We took the 6 line from 59th Street station down to Bleecker Street and the Angelika Film Center where we saw three of them. I also found time to do a bit of reading.
FILM FARE
This movie is funny and fun, a chick flic for the retirement set. But it isn’t all fluff as there are some poignant moments midst the humor and the sex jokes. And the four stars, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen, are perfectly cast. 
Fonda is a rich single hotel owner, the kind of brittle stylish female she does so well. Keaton is nervous and anxious, a recent widow, who’s being micromanaged by her adult daughters. Bergen is the more sedate, serious one of the group. Divorced 18 years, she’s a federal judge who lives alone with her cat. Steenburgen, a chef, has a recently retired husband who seems to have retired from any and all fun.
When one of their book group selects Fifty Shades of Grey for their next meeting, the fun begins as each woman in her own way shakes up her life or gets it shaken up (see Steenburgen’s flight). Yes, there are men involved, and they provide the spice or the yeast or whatever metaphor you prefer. As in all good romances, there is a happy ending! See it, have fun, and end feeling good or, at least, happy.
Ian McEwan’s novel is short, more of a novella really, and I wondered how it could be turned into a full-length feature film. The answer lies in the fact that McEwan, who wrote the screenplay, expanded the story to continue on from 1962 to scenes in 1975 and 2007.
The rendering of 1962 in all its youthful innocence is spot on as this young couple meets and courts and then marries. They each bring baggage from childhood exacerbated by their difference in social class and compounded by their different expectations. It’s unclear what Edward will do long-term while Flo is committed to a career in music with her string quartet. What results is a wedding night neither would have predicted. The novel ends ambiguously; the film gives us the coda to 1962. It’s beautiful, and at times, painfully sensitive, to watch. Saoirise Ronan and Billy Howle star as the wedded pair.
ASPECTS OF FAITH
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word
This documentary shows the human side of Pope Francis and both his compassion toward those less fortunate and his global concern. It is, however, mostly talking heads, the pope’s primarily, as he and others give speeches and make pronouncements before Congress and at tragic events or situations in many countries. It’s good, but not great and definitely too long. It would have benefited from much editing.
This is a strange and weird movie that combines a troubled hermetic minister with a troubled environmental activist lawbreaker. Set in bleak upstate New York, it is dark, dimly lit, and stark. Reverend Toller, minister at the historic congregationless First Reformed Church, has a job there solely by the grace of the enterprising successful minister at the evangelical Abundant Life church. Abundant Life owns 250 year old First Reformed.
Toller is divorced, grieving and guilty over the death of his soldier son, and berates himself for his perceived shortcomings. He’s called upon to counsel Michael, at the request of Michael’s pregnant wife Mary, who is fearful about her husband’s dark tendencies. How the lives of these three intersect around the issue of climate change and the future of planet Earth makes for a dark, disturbing film. While the critics have accorded it high praise, I did not find it entirely convincing or satisfying. Ethan Hawke stars.
RECENT READING—HISTORICAL AND MYSTERY
White Houses by Amy Bloom
It is accepted knowledge that Eleanor Roosevelt had a very close friendship with journalist and reporter Lorena Hickok. Whether that friendship constituted a physical affair is debated. What Bloom has done in this sensitively written novel is to depict an affair based on Hickok’s reminiscences of their times together. The novel is set over several days in 1945 after the death of FDR and Hickok goes back in time to recount instances in their friendship, a trip she and Eleanor made together, embraces stolen in secluded corners, and her own years of living in the White House.
Reference is made to historical events and, we have Hick’s thoughts on FDR’s affair with Missy LeHand and his relations with other women. We never have Eleanor speaking in her own voice; all is filtered through Hick. It’s a lovely novel and created based on Bloom’s extensive research into nonfiction works, correspondence and the like. (~JWFarrington)
To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear
I have liked some of the Maisie Dobbs better than others and thought some were more fully developed than others. This one I enjoyed very much. The year is 1940 and Maisie is asked to find out why a neighboring family hasn’t heard from their son recently. Joe is working for a painting company and usually calls home weekly. When he turns up dead, Maisie’s investigation takes her deep into the wartime letting of contracts and who shares information that is classified. The secondary characters, Billy Beale and Sandra, her associates, as well as her friend Priscilla and family, all have rich roles in this book. Even the events surrounding the Battle of Dunkirk have a place. (~JWFarrington)
Notes: Images are from the web: Book Club from deadline.com, On Chesil Beach from nytimes.com, and the photo of Roosevelt and Hickok from advocate.com. Header photo by the author.
You have just seen the three films on my list: Book club, On Chesil Beach and Pope Francis. Now I can’t wait to see them.