Certified Copy (2010)

Based on the analyses I heard when this film was released 3 years ago, I knew about the enigma surrounding the couple’s relationship going in, but I wish I hadn’t. I’m reasonably (90-95%) sure of what they are to one another, but if I hadn’t known that anyone else had serious questions, maybe my own residual doubts would have been totally eliminated. Maybe the truth would have hit me with a force that could not be denied, giving needed definition to character conduct and motivations, which are now hazy, yet still tantalizing to contemplate.

I’ll draw the puzzle’s outline and then try to lay the pieces in: Elle attends a lecture given by James Miller, an author’s whose book, Certified Copy, intrigued her. James arrives late for his speech, even though he is staying in the hotel where it is being held. Elle arrives still later. Though engrossed, she cannot stay because she’s nagged by her restless, hungry son Julian to leave. She leaves a note and arranges for James to meet her later at her antique shop. He does and they take a drive. While in a café, the restaurant owner assumes that Elle and James are married and Elle does not correct her. She tells James that she’s let the woman think they are husband and wife and he doesn’t seem to mind playing along. However, when they leave the café they seemingly continue to interact as a married couple. Why? There are three possible answers:

1. They really are married and have only pretended to be strangers as some kind of lovers’ experiment.

2. They are not married, but are not strangers either. Perhaps, they have had an affair in the past. Indeed, James might even be the father of Elle’s son.

3. They are strangers who embarked on a game that became all too real.

My take is that #1 is impossible and that the truth lies somewhere between #2 and #3, perhaps a combination of both. At the very least, James and Elle both became aware of each other 5 years earlier in Florence. Whether they connected then or earlier or not until now is open to dispute. For Elle, the question may be academic because the pain of rejection is the same, either way. She was married 15 years ago and has felt increasingly abandoned since, whether James is her husband or a certified copy is immaterial to her feelings. In that sense, we are reminded that a copy may not only replace the original, but can reproduce or double its emotional impact, leaving us with a rather poignant Multiplicity lesson.

James’ lecture starts without him. Most of the attendants are present, although a few seats marked “reserved” are still empty in the front row. The announcer tap dances a bit nervously, mentioning that James is in the hotel, so his tardiness cannot be blamed on traffic. When James arrives, he says the same thing and has no excuse for why he is late. He thanks everyone for being there, noting that he himself would rather be outside.

He’s English and is pleased that his book has received such a good reception in Italy. It’s only fitting because he got the idea for it in Florence, 5 years ago. He mentions in slow (but I don’t think sloppy) Italian that the translator for the Italian version deserves credit for the book’s success there. He says that the subtitle for his book is “Forget the original, just get a good copy,” but the editors were hesitant about that one. People want to believe in the original, as something that is authentic, verified and reliable. Still, he believes that a copy itself has worth, because it leads you to the original and satisfies its value.

Elle comes in around then and takes her seat in the front row next to the man James identified as the translator. She sits in one of the reserved chairs. It is easily to believe she is affiliated with the speaker, based on her positioning. Then, her son enters and prods her, threatening to distract the speaker with his interruption. Elle waves him away to a corner of the room, not to one of the empty "reserved" seats up front, the way she would have done were he the speaker's son. The boy retreats, but continues to be obtrusive, restless, shifting as he stands against the wall, video game in hand. Elle motions for him to crouch down and be still, but motioning his stomach, he relentlessly indicates wants to leave.

She whispers to the man next to her, writes him a note. QUESTION: since she came in a little later, how does she know that this man is connected to James and can get the note to him? Why does she assume the man is with James? The audience knows this, but she presumably wouldn’t, unless she had done her research about James and/or had had prior contact with his announcer/agent.

She lingers at the doorway as James takes a phone call on his mobile. He jokes he missed the admonition to turn off all cell phones. The audience listening in, he tells the caller he will have to talk to them later, he’s in the middle of something. Elle joins in the crowd’s merriment, before reluctantly stepping away.

As she reaches the lobby, her son pulls at her hand to hasten her. She frees herself from his grasp. She stops to buy several Certified Copy books at the register.

She puts them in her car and asks if Julian wants to leave his book bag there too. He does not and she, a bit exasperated, warns him that it is going to get heavy for him. He never heeds her advice. She heads down the street and he trails behind, playing his video game. The fact that he won’t keep up with her is somewhat annoying to me, especially since he impatiently hurried her out of the lecture. Now, he’s taking his time. Of course, I didn’t know that that would be one of the themes in the movie.

She is walking so far ahead that I wonder if he will lose sight of where she’s gone once she turns the corner. He does not. He sees her enter a restaurant. Is it because they’ve gone to this one before and it’s where he expected her to be or is it because he kept an eye on her, even though he seemed to be lazily involved in his video game?

He sits down while she is still at the counter. When she joins him he grills her about what she’s ordered. Did she get the cheeseburger with double cheese? Yes, she did, even though she knows he won’t eat it. And did she order a coke? Yes. She knew what he would want beforehand. She anticipated and filled his order, even the part he'd ask for but won’t consume, will let go to waste.

Based on his nagging, I wonder why she just didn’t give him money and let him go get the food himself. He’s 12 or 13, old enough to go down the street alone. In fact, since she entered the lecture solo and had not reserved a seat for him, I assume she intended for him to wait outside while she listened to James. So, she’s not afraid of being parted from him. Why not give him cash and separate from him or, now that she’s there to pay, why not let him order himself, just to ward off his pesky questions and complaints about what she bought? We soon see that he likes to chide and it irritates her no end, so she should just reduce his opportunity to annoy as much as possible. As they sit facing each other, she tells him he needs to get a haircut. It’s more a complaint than an order. As his mother, couldn’t she force him to get one, I wonder? Refuse to fund his meals and video games if he refuses. She could control & stop some of the things he does that madden, rather than simply respond when irked.

He asks her why she purchased so many copies of a book she doesn’t even like. She denies disliking it. He says she already has the book. But not signed copies, she counters. She’s going to have James autograph them. She says something about the writing annoyed her, but that doesn’t mean she dislikes it. He aks who the copies are for? Marie, Alain . . . he remarks that she hates Alain. So what, she retorts: she’s giving a book she dislikes to someone she dislikes! Oh, so she is admitting that she dislikes it. I suppose I'm taunting her in my head just as much as Julian does.

He needles further. Why did she give the note to his friend (so Julian knows that that man was connected to James as well)? Was she asking James to meet her somewhere to sign the books? That’s why she bought so many copies, to have an excuse to meet him later. No, she couldn’t stay and have James sign them because he, Julian, was insisting that he was hungry and playing his video game, causing a distraction. Julian says she wants to meet with Julian and fall in love with him. That’s why she wrote the note. Interesting, because Julian’s wording indicates not that his mother is attracted to James but that she wants to be. That she wants to make herself feel something that is not yet in bloom. That she’s preparing to manipulate her own feelings. If he thinks that, why would he? Is it something she’s been prone to do before? Does she create a fantasy and then climb into them? Has she done this with men before James?

Elle discards Julian’s cheeky conjecture. She says she wrote the note to meet with James, but not for the reason he thinks. He laughs, getting a kick from unnerving her. He promises he has one more question. When she wrote his name [where did she write it? In the guest book?], why did she just say Julian? “I have a surname,” he teases. “That is too much!” she exclaims angrily, runs from the café, stands outside fuming as he continues sitting at the table, chuckling at her discomfiture.

Of course, he’s such an irritating child that one wants to shake him. On the other hand, she is so easily rattled that you can’t blame him for pushing her buttons for entertainment, any mischievous teen would be so tempted. Moreover, his probing observations are right on target, showing that even though he seems like a disinterested youth on the surface, he watches his mother’s every move and analyzes the meaning behind each one quite cannily, with a perception belying his age and languorous manner.

QUESTION: Why didn’t she leave Julian’s surname? I initially thought it was because, as Julian claimed, she was romantically interested in James and thought him knowing that Julian was her son would be a turn off, especially since he’d presented as rude kid in the lecture hall. In fact, since Julian did not call her “mom” I was unsure at that point whether or not he was her son. If she had wanted to pass him off as a nephew or godson to James, that would have been understandable and I might have believed her. But later, we see that she has no qualms about letting James know she has an obnoxious child. So, that’s not why she concealed the surname. Did she do it because the child bears James’ surname? Did she not want James to know that Julian’s is his from a past fling or that she has passed him off as James’ by putting “Miller” on his birth certificate? Hard to say, but I think Julian would have used the fact that he and the author upon whom his mother was, in his view, crushing shared a last name as an arrow in his arsenal of elder abuse. So, the fact that he didn’t makes me think his and James’ last names are different. Of course, we never learn Julian or Elle’s last name. Since James is clearly a stranger to Julian, if not Elle, option #1, that James and Elle are a role-playing couple, is ruled out in my mind. I don’t think James could even be someone that Elle has been secretly dating recently, because Julian would have had suspicions of the affair and spoken of them, as nosy and precocious as he is.

My tentative conclusion is that Elle was working on the fantasy that she and James were intimates long before the lecture began and she omitted Julian’s surname because it would be a concrete reminder that James was not the boy’s father. At the very least, Julian’s theories suggest that Elle is not currently married. If she was with Julian’s father, would he assume she wanted to fall in love with someone else? If he did, if he thought his mother wanted to have an affair, I can’t imagine it would be a source of such hilarity for him. Of course, I don’t think he’s as carefree about the notion as his laugh suggests, either. As insightful as the boy is, I don’t think he interrupted his mother and pulled her out of the lecture simply because he was hungry. She had a plan and he wanted to thwart it.

We next see her antique shop. James has to descend stairs to enter. It’s below ground, rather bleak. She enters from another room. The shop is usually closed on Sunday, but she has apparently been there, just in case he came. When she left the note for him, she says she didn’t give him a time to come, that way he could arrive whenever he wanted. And, presumably, she was going to remain there the whole day, on the off chance that he’d show. They don’t introduce themselves to each other. Either there’s because they're already acquainted or because the note said it all, explained who she was and why she wanted to meet him. But it’s not clear to the audience.

She says she has pieces at the shop that she thought he might like to see. She can help him shop, find what he wants (but what does he want? Why does she think he wants anything?) He looks around and says it seems they have interests in common. She says no. She just possesses these things as a business. Buys and sales them. She doesn’t collect like he does. He says that antiques don’t really mean a lot to him. He is not a collector. In fact, if something doesn’t fit in with his design, he’ll get rid of it, no matter what it’s value. He said that what he really wants is to get outside. Which is the same thing he said in the lecture. Being inside, closed in, tied down doesn’t suit him, I’m gathering. Strike one. I think this is his first rejection (the first onscreen one at least). She planned to intrigue him with her antiques, to help fulfill his need to acquire. Present her offerings and have him appreciate them. He doesn’t. She calculated wrong. What she thought would interest him doesn’t. Yet, he doesn’t refuse her company. She should take pleasure in that, but she seems mildly irritated with him anyway, even minutes after they’ve, apparently, just met.

She says she has a car and they can go anywhere he wants. He has no plan or destination in mind, just as long as they are back by 9:00 p.m., because that’s when he has to be at the station. She must live above her shop because, as they depart, a woman calls down and asks if she is leaving. She shouts up that she is and doesn’t know when she will be back, but make sure that Julian gets to his private lesson on time. Thus, she doesn’t try to hide Julian’s existence from James.

They climb into the small car and seem cramped for space, narrowly avoiding each other’s arms. He gingerly picks up her high-heeled shoes from the floor of the passenger side and puts them in the back seat. It’s an intimate gesture, bringing him into contact with a feminine part of her wardrobe – those were not business or walking shoes. He seems amused. A husband would not be. A husband would just toss them over his shoulder, without a thought. He would have seen countless pairs like them, along with nylons on the shower curtain. A husband wouldn’t notice.

As they drive along, she asks him to sign the books she’s purchased and begins to discuss the subject matter. Her sister Marie thinks the original is just as good as a copy. She loves costume jewelry. It means as much to her as real gems. The real ones are no more valuable in her eyes. This annoys Elle. Marie is obviously a thorn in her side. She says that Marie’s husband stutters. He says, “M-m-m-marie.” But Marie loves it. Thinks it is beautiful. Maries says she should spell her name like that on her birth certificate, because that’s who she really is. Obviously Elle sees this as a defect in Marie, that she could love, nay even marry, a man that stutters her name. James has a different take. Value is a matter of perception. If you perceive something as an original, then it is. He takes up the book that was dedicated to Marie again. Does Elle mind? No, of course not. He adds more to his inscription. Elle wants it read to her. She demands he do it with such urgency that it’s clear she did mind him writing more. Her need to know what else he’s said is burning. I think she’s going to swerve off the road in agitation.

He says that he’s told Marie that an original and copy are equal in value. Elle is almost angry. Now, she will never be able to reason with Marie after he’s written that! Oh well, she can always give Marie one of the other five books, if she doesn’t want Marie to have that message, James reasons. He says Marie’s view is a very simple one. He only wishes he was simple-minded enough to believe her, that the copy and the original were equals. He wants to, but can’t. I initially think Elle is insulted because he’s, basically, called her sister simple-minded, but that’s not the cause of her objection.

James suggests they just drive and enjoy the scenery, but he wants to say one more thing. Oh, he wants to have the last word, Elle deduces (sounding very much like a long-suffering spouse). No, he didn’t mean it that way. He wasn’t suggesting she should shut up, only that . . . What’s the difference between the Mona Lisa and a copy, if you value the copy as much as the original? Besides, was the original original? First of all, if Leonardo da Vinci had the woman pose in that manner, if he manufactured her smile, by directing it, was it original? Secondly, since he was just painting a replica of the woman herself, then his painting itself was a copy!

Then, is nothing an original in his mind, Elle waspishly asks? Yes, Marie’s husband is an original he says softly. This answer is not comforting to Elle. I suppose the husband is the original because Marie perceives him that way. She’s happy with him even though she could have had better. But what about the way he changed her? Remade the pronunciation of her name, caused it to mean more, even to Marie. Wouldn’t that make Marie the original, I wonder? She’s created anew in his loving eyes.

As for the Marie v. Elle dichotomy, I don’t understand it. Marie thinks a copy is as good as an original, but Elle (though she does not say it) thinks that a copy can be made into the original. What is the difference to her? Marie will take a copy off the rack. Elle will take a copy, she'll just cultivate and manufacture a pedigree for it first. She obviously thinks Marie is settling for something inferior and disapproves, but how would Elle not be settling if she took a replacement in the stead of the true, authentic thing? Perhaps, she thinks that if you create the replacement to be the original that’s better than just accepting a retail store replica. If the copy originates with you, if you designed it custom made, rather than just accepting any substitute that happens along, maybe she thinks that makes all the difference.

She and James were supposed to be driving in silence but a woman gets in Elle’s way and she yells at the traffic stall. It’s almost a way to release the tension between them, to yell at a third party who can’t hear her. I don’t know that the venting helps James, though, it just may increase his perception of her as unreasonably wound up and resentful. We don’t really see the woman who blocked Elle’s way. Generally in the movie, we see other couples who parallel Elle and James, I’m surprised the roadblock is not some alternate version of them as well. Maybe it represents Elle blocking her own way.

They arrive at a museum she wanted to show him. She parks and explains it’s crowded on Sundays. It’s where people come. He seems to think she brought him because it’s a tourist trap, but she says she has something specific to show him. He sees married couples and wonders if she got married there – aha, how does he know that she is married? And why does he think she would take him to the place where she was wed? Before she can respond, her phone rings. It’s her sister. Julian is arguing about going to his private lesson. Elle pleads with Marie to talk to him herself. Julian wants to go somewhere before his lesson, not realizing that even the travel time to his preferred destination will make him late. It will take an hour to get to the other place. Julian has no sense of time, Elle complains to James.

Elle hurries James through the museum, wanting him to see a special piece. A tour guide is explaining it and she wants James to listen. It’s a painting. It was long thought to be the original, revered as such, but just recently the original was found and this was unveiled as a fake. It turns out that someone had the copy made and then buried it, so it could be found there in that region and lend the location, the place where the “original” was found, prestige. Even after the excellent forgery was identified as such, people still come to see it. Still honor it as great art. James has little reaction to the guide’s words or Elle’s attempt to translate them. He backs away from the painting and looks at other artifacts. Elle’s own animation fades away. Strike Two. She says that she thought that the story of the copy would enthrall him, as an example of the point of his book. He says that there are too many examples. They aren’t unique any longer. But, she presses, at least he could have said that this one was special, that he wished he had known about it before he finished his book. Ok, he wishes he had seen it before finishing his book, if it pleases her to hear that. In truth, there are so many instances of copies replacing originals that he wishes he’d known about that he’d never have finished his book if he heeded them all. At this point, he’s weary of the copy examples and ready to move on to another book. She’s disheartened as they leave.

They enter a café. She wanted to ask him something, but cannot remember what it was. He makes fun of her English, what did she "wanted" to ask him? From her manner, I would not know that she was pretending to have trouble remembering, pretending to be casual, except for the fact that he deliberately flusters her. Smiles, as she blushes. She calls him out for teasing her. Ah! She remembers, now. She asks him about the mother and son who gave him the idea to write the book, when he was in Florence five years ago. What did they do that influenced him. It is obvious then that she is talking about herself. So, she and Julian were in Florence five years ago? James saw her there. This is the first time the audience is given a past connection between them. At this point, I don’t know if James always knew she was the woman he saw in Florence or if her embarrassed manner suddenly began to make it clear to him, jogged his memory for the first time. He has never treated her exactly like a stranger. Yet, he’s not been familiar with her either. But they seem to be starting a game he enjoys. Yes, what does she want to know about the woman in Florence or is she asking about the book. What’s her question?

He makes Elle more direct than she wants to be, pretending not to understand her. She has to specify that she wants to know about the woman and boy. She references them, unconvincingly, as if they have no connection to her. He speaks slowly, drawing the story out, heightening her anxiousness. He saw them from his hotel room, walking below every day. The boy must have been about 9 then. The strange thing was that they never walked together. The boy always walked behind. He never tried to keep up with the mother and the mother never waited for him, she would just look back to make sure he was still there occasionally. Near the last day he spent there, he saw them sitting at a fountain. The boy was looking up at a large statue amazed asthe mother told him about it. James could not hear her, but he could tell by the boy’s awed manner that the mother was not telling him that the statue was a copy. That the original was in a museum, not in a public fountain. She led him believe the copy was real.

Elle begins to tear up and James falters. He’s not teasing anymore. He apologizes. He didn’t mean to . . . . “No,” Elle says. It’s just that she wasn’t well then. His phone rings and interrupts them. He takes the call outside. Her words have confirmed that she was the one in Florence with her son. But what does she mean that she was unwell? Was she sick? Recently widowed, maybe? Divorced? Recovering from mental illness, perhaps? We don’t know, but what is important is even then she was letting the copy stand in the place of the original for her son. She created delusion to feed his illusion that the statue was real. She helped his wonder survive by pretending.

As she sits alone at the table, Elle is approached by the waitress who says she can tell that her husband is a good man. How so? Because he’s here with his wife on a Sunday, talking to her as if he’s still interested in what she has to say. Elle says he’s not a good husband. That he’s always away, leaving her to raise their son on her own. He is wrapped up in himself. Even on their wedding day, her uncle wondered why he did not bother to shave and her husband said it’s because he only shaves every other day and his wedding day didn’t fall on the day for shaving. Like Julian’s uncut hair, her husband’s unshaven state is an affront, because it proves that she is secondary to his lifestyle, which will continue as it is, whether or not she is in it. She is not a priority. There commitment is not important enough to make him change his course. She can only be in his life if she accommodates and modes her own desires around the path he is already on. He won’t diverge for her.

The waitress is unmoved by her complaints and still considers him a good husband, simply because he is there. Elle wants to know if women should consider themselves lucky to have a man, even if he doesn’t pay attention to them? The waitress seems to think that man’s mere presence is sufficient and that women shouldn’t ask for more. Are they from around here? Elle tells the waitress that she was in Florence five years ago and then she moved here. QUESTION: Did Elle, a french woman, move to the Tuscany area and open an antique shop precisely because she observed James in Florence, became enamored of him and wanted to start a business that would bring her to his attention somewhere down the line? Did she first began investigating his identity, profession and writings back then and try to make herself into someone who could someday attract him?


Elle is french and they are in Italy, so the waitress wonders why Elle and James speak English to each other. Elle says because James is English. But why doesn’t he speak the same language as his wife and son? She moves to the table to pour Elle’s coffee and her broad back blocks the camera. It’s all we can see. We don’t hear them, but they seem to be talking to each other. Maybe Elle is whispering to the waitress or maybe the waitress is imparting a secret to her. We are not told. But as the waitress pulls away she says, “we won’t tell them,” gesturing to the male diners sitting around them.

James re-enters the café and the waitress asks him about his English. Elle tells him that the waitress mistook them for husband and wife and she didn’t correct her. James doesn’t seem to mind this, perhaps even likes the charade. He asks Elle what she wants him to say to the waitress. She tells him it’s not what she wants him to say. The woman asked a question of him and he should answer. In essence, she’s saying to him that she doesn’t want them to be in a pretense together. She doesn't want to dictate his part in it. She wants him to answer as a husband.

He says that he speaks English and his wife and son do what they want to do. As they leave, Elle is infuriated with this response. At first, I think she is criticizing him for not answering the way a real husband would, but then it’s clear that her critique is being made “in character.” She is a wife, upset that her husband thinks she and their son should live lives separate from his. It’s of no concern to him that they have their own language, that they haven’t had breakfast together in ages, that he doesn’t help with the parenting, that he’s always away on business, that they live in a world that he is not part of, in which he does not want to participate.

Actually, the question of language is a worthy provocation. It's not clear how much italian or french James speaks and understands or what prompts them to switch from one language to another, during discourse. It't not as if words become too complex for him and he changes to English because he's more at ease. He may not always respond, but he doesn't noticeably fumble in comprehending. Is it a power struggle? When they speak in English, is it her bending his will to his and vice versa, when they talk in France? When they avoid italian, are they blocking out third parties? Is it a battle between her French longing, his English immutability and an Italian conversion when they talk to others to integrate with the Tuscan world around them? Their language choices are as much a mystery as their relationship.

The phone rings and she carries on the ruse. It’s her son who says he can’t find something. She tells him where to look, specifies the place he will find it in her office and yells that if it is there and he has not tried to find it, she will kill him. She even extends the phone to James and asks if he wants to try talking to their incorrigible offspring. She is ready to bring Julian into this game. James does not reach for the phone, but he’s not alarmed by the gesture either. He seems willing enough to continue the play, but overwhelmed by it. It’s easy for her to make him the absent parent he says. The comment can have two meanings. Is he, as a husband, saying that it’s easy to blame him for things that aren’t entirely his fault or is he, as an actor, saying that she has unfairly asked him to play the role of bad guy, making it hard for him to respond. She reacts as if the former is true and wonders when is the last time the three of them even had breakfast together.

Julian is just like him, she rages “and both of you are killing me.” At this point, acting or not, we see that she has spoken the truth and is near tears. Julian is tearing her apart by failing to be what she wants in a son, just as his father has failed to be the husband she needed. They make demands and she fulfills them, without getting back anything in return. She’s both pushed away and put upon. Rejected and pulled at. She walks ahead of him on their unspecified path, just as she walked ahead of Julian at the film’s beginning.

Does James keep playing along because with each line of dialogue he’s getting more insight into the shell of her real marriage. Does he offer himself willingly because this game is cathartic for her and he wants to assuage her pain, even if he didn’t cause it? I thought so at one point, but then he’s so often cold that his goal couldn’t possibly be to help her work through real issues. His bouts of aloofness seem to spring from genuine ire. As when he yells that she's making him hate her. In that instant, he does. We know the part he’s playing, but not why. He may be her fake husband, but she’s telling us about her real problems. Conversely, we don’t know enough about James’ life to determine how this marital production is benefitting him. What real life strife is he expressing? Many of his outbursts seem staged and unnatural, as if he’s writing the script, as he speaks. He lacks her spontaneity. So I don’t imagine that he has a partner at home just as maddening as Elle. The phone calls he took at the lecture and café? Was that his love interest? He didn’t seem agitated with her, as Elle is in all her phone calls. Elle sparks him to act out a struggle that he’s already battling elsewhere, but which part is counterfeit? He was late for his own lecture, kept others waiting with impunity. He freely admitted he’d rather be elsewhere. He may have the same problem making a commitment as Elle’s real husband does/did, but it doesn’t seem to be plaguing him with guilt or a need to justify his choices. He plays along with her, but out of what need?

They come upon a building where people are being married (again?) and having their photographs taken. Elle goes in while James sits outside. Again, they don’t arrange their movements. They don’t say, “wait here” or “I want to rest.” Rather like Julian and Elle, they move autonomously of each other. Elle walking ahead, not together. However, this is not necessarily a sign of distance between two people. If you can move apart, but not fear losing each other, not assume you’ve been deserted, not need to look back to assure yourself the other is there, that bespeaks a trust and closeness that bridges relationship voids, rather than comprises them. Clearly, Elle does not agree. She wouldn’t appreciate a Kim Casali comic declaring: “Love is . . . taking each other for granted.”

Elle runs outside to James and begs him to come in to take a picture with a young couple. She’s told them that they were married in that same place 15 years ago today. James declines. Don’t embarrass me. I’ve already promised them, Elle implores, then demands. He’s insistent. He won’t go in. The groom comes out and asks him to pose with them, it would mean so much. James won’t. Finally, the bride entreats him and he softens. I don’t understand this. James’ demeanor does not suggest he has had a happy marriage, even if it has lasted 15 years, so why does this young bride and groom think posing with him will bring them good luck? Why make someone a member of your wedding party against their will? How can that turn out well? For Elle too, James’ reluctance should dampen any symbolic satisfaction she will get from their posing as a couple, celebrating their 15th anniversary. The more he refuses, the less real their game or the more real her true marital collapse. I also don’t know why James is so adamant. I don’t think it’s because they’ve taken the pretense too far. The young couple’s joy depresses him. He doesn’t want to feed their delusion, not the delusion that he’s been married for 15 years, but that it will end happily.

They leave and Elle is somber, disappointed. They pass a statue in a fountain, reminiscent of the fountain he saw her near in Florence. He's dismissive of the structure. It’s not true art he says, but it invokes the same feeling, so it is genuine, no matter it’s origin, she argues. She’s moved by it because of the way the woman rests her head on the man’s shoulder. She admires the reliance she has in his support. Her perception of the statue, doesn’t that make it an original, according to James' rules? No, it's just a romantic notion of hers. He is unswayed, unimpressed. She says she will asks passersby their impressions. Their views will make it art. She goes and talks to a couple. He looks on, uninterested, uncomfortable. He does not head towards them until Elle gestures. She has to push the couple in James’ direction, the older man is on a cane, but if she does not initiate their meeting, it won't happen. James only grudgingly approaches to meet them halfway. The couple have visited this spot many times and are impressed by the statue. Elle wants the woman to tell James why she likes it. She mentions artistic strengths in the sculpture that mean little to Elle. She impatiently tells the woman to repeat what she said earlier. Why does the way the woman’s head resting on the man’s shoulder evoke such a strong response in her? The woman answers that Elle is the one who brought that point up and all the woman did was agree with her that it is inspiring. But still Elle says, no matter who said it first, still the couple's stance is very moving. The couple agrees.

Elle does not seem ashamed that she has been exposed. She was basically feeding the couple lines, to make her point with James. But it doesn’t strike her that her argument is less convincing as a result. The husband says he didn’t get James’ last name. Elle says the last name does not matter, just “James” is fine and James agrees. As with Julian, she doesn’t want to give James’ surname? Why not? To best preserve the fantasy?

The husband pulls James away from the women and says that he doesn’t know what is going on between James and Elle and doesn’t want to know, but he sees how James can make it right. He senses their tension, but not the pretension. He thinks they are really a warring married couple and he has advice for James. He only has to put his hand on Elle’s shoulder. She wants it very much, even if the man does not know why. He assures James that will make everything all right between them.

James tells Elle they have to leave. He is as terse as a real husband would be. As they walk away he puts his hand on her shoulder. It is unclear whether or not the gesture is, indeed, comforting to Elle. At any rate, he tried. He wanted to make her feel better. Wanted to make things right.

At some point, he tells her she reminds him of her son. From where does he remember Julian? When he saw them in Florence? Or at his lecture, for the two minutes the boy was in his presence before pulling Elle out? Either way, if Julian made that much of an impression on him that he remembers the child’s expression and see it in Elle’s face, then somewhere inside he’s as fascinated with her as she with him.

They head towards a restaurant. He snaps at the waiter for a menu, a wine list. The waiter will not be hurried. Elle wants to relax, to enjoy being together. She excuses herself, goes into the restroom puts on earrings (which happen to be in her purse) and lipstick. Returns to the table where James is complaining about the inferior wine. She says, his complaints are baseless. It’s not as good as what she has in France, but is certainly better than English wine. She says that he fell asleep on the eve of their anniversary and it proves that he no longer cares. Her disappointment circles the table. He has gotten nowhere with the waiter and is perturbed. He uses his contrived displeasure with the restaurant to keep a wall between them, but I’m not sure why. I’d say it’s because he was uncomfortable with their game and the real nerves it hits, but when he excuses himself and returns, he is playing with renewed energy and she is acting as if nothing had happened.

She was near tears before, but those evaporated completely and she asks him if he feels better rather cheerily. He says he does and wonders if she remembers when she was commuting from Florence? Yes, she does, the long drive . . . one time he recalls her describing when she was driving their son home and suddenly arms grabbed her from the back seat. There was no one in the car with them. She had actually nodded off and was simply startled back awake. Does she remember? She tries to follow along with his scenario. It’s like they’re doing improv now. She’s not sure where he’s leading with this new line of dialogue. He asks her if she fell asleep at the wheel and endangered their family because she no longer loved him or their son? No, of course not! She fell asleep because she was tired. Exactly. He rests his case. And when he fell asleep on their anniversary, it’s because he was tired too, not because he didn’t love her. You’d think this, essentially a revelation of continued affection, would bring them closer, but she is looking past him. The couple from the church is outside now, at their reception. Small world. Elle is watching their celebration. James wonders if he is blocking her view. He wouldn’t want to keep her from the happy couple. For the first time, he is the one who seems jealous, neglected. Though, I’m not sure if his sarcasm is mocking, spousal role playing, or if he actually feels ignored.

At any rate, they are not destined to share a romantic meal. Fed up with the bad service, James leaves the restaurant and Elle stays behind long enough to motion frantically at the newlywed couple, through the restaurant window. They want her to come outside and join their party. She signs them she has to leave, but congratulations. They don’t hear her. They keep demanding that she come out. I don’t know why she doesn’t go outside to audibly bid them goodbye, since she’s headed out there anyway. Perhaps, it’s just meant to show the division between them and her, an impenetrable glass wall. Maybe she was never who they are, not even 15 years ago, as a new bride.

She and James are walking outside again. There’s an old couple, walking very slowly. The woman bent over, shuffling. The older man guiding her. Elle is touched by the sight. James doesn’t voice his reaction. Depressed? Does the old man have a partner to navigate with through life or a burden to drag along for eternity? Is the idea of being yoked to someone for 40 more years a sad or inspiring one? Whichever, on their journey together, they have now encountered three couples, young, middle-aged and elderly. All reflections.

Elle ducks into a church, without explanation. James waits outside, but then peeks in and finds her kneeling at a pew. He steps out and waits by the door, respecting her privacy. When she emerges they go and sit on the porch. He wants to know why she went in there to pray? She needed to be alone. Before we assume it's because she was overcome, she says she went in to take off her bra. But he saw her kneeling. She removes her bra as proof of why she went in. But why? Why go in the church to do that? She says she felt oppressed. She couldn’t breathe. He says he is sorry. Why? Because she couldn’t breathe, felt weighed down by their drama, her life? Or because he thought she was praying when she wasn’t. But she was. We saw her. Is she covering up, afraid that he might guess what she prayed for? Yet, she doesn’t really hide her other feelings from him, why conceal a prayer?

She says he didn’t notice, but she took off her lipstick and earrings too. He says he did notice. No, she won't be humored. He didn’t see when they went on and didn’t notice when she took them off. He did. He is the husband wanting to assure his wife that he has not stopped caring. He is kinder to her than he has been earlier, more sensitive. Is it because he’s falling himself or is his sense of pity increasing? Does he want her or want not to hurt her, further?

She changes the subject. They were married in the church and honeymooned right around here. Does he remember where? He points out a hotel. No, that’s not the one. His memory is bad he says. He can’t remember which hotel. He will. She heads up the very steps they are sitting on, which lead to a small inn. Again, James’ ignorance of the location is not feigned. He is humoring her, but these memories are hers alone. Option #1 is not viable. He is not her husband. Never was.

She is, as always, ahead of him. She tells the hotel clerk she and her husband honeymooned there 15 years ago and if #9 is vacant, can she have the key? She gets it and runs upstairs. James enters long behind her. The clerk tells him it’s room #9 on the third floor. Why does he assume James won’t remember what room he honeymooned in 15 years ago or what floor it was on? Elle told the clerk and, without James asking, the clerk felt the need to tell James. Is it that most husbands forget? Do only the wives remember?

James ascends the stairs. Slowly. Nothing seems familiar to him and it could also be that he’s in no hurry to get there. Elle is laying on the bed. She has thrown her sweater over a bannister. He moves it. Position it on the prongs of a chair back. Is she too careless for him? Too unrestrained?

She asks if he remembers the view from the window. No. Well look outside, to the left, does that refresh his recollection? No. Well, come to the bed. He can see it from there. He moves to her side. She’s not trying to seduce him. She’s just a wife of many moons who has been displeased all day, but is now pushing the resentment aside and remembering what made her fall in love in the first place. He smelled so good. She can remember his scent vividly. The pillow still smells of him, she says. A pillow that probably wasn’t even there 15 years ago. Has she gone mad? Does James question her sanity or merely rue the depths of her loss?

He gently says she’s more beautiful now than she was then. She caresses his face and finds it’s rough. He hasn’t shaved. “Yes, I only shave every other day.” She laughs. She knows. It’s not a gripe, but an endearment. A fond habit of his, something that ties him to her heart. He reminds her that they must leave, because he has to be back at the station by 9:00 p.m. “J-J-J-James,” she says, making him and what he stands for unique, her own or making herself an original in his eyes, like Marie’s husband is. He moves away. Strike three.

Elle, not stirring, agrees they have to leave. Of course they do. He told her that from the beginning. She stays on the bed. He leaves and enters the bathroom. Stares there. We just see his upper body and he looks into the camera or a bathroom mirror. Is that guilt or regret he sees? Is there a difference? He seems stunned, tired. It’s not initially clear whether he was standing at a urinal or washing his hands at the sink to me. But the water goes on in such a long and steady stream that I have to conclude he was washing his hands. We can see through the window behind his head. Light is fading. There are church bells pealing, rocking back and forth in chime. That must have been what Elle wanted him to remember when she bade him look out. Are they the wedding bells that rang when they married or just the ones that serenaded them on their honeymoon in that room 15 years ago?

The screen fades to black and my take away is that James wanted to give in, to become her husband, the original. It would be so easy to continue to play the game, until it was real. But, as he said of Marie, he’s just not that simple-minded. Even when he wants to believe, when it would be easier to become, he can’t ultimately proceed as if there’s no difference between an original and a certified copy.

Elle, thought you could make your own original. Design and create it. Bury it. Plan it’s discovery. Unearth it as genuine. Give birth to a new original, which will be just as valued as the first, but in the end, she miscalculated James’ interest in her experiment, just as she had at the museum. He wanted to play along, to be what she wanted, who she wanted. But couldn’t. I'm not sure why she needed a copy and yearned to recreate a bad marriage, rather than start a fresh pairing. Meet cute. Why couldn't James, the writer, encounter Elle a divorced reader and have hijinx ensue from there? My only guess as to why this much simpler meeting doesn't happen is that either she is slightly deranged and lives in a fantasy world more complex than it needs to be or she was never married and wants to pass James off to her family and son as the father, fifteen years after the fact. A court registrar will tell you that if the original is missing, a certified copy can be used in its place and stead. Maybe Elle needs a copy, because she got knocked up by a bum she never saw again. There is no original, so she needs to find a stranger around whom she can create a past, a certified copy with the bona fides of the original, but imaginary, man of her dreams.

For whatever reason, though they were together in France, instead of just wooing him then, Elle was plotting for them to come together since Florence, five years earlier. But I’m not sure what James’ role in the plan was. He never reacted to her with surprise and sometimes there was enthusiasm. It wasn’t as though she did anything unexpected or even unwelcome, from his reactions. Part of me thinks they could even have been lovers in Florence or even before. At a very minimum, he must have suspected that she knew he was watching her and her son from his window, as they walked the piazza back then. When he wrote the book and returned to Italy, could it have been without any thought that he would see the woman who inspired it again? What was in the note she wrote for him at the lecture? What were in the words she exchanged with the waitress at the café? Small mysteries. The big question, whether or not they pretended to be strangers, seems to have a clear answer: they were never strangers. Whether they were ever more is inconsequential, since the fallout from their inevitable breakup is very real, even if the relationship wasn’t.

Bridesmaids (2011)

Just getting around to seeing this movie and I'm glad to find it had more to offer than that infamous Bridal Shop/Food Poisoning scene that I'd already heard so much about. I'm not a fan of movies that depend heavily on slap stick, site gags, flatulence and feces.

Luckily, Bridesmaids frequently boasted a dry, subtle humor that was quite pleasant, as when the heroine, Annie's, incredibly vain sex partner unimaginatively jiggles her breast and smugly asks if she could find someone else who could do that for her. Without ever expressly saying that he's bad in bed, Annie's silent reaction gives us one inaudible punchline after the other, before she finally mutters, "Probably." The downplayed moments are so much more enjoyable than the big gags.

Though billed as a Hangover for women, this movie is more thoughtful than that. Their predicaments are more plot driven and less zany. Sometimes, that can be cause for regret. When the movie takes turns that are more romcom than wacky, it can be too predictable or illogically traditional. To start with, Annie is jealous that her best friend since childhood, Lillian, is getting married. Why exactly? Aside from overhearing part of a conversation where a cooing Lillian is telling her fiance, Doug, that she misses him, we don't know anything about her intended that makes her impending marriage seem enviable. All of the bridesmaids Lillian chooses are unhappy in their relationships. Lillian's cousin, Rita, is married with three pubescent sons. Rita says the sex in her marriage hasn't dwindled at all, but her husband hasn't kissed her in 5 years. The boys treat her horribly. Even the 9 year old curses her and their vulgar teenaged hormones cover the entire household in sperm. No reason to want her life.

The youngest bridesmaid is newly engaged, but her fiance only has sex with the lights off, under the covers, after they've both showered. Separately. She's unhappily married long before her wedding and ends up locking disenchanted heterosexual lips with Cousin Rita.

Annie's mother was married, has a nice house and enough free time on her hands that she can attend regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, though she's never had a drink in her life. When she's not in a meeting, she's still rebuking the "whore" who stole her husband years ago. Annie rejects everything her mother stands for. Why desire an ill-advised marriage that might bend her into the same person? If that's what she really wants, her mother could probably help her. She got Annie a job at the jewelry store. She could probably help marry her off to the owner, as well. A marriage that would take Annie "away from all of this" is not out of reach, but it doesn't seem desirable either.

Lillian's newest BFF, Annie's arch rival, Helen, is rich and makes Annie feel horribly inadequate, but aside from her money, Helen's life is no more together than Annie's. Her husband never wants to spend time with her and the stepchildren hate her. Helen eventually confesses this to Annie, but Annie witnessed the stepchildren's spitefulness towards Helen earlier, firsthand. She did not need to be told that the grass on Helen's side was not unrelentingly green.

Lillian's husband works for Helen's. She is marrying into Helen's country club world, but even Annie points out that that's the world she and Lillian always mocked in the past. Annie feels like a loser, but she's attractive. If she played the part and lost her quirks, she could probably infiltrate Helen's world quite easily, but since that wouldn't make her happy, why would she want that? She could find her own "Doug" but that's not what she wants. So, the movie would have made more sense if Annie's emptiness focused on the lack of a life partner, rather than feeling inferior because of the fancy dresses, shower, bachelorette party and wedding that Helen is helping Lillian to achieve. On an emotional level, the movie rings false from the start because Annie only wants what thousands of other women in comedies have wanted, rather than what her unique character traits logicaly suggest she would crave.

Annie owned her own bakery which closed a year ago and she still mourns the loss. She works in a jewelery store, but antagonizes all the shoppers. She feels that she will never make anything of herself and, until now, Lillian was her partner in FML 101. But now, Annie, says Lillian has finally gotten her life back on track. How? By getting engaged? Lillian is still in a dead end job. Will going from dating Doug to marrying him suddenly fulfill her completely? Of course not and Lillian admits as much in the end. The life Lillian is entering into just seems idyllic to Annie from the outside looking in, but even that's not plausible, since even from the outside Doug and Helen's world wouldn't seem to be that enticing for someone who is as off-kilter and unconventional as Annie. She's someone who doesn't fit in, but not someone who couldn't, if she chose. Why is she jealous of someone who is becoming something Annie is not suited to be?

So, the premise is faulty, but the journey to the foreseeable conclusion is an amusing one. Annie meets boy (a persnickety likable cop), loses him and gets him back when she decides she should stop pushing away what's good for her. Yes, she had self-destructive tendencies and leaving them behind is her "happy ending." I just wish the movie did not suggest that coveting the white picket fence -- when you're really the Tom Sawyer, more interested in finding ways to avoid painting it -- is not self-destructive in its own way.

The other thing that bugged me was Lillian's friendship. Annie and Lillian had been together since childhood. When we meet them they're in a park, watching a personal trainer give fitness lessons from behind a tree, because they can't afford to take his class ($12) themselves. Thus, they work out by eavesdropping. Lillian knows that Annie is going through financial hard times. She wasn't doing much better herself. Therefore, when Annie is in the bridal shop trying to avoid having to buy the $800 dress that Helen favors for the bridesmaids, why isn't Lillian helping her and insisting on something less expensive? She says that Annie has so much going on in her life that she may not want to be maid-of-honor, but she never acknowledges that maybe Annie can't AFFORD to be. They get food poisoning at the Brazilian restaurant Annie takes them to, because it was the cheapest one she could find. Even flying coach (while the others are all in first class), Lillian should know that requiring Annie to fly to Las Vegas for her bachelor party (which never takes place and seems to be inserted into the movie just as a nod to the male "Hangover" counterpart) is creating a hardship for her friend, especially since Annie is not only broke, but afraid to fly. For this reason, I don't blame Annie for her plane escapades when she takes the unnamed pills Helena offers her (with Lillian's urging), chases them with Helen's (again offered) glass of scotch and then promptly loses her mind. Of course, everyone around acts to further craze Annie. For some inexplicable reason, when Helen offers to change seats with Annie so that she can sit in first class, the flight attendant tells her that it's against the rules. It's certainly not! While he may not have wanted to have a drunken Annie disturbing his rich passengers, for her to switch seats with someone is not against the rules, just against the plot device!

Under the circumstances, Lillian should not have blamed Annie for the plane shenanigans, but at least there's no angry outburst. Lillian gently tells her friend that it might be best if she not handle the shower. Still, it would have been nice if she acknowledged that everything that had gone wrong before (and actually only two things went wrong) was as caused as much by Annie's lack of funds as by her incompetence. In the end, Lillian admits that Helen caused her to overspend too. The wedding Helen planned for her is far outside of her family's budget. Since this was going on behind the scenes, that's even more reason for Lillian to have shown sympathy for the outspent Annie earlier. Why treat your lifelong friend like a loser just because you're suddenly socializing with people who are out of her financial league? And, since Helen and Annie made no secret of their rivalry for Lillian's affections during a hilarious competition for who could give the most gushing toast, why does Lillian still think charitably of Helen when she's obviously going out of her way to make Annie miserable. If Lillian is this insensitive and oblivious to her pal's feelings, I don't know how they managed to stay close for decades.

Ousted from her bridal shower duties, Annie shows up for the extravaganza that Helen has orchestrated for Lillian. It has a Parisian theme, an idea Helen stole from Annie. Annie's anger builds, then explodes when Helen's gift to Lillian is unveiled: a trip to Paris for the two of them. Annie proceeds to then trash the entire shower, conduct which would be considered a childish stunt for a 5 year old, but actually suggests mental instability from anyone else. That might have been funny in theaters (it wasn't to me watching at home) but it destroyed more in the character than it delivered in mirth.

After that, an angry Lillian invites Annie not to attend the wedding but, naturally, they kiss and make up by the time of the big event. Wilson Phillips, Annie and Lillian's, girlhood idols, provide the reception entertainment while the wedding party performs a choreographed dance, an ending that is more formulaic than heartwarming. Annie and her cop drive off into the sunset or at least off to answer the next 911 call. He's still a stickler for protocol and Annie's still breaking the rules.

In all, the movie boasted enough truly LOL moments that I won't mind when the inevitable sequel comes along.

Les Miserables (2012)

As with a book, when you love a play (i.e. Phantom), the thought of the movie adaptation can seem daunting, if not downright insulting. Fortunately, although I've seen countless productions of Les Miserables, I've never loved any of them. I've never seen the old Les Mis movies. Haven't even considered reading the book, so I only know it from the theater. There, save for Master of the House, I found none of the tunes engaging. The big showstopper, I Dreamed a Dream, lacked contrasting numbers that would make it less cloying; the costumes were drab and the humor offered by the Thenardiers charmed, but did not balance well with the rest of the story. Consequently, as I sat down to view Tom Hooper's film, I felt that my opinion of Victor Hugo's tome had absolutely nothing to lose. What I didn't expect was the much deeper character experience it would bring me.

On the big screen the characters are 20 feet high. You're looking into their eyes, where the emotion is forefront, not obscured by costumes and sets. While the movie starts with widescreen crowd angles, to bring home the sheer number of prisoners oppressed and, later, the necessity and scope of the revolution to end the suffering, we don't get a show of Busby Berkeley pageantry, shot from overhead. Instead, we get very personal views of Jean Valjeans scars, broken body and spirit. Since I couldn't carry a tune if it had handles, I wasn't bothered by anyone's singing and lack thereof. Therefore, no barrier distracted me from Hugo's world. From the movie's first minutes I was lost in Valjean's battle to rein in his rage against the taunting Javert and the world that gave him such undeserved and unbridled power over his fellow men. Valjean's incredible physical strength is what causes Javert to target him. After the lifetime in prison, he still has not been broken. As old and weak as he looks, he can still lift many times his own weight. Javert orders him to lift the french flag, on its heavy wooden staff alone and derives satisfaction when Valjean strains under the burden. Still Valjean succees. Indeed, his brawn after years of bondage is almost miraculous and the fact that they could take Valjean's liberty, but not his spirit rankles Javert. Makes him think that Valjean has not been punished enough or that he, Javert, is lacking in his ability to do so. Even if Jean only has physical strength left, the fact that he hasn't been stripped of everything indicates failure on Javert's, end, an authority greater than his and his government's that still recognizes Valjean as somehow their equal. That's a judgment Javert cannot accept. Any rise of Valjean's lowers Javert. And it's not a mere case of male rivalry. It's moral rivalry. In Javert's mind, there can be no justice on both sides. If Valjean is only slightly right, then everything Javert has ever believed in is completely wrong. Faith in his own course in life is challenged by every step Valjean can still take unbroken.

I'm not sure if aspects of the story meant more to me because of the script and direction or because the world seems to have changed so much, since I last considered the plot. Certainly, the movie centers more on the social injustice and inequality than on the romances that dominated the more frivolous renditions of this tale. Is that because it's influenced by the world we live in today, where the widening class divide calls for a revolt more urgently than it has in the last 50 years? There aren't people dying in the streets and working for slave wages in most of America, but today, the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. the wealth and power commanded by the top 1% (who receive 20% of the nation's income and pay an effective tax rate of 23%) is putting a stranglehold on the masses' ability to survive, in a way that sadly resembles the 19th-century France depicted here.

What's also striking is Javert's self-righteousness. I fought back the urge to call him ruthless, because, although he is, thst term implies a lack of discipline or morals. It is in fact Javert's "morals" that make him so cruel. He prizes right, his right, above humanity. Actually, it's not a question of prioritizing. Humanity and compassion have no part in his life: only honor and pride matter and he thinks God will judge him by the number of stripes he possesses, just as the army does. How much less maddening (and complex) Javert would be, if he were only evil. But he's not a hypocrite using religious as an excuse for his cold, brutality. He truly believes it makes him superior. He's actually a better villain because the hero doesn't vanquish Javert in the end. He controls his own death, using the same standards by which he persecuted so many others to mete out his own punishment.

Moving to Valjean's standards, we watch him regain them. After decades in prison for the crime of trying to feed his starving young nephew, he is angry at the world, the God, who deserted him. If his captors, so much lesser men than the ones they enchained, could commit so much continued wrong with impunity, then there could be no right. Finally freed, he tries to find an honest job, but no one will hire a convict. Even after 19 years in prison, Valjean is still on probation and is supposed to check in regularly with local authorities. This makes him a target, so he tears up the conviction papers he is supposed to keep on him at all times and, basically, becomes a wanted man. He served his time, but in the public's eyes, his sentence should never end and, as if the rich and powerful weren't heartless enough, the downtrodden too are eager to victimize anyone who has less than they. Instead of being brothers in despair, they relieve their own helplessness by subverting anyone weaker. The abused become the abusers. This reality has numbed Valjean and he's become inside the skeleton he looks to be on the outside. He finds unexpected charity at a search and being fed and clothed by the priest. Rather than being overcome with graditude, his first thought is to steal what he can and escape, taking what little security he can, rather than trusting even the rare soul who has shwon him kindess. Authorities catch him with his stolen goods and lusting to cart him back to prison (if he got 20 years for stealing food before -- 14 for the theft and 5 for trying to escape -- he'll surely get 200 years for the silver and valuables he has taken). Captured with the stolen goods, he's taken back to the church, so the priest can help charge him, but to Valjean's surprise the holy man says that he gave Valjean the booty. In fact, he says that Valjean left in such a hurry that he forgot to take his most valuable present of all and the priest adds silver candlesticks to Valjean's bounty. Disappointed that they are losing their prey, the police have to let Valjean go. The priest wants no thanks for saving him. He only wants Valjean to show others the kindness that he was shown.

Years pass and the next time we see Valjean he is the prosperous mayor of a small town. He is also a businessman and employs people in a sewing factory. It's clean and quietly operated, not run under "sweat shop" conditions that were as prevalent then as they remain in some countries today. In the sewing factory, we meet Fantine, a hard-working young seamstress, being plied by the unwanted attentions of the foreman. The other seamstresses are jealous, probably not so much because she's young and pretty, but because she carries herself with class, something they never had -- not even in their youth, something even the foreman recognizes, as he tries to woo rather than intimidate her. One of the seamstresses plays lead bully. Her face is sharp, almost triangular -- a brilliant piece of casting -- as you see the petty nature in her caricature alone, if she never moved or opened her mouth. She spies a slip of paper in Fantine's pocket and moves to grab it. She learns that Fantine is sending money to an illegtimate child and is triumphant. This person who seemed good and virginal is no better than they are -- if that's what having a child out of wedlock proves. They tussle as Fantine tries to grab the paper back. When the foreman catches them tussling, the woman blames it on Fantine and quickly informs her of the girl's secret baby. He is soon resentful too. How dare Fantine have pretended to be too good for him, when she was no innocent. Of course, the fact that she'd had sex before doesn't mean that she wasn't too good for him, but that's nothing her detractors would let themselves admit. Only by dragging someone down to your level can you convince yourself it's not so bad being there.

Valjean hears the ruckus and asks what is happening. He believes the foreman who blames it all on Fantine and allows him to fire her, but cautions him to take the kindest course possible, an order that falls on deaf ears. fantine is thrown out onto the street without money and sells her hair, teeth and, against her will, her body to gain enough money to keep sending to the innkeepers who mind her daughter. She only became pregnant because she trusted the wrong man. He made love to her, spent a summer by her side, took her childhood in his stride, but by the autumn he was gone. And his betrayal is a gift that keeps on giving, because it's due to discovery of the child he gave her that she's now without a job and living on the street, used first by him and then by everyone.

Meanwhile, Javert is in town with his troops. He is obsequious when he meets the mayor, but when he sees the older man lift a cart singlehandedly to rescue a pinned man, he is reminded of Valjean and begins to suspect that the mayor and the convict are one in the same.

In the street, Valjean encounters the fallen Fantine, now a prostitute. She tells him that he is the one who sent her out onto the street to meet this fate. Stricken, he wants to do all that he can to help her. He has her taken to a hospital and promises to look after her daughter, as she dies. Ironically, Javert recognizes Valjean as much for his compassion as for his brute strength and he resents him as much for the former as the latter. He is about to bring Valjean in to court when he is told that the "real" Valjean has already been arrested. They found the prisoner elsewhere. Javert apologizes profusely to Valjean for having identified the wrong man. He thinks he should be punished, stripped of his uniform, even jailed, for his mistake. It's the first of many times that Valjean (frustratingly) foregoes the opportunity to rid himself of Javert for good. Hey Val, you don't rise above your enemy by becoming him, it's true, but the audience wouldn't mind a little vengeance now and then!

Valjean wrestles with himself. He's doing a lot of good in his community, as both mayor and employer. If this stranger goes to prison in his place, one life will be ruined, but many more will be saved through Valjean's ministrations. Surely the needs of the many outweigh the life of one wrongly accused man. But in the end he recognizes the slippery slope behind such knowledge and turns himself in. So unused to holding one of their own accountable for anything, Valjean's peers at the courthouse can more easily believe he's gone insane and needs medical care than that he's really an escaped convict. But he's ready to go to prison, he only asks that Javert let him go and help Fantine's orphaned child first. Javert, of course, refuses. Having cleared the man who had been arrested in his place, Valjean runs off. He finds Fantine's daughter, Cosette, being mistreated at an inn run by Thenardier and his wife. She's used as a workhorse, while their own daughter, Eponine is coddled. Even though they were being paid to keep her, they are the wicked stepmother and sisters to Cosette's Cinderella. Valjean finds the half-clothed girl out in the cold drawing water from a well in service to the Thernadiers. Valjean has to pay off the greedy foster parents to take her. Sasha Baron Cohen is one of my least favorite people and I'm so weary of the Burton-ruined Helena Bonham Carter playing the same nutty shrew in movie after moody(Sweeney Todd, Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland)that it pains me to say how truly entertaining they were in their innkeeper roles.

On the run with Cosette, Valjean has found in her a reason to live. Fast forward to years later when we see a prosperous Valjean and Cosette, now a beautiful young women, giving money to the poor. Cosette quickly catches the eye of a young revolutionist, Marius and she returns his open adoration, but before they can connect, Javert identifies Valjean and they are on the run again. As Valjean hastily packs up their belongings, it's heartwarming to see that after all these years he still carries the silver candlestick given to him by the priest who helped him find redemption so many years ago. Cosette demands answers from her adopted father. What is his secret. Why must they always run? Why can't she ever make friends? We see the extravagant doll Valjean bought her when they met, when all she had at the Thenardiers' was a dingy, cloth bundle that she pretended was a doll. Considering the lavish life she has been given since then and the way her clothing and furnishings reflect Valjean's unbounded devotion to her, her rather ungrateful demands are a little annoying, but kids will be kids.

We learn that Eponine is in love with Marius. He fights for the revolution and most of his comrades are poor, but he hails from a rich family himself. He rejects those like his grandfather, chauffered in a horse and carriage, while those on the street outside are shoeless. Forsaking his heritage, Marius has a room in a humble inn. He used to frolic with Eponine there, but now that he's seen Cosette he has eyes for no one else. We know her parents are as avaricious as ever, but haven't seen Eponine grow up. Was she as selfish and conniving as them until her love for Marius changed her? One can't say, but realizing that Marius loves Cosette she screams out and warns Valjean when her father tries to capture them for a reward from Javert. Thenardier slaps her angrily. He may have spoiled her as a child, but she means nothing to her parents now. Still, she is able to give what she has never received. Although Valjean is good, the people who surround him are so grasping, cynical and manipulative that Eponine's selflessness is truly touching. When Valjean escapes with Cosette, Eponine hides a note that would tell Marius where they have gone. But she dresses as a boy and follows Marius into battle against the regime when many of the townspeople hide behind the walls of their home and won't save the lives of the young men who fight for their freedom. Eponine then throws herself in front of Marius in the heat of the fight, sacrificing her own life for his. As she dies, she gives him the note which will lead him to his beloved Cosette. He has the grace not to toss her aside to read it, but instead holds her, singing words of love to her as she dies, knowing they aren't true, but finding the only comfort she needs in the end.

Realizing that Cosette loves Marius, I half expected to want to hustle her out of the country all the faster, afraid of losing her perhaps. But he looks for the young man who has taken his daughter's heart. He finds him on the battleground (actually a narrow village pathway where the rebels have taken their stand, a wall of broken household furniture and debris the only barrier between them and certain death) and sees him risking his life to fight the government and uphold the values that Valjean himself believes in. The fighters are woefully outnumbered and their makeshift weapons cannot match the military's equipment, but their passion is as great as the government's callousness, making the uprise more successful than you (or France's army) would have predicted.

Javert tries to infiltrate the group of revolutionaries and is uncovered as an imposter. They chain him up. Valjean lets the others thing he will kill Javert, but instead frees his nemesis. When they fight, Javert reveals that he too is from the streets. He is a match for Valjean's physical prowess. And this idea that they have more in common than we knew brings more insight into Javert's need to break Valjean. If he doesn't, maybe he has not risen as far above his hated beginnings as he needs to believe he has. He seems to think that poverty is the shame, the crime itself, more than the misdemeanors the poor commit to stave off their hunger and despearate plights. If you're born poor, you've already transgressed, are presumed guilty. In Javert's world and in ours, poverty is the original sin.

His pardon is worse than a death blow. Javert does not want mercy or life, if it is given to him by Valjean. He wants his former prisoner to know that this doesn't change things. He will still capture or kill Valjean, as soon as he's given another chance. That knowledge doesn't change Valjean's decision to let Javert live. At this point, since Javert can lead his men right to Marius' small army, by letting him go I think that Valjean has compromised them, in a way that's almost treacherous. It has nothing to do with taking the higher moral ground any longer. You don't condemn innocent men, but you don't free guilty ones at the expense of the innocent either. He has bent so far over backwards not to let hate overtake him, that he's giving Javert's hate an opportunity to overtake others. He's gone from rising above sin, to committing another type, in my book.

Meanwhile, back at war, Valjean pulls Marius to safety, as the rest of the men (boys, really) in his group of fighters are blown away. He puts Marius on his back and swims through the sewers to elude government troops. Thenardier sees him and, as always, takes note, in case he can profit from it in the future. Suddenly, Valjean encounters Javert in the sewers. He pleads with Javert to let him take Marius to safety, then he will turn himself in, as soon as he's helped the boy. This is the same promise that Valjean offered by Fantine's deathbed. He was willing to go to jail, as soon as he'd rescured Cosette. Javert didn't accept the bargain then, but he hesitates this time, softened because Valjean has so recently preserved Javert's own life. Valjean gets away while Javert is frozen, uncertain, worst, empathizing. Javert hates himself for the lapse. He goes to the place where all the young revolutionaries died. Their bodies all lined up in a row. They deserved it. Most did. But he sees a child's corpse among the other. A precocious boy who fingered Javert as an undercover government officer. A lad who was already unafraid to die helping those he loved. Javert places a medal on the child's dead body. Once again, he sees that these people aren't simply lawbreakers. They aren't immoral. Indeed, they're as uber moral as he. They believe in their cause as much as he does.

Later, he walks on the same bridge where he vowed to capture Valjean, because Valjean walked in darkness while Javert -- he told himself -- trod the way of the lord, the only way. On that bridge again, Javert scorns Valjean's pity. How dare the man wrest him from death? They have nothing in common. If they do ... there are fates worse than death. He did not kill Valjean when he had the chance. He betrayed his government, everything he believed in, everything he depended upon to differentiate himself from those he mastered. Once the divide between them started to crumble, so does Javert. He can't be good in God's eyes, unless he's better. If he's like Valjean, then he's worthless, not because he tormented someone who should have had the same rights as he did, but because, ultimately, he couldn't any longer. He throws himself off the bridge plunging to his death.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Marius feels survivor's guilt for having lived when all of his peers perished. He remembers them all and the way they celebrated together. Now all that's left are empty chairs at empty tables. The memory of the hopes they made together. Marius is at home now. His grandfather's mansion. One wonders why, if he feels so guilty, he's no longer quibbling about being in the lap of luxury while others are still suffering. Cosette is by his side and they are to be married. He sees Valjean packing to steal away and wonders why he is leaving when it will devastate Cosette. Valjean tells Marius about his past as a prisoner. Instead of saying that it doesn't matter Marius looks kind of sad, but silently watches Valjean go with a, "you're right. Your leaving is the best thing, 'cause me and Cosie would be super embarassed if the truth about you came out," attitude.

Later the Thenardiers crash Marius and Cosette's wedding and looking to be paid off for keeping quiet, reveal that Thenardier saw Valjean carrying a man through the sewers on his back. Thenardier has the unknown man's ring to prove it. Marius recognizes the ring as his own and realizes that Valjean carried him away from the bloody battleground, keeping him alive. Then, he has a sudden change of heart and he and Cosette run to the church (the same one where the priest set Valjean on a new path, with his fortune in stolen goods) where Valjean has been hiding and tell, without explaining Valjean's past to Cosette, tells her that they owe Valjean everything. Well, whether or not Valjean was Marius' savior, just the fact that he was Cosette's loving father should have been enough to keep Marius from letting him go. Apparently it wasn't. But now he's had a change of heart and it's a short-lived group hug for the new little family, just before Valjean's head droops in death.

Then, a ghostly Fantine comes to join Valjean in death. I find this a bit mawkish, since she and Valjean had no real connection in life. It's not like Rose and Jack reunited on the lost Titanic, because they were soulmates. Valjean and Fantine were not. But the final scene with the dead revolutionists, even the little boy, reappearing, singing joyfully, still fighting for equality and waving the flag that symbolizes a better day is inspiring. They still dream a dream.

This movie made me understand and feel the story in a way that the play never did.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Even though Guy Ritchie's and Steven Moffat's versions of Sherlock Holmes take place in different eras, with different characters (perhaps possessing different sexual orientations), they complement each other nicely. Viewing one series informs and enhances my perception of the other. They share humor, irreverence, the illuminating Watson/Holmes bond, and direction that lets you visualize Holmes' vaunted brilliance by giving it physical form, when his thoughts come to action on the screen.

Of course, Robert Downey's Holmes is practically a derelict, teetering on the edge of insanity and self-destruction. One begins to feel that his drug reliance does not stimulate his thought, so much as restrain it, slowing down hyper brain function that might otherwise immobilize him.

Professor James Moriarty plans to secure his fortune by causing a World War which will increase demand for the guns and ammunition in which he has heavily invested. Sherlock only stumbles onto this plot by following his paramour, Irene Adler around town as she delivers nefarious packages.

When she is killed, I hardly believe the death is real and expect her to turn up again any moment. She doesn't, but there's always the next film! Sherlock represses his reaction to her death, but Moriarty taunts him about it and threatens Watson's life as well. In a rare somber moment, Holmes tells Moriarty that giving his own life to stop Moriarty's would not only be an easy option, but a welcome one. In imparting this, one feels that it's not only that Holmes would gladly die to avenge Irene, but that part of him wants out anyway.

Watson's been away for awhile and returns on the eve of his wedding, ready for his Bachelor party fete, but Sherlock seems to have forgotten about the whole thing. He fakes it, taking Watson to a night club where he can investigate a band of gypsy rebels who may be participating in an assassination plot that will lead to the international incident Moriarty hopes will start a war. Sherlock brings his brother Mycroft along for the ride.

Watson sees that none of his friends have been invited to the Bachelor Party (and he indignantly assures Holmes that he has many) and that it's all been a ruse. Abandoned, he enjoys himself at the gaming table and winds up plastered. Sherlock, the best and, on this occasion, better man gets the wildly inebriated Watson to the church on time and the wedding proceeds. The two are set to spend their honeymoon night on a train, but learning that Watson is one of Moriarty's targets, Holmes boards the train disguised as a woman, pushes an untrusting Mary off of the speeding vehicle (she is snagged in the water below by Mycroft who has been stationed to collect her there) and enlists Watson's agreement to help bring Moriarty to justice.

We later see Mary and Mycroft working together on the bureaucratic, less bloody, side to bring Moriarty down, while Holmes and Watson traispe through the woods on horseback (which is easier for some than for Sherlock) with their gypsy allies to find the would be political assassin whose murder of a prime minister would wreak world havoc. In one funny bit Watson is first aggrieved when the gypsies steal a scarf Mary knitted for him, but later when they're all friendly and they offer him the scarf back, he waves it away and says it suits the gypsy better. Is this his way of rejecting the sedentary life marriage will offer him?

Watson is where I wish Ritchie's Sherlock was more like the BBC's, because we don't get the character insight needed. I can't complain that this movie devolves into action at the expense of interaction. The character dialogue and exchanges still remain at the heart of the movie and I don't need the void at the core of Sherlock's life laid out for me. But I would like more insight into Watson's motivations.

Why does he become so sloshed he can hardly stand? It doesn't seem like just a groom's normal "cold feet." What's he running away from? Is he questioning the institution of marriage or his choice as a bride. Is he because he craves the adventure he finds at Holmes' side and feel part failure for not pursuing it?

If so, this is not a case of a man, pressured by convention to "settle" for the conventional life, even though he lusts for danger, because despite her prim demeanor his intended, Mary, has proven that she is open-minded enough to support her husband's investigative endeavors and capable enough to assist them. She may be affronted by Holmes' rudeness, but is not threatened by Watson's allegiance to him. If Watson has pulled away from his partner, it's not at Mary's urging. Maybe he feels inferior, thinks he lacks the brain or brawn to keep up. Or, like Sherlock vocerifously resents Watson's marriage, maybe Watson feels the same about Sherlock's madness. Sherlock loves Watson and would preserve his friend's life at all costs, but not his own. He never stints his risk for the sake of those who care about him. And it's one thing when Sherlock undertakes peril to save others, but often he does it on a lark. Sometimes his goals are alturistic, but more often he's just reckless for its own sake. Sherlock's got a death wish and maybe Watson put distance between them, not because he doesn't want to be there when it all ends, but because it all has to. His loyal friendship isn't enough for Sherlock, but his love is enough for Mary. So, that's the path he takes, because he's never a full companion on Sherlock's.

This is driven home in a pivotal scene at the end of a showdown between Sherlock and Moriarty. The two men are struggling. Sherlock, whose arm is injured, has already played out the entire fight scenario already in his head. He knows that he is too weak to physically conquer Moriarty. If Moriarty lives after Sherlock perishes, Holmes fears not only for the world, but more importantly, for Watson and Mary's lives, which Moriarty has threatened. He determiness that the only way to kill Moriarty is to sacrifice himself. He has positioned himself over a railing, while clutching Moriarty as Watson enters the room. They lock eyes, then Holmes methodically pulls himself over the railing, taking Moriarty with him, the two men plunge miles down through swirling snow, into the abyss of Switzerland mountains. At that point, Watson knew not only that Sherlock had, effectively committed suicide, but that he'd done it knowing Watson was feet away and could have helped him defeat Moriarty. We can assume that Sherlock thought it best that he and Moriarty both certainly die, rather than Watson die in an attempt to kill Moriarty. But from Watson's perspective, Sherlock killed himself, without cause, willingly leaving behind someone who desperately values Sherlock's survival to witness the devastating moment. Maybe Watson doesn't choose a life of investigative work with Sherlock, because he doesn't believe that Sherlock would ever choose a life with him, over the need to indulge his demons.

The dulling look in Watson's eyes as he sees Sherlock's death fall is more poignant for its lack of shock or anguish. Watson cries in, not out, as if himself frozen in the snow that has enveloped Holmes.

Watson attends Sherlock's funeral and is penning his obituary on a manual typewriter. "The End" he concludes. Mary brings him a package. He opens it to find a small oxygen tank, one he last saw in Mycroft's home, where Sherlock was harshly admonished to put it down. Smiling, Watson realizes that Sherlock must have had the tank with him when he fell to his "death". Using it, his friend somehow survived (so he didn't die from lack of oxygen, but who knows why he didn't freeze to death, lost in the icy alps). Watson, suddenly lighthearted, leaves the room to ask Mary who delivered the package.

When he leaves Holmes, who has disguised himself as a chair in the room (!) comes to ulphostered life and moves to Watson's typewriter, placing a merry question mark after Watson's final words: The End?

A funny, clever ending. We don't see the heartwarming reunion because: (1) the script floats too lightly to do such emotion justice, and (2) in Holmes and Watson's story, as in real life, the deeper the relationship, the more impossible, and unnecessary, it is to fully articulate.

Black Swan (2010)

Having not seen this movie until now, considering the critical praise it won, I was surprised at how silly was.

Certainly, Natalie Portman conveyed ballerina Nina's every nervous tick with pained realism and she deserved her Oscar, but the plot was stupid.

Maybe I'm not up on my Odile history, but I thought the black swan was aggressive, sexual, seductive, not simply crazy as a loon. So, this whole idea of Nina literally turning into the black swan eluded me. If she had increasingly become more like Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction that would have made more sense. Until the end when she has lost all ties to sanity, she never becomes passionate and controlling. Instead, she continues to be bascially the same trembling victim throughout, except when it comes to her mother who, alone could have caused the girl's insanity, without the help of Lily, Nina's conniving dancing rival. The mother shows us that Nina's mental fragility is probably genetic and might have occurred because of nature and the smothering nurturing she received, more than because of her demanding profession. Of course, the weight loss, lack of a social life and physical toll on Nina's body didn't help her psychological state much either.

A great example of the way Nina remained static was illuminated for me when Nina, who can never rehearse enough, observes Lily saying she doesn't need to warm up. She's always ready. 40 minutes later, when their dance director tells Nina to go warm up, I expect to hear her respond that she doesn't need to, as a sign of her transformation. Instead, she scurries off to practice. Actually, in a stalker movie like this, it is refreshing that Nina doesn't turn into a total beast. That would not only be a staple for a horror movie, but for an entertainment coming-of-age (or coming-of-stage) movie, like All About Eve. The seemingly shy novice always turns into the ruthless diva in the end.

Here, Nina isn't a diva and that doesn't change. She's dedicated and determined and though passive, she's never lacking in passion. It's not something that's hidden or concealed, ready to break out. The passion is the cause of her perennial nervousness and remote manner. She cares too much, feels too much. To expose everything inside would be like peeling away her skin -- which, not coincidentally, she does. The reserve is an inherent part of her and she can't shed this integral aspect of her psyche without damaging part of her corporal self as well. It's not like a shyness you can just grow out of. When Nina does break through it, it's because she breaks. Period.

Because we see events through Nina's eyes, it's hard to tell what happened and what didn't. For instance, I don't know if Nina actually came upon Lily having relations with their dance instructor or not. It could have been a figment of her imagination. I suppose in the end it doesn't matter. What they did is not what drove Nina over the edge. The point is, she was terrorizing herself all along and that's what led to her swan song.

Purple Rain (1984)

It's been decades since I first saw this, but when it debuted I recall going to 13 showings, before it left the theaters, then enjoying a couple of screenings when it came out on VHS.

Since a large part of the movie was deliberately campy even 28 years ago, it's hard to say what is really dated and what is not. Even back then, Morris Day's clothes and antics were not supposed to be "normal" and Prince's stylings were always considered unique. Those things didn't actually represent the eighties and were probably viewed as whimsically odd then as they look now. I think it's chiefly the dialogue that has suffered over time.

But the music has held up well. Maybe I didn't get as much of a thrill from the film sequences playing along with When Doves Cry ran, as I did back then, but that pulsing beat still works and Prince's stage presence is/was undeniable. I wanted to run out and buy a Prince Live DVD and spin some of his hits from before and after Purple Rain. If I still had a turntable, I'd dust it off for Dirty Mind, Raspberry Beret, Little Red Corvette, and remember that there's no particular sign he's compatible with Prince just wants my extra time and my . . . kiss! What an incredible, innovative talent he was. He's still brilliant today, but everyone has caught up with him, so it's easy to lose sight of just how original he was back then.

The movie's musical performances are still good, but today the plot is not only as thin as it was in 1984, but more troubling than it would have been perceived then. I can't imagine a contemporary audience laughing at the way Morris Day had a pesky one night stand thrown into a garbage dumpster in 2012. It makes you squirm just like watching Jimmy Cagney shove a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face does now. Of course, Prince (or The Kidd) is much worse. He grew up watching his father beat his mother (and was probably pounded on himself), making largely failed attempts to rescue her. So, it's realistic that when his own girlfriend frustrates him, he reflexively strikes her. The movie lets us see that this is a cycle of violence, but not necessarily something that is tormenting Prince.

He honestly seems as sorry that his alcoholic, abusive father never made it in the music business than that his mother was victimized. After the father shoots himself, his wife sits tearful vigil by his hospital bed and Prince looks on them tenderly. There's no sense that maybe the father's death would have finally brought peace or been justified and no promise that when he recovers he will have learned his lesson and will no longer bully his spouse or even that cessation is one of her priorities. Prince's girlfriend, Apollonia, is more upset that he hurt her feelings in a jealous pique than she cares that he smacked and pounced on her.

When he throws her on the pavement in one scene, she dares him to hit her and says it couldn't pain her more than he has already by mocking her with the delicious Darling Nikki diddy, which labeled her a "sex fiend" and demeaned their relationship. I don't think that implementing a "no tolerance" violence policy ever occurred to her, as a condition of reconciliation. Her acceptance of his assaults is particularly irksome due to his slight physical stature. The petite Apollonia is probably the only person in the world that Prince might be stronger than (he is barely taller than her in his heels), so for him to physically intimidate her speaks of a cowardice that is very typical of abusers. Very realistic and yes very common, but still not something to be taken for granted or glossed over so lightly. The attacks were played for shock value, rather than character failings. I suppose it would be hard to find a 25-30 year old movie that was not laced with misogyny. But this one might be worse than most.

All in all, this movie was a triumph and a good documentation of Prince at his peak. I saw him in concert many times and he was every bit as mesmerizing live as he was on stage in this flick. Prince wasn't a particularly good actor, but he had a devilish, adorable smile that brought the "Baby, I'm a Star" lyrics to life. Morris Day was charming in a surprisingly natural way, given the over-the-top role. Freckled, funny, crazy, human. Wonder what ever happened to him and The Time. The moment when he taunts his rival, Prince ("how's the family") but then pauses in thoughtful shame is still touching and true. People say and do many things when they have an audience that their conscience would take back later.

It's also sweet when Prince is cleaning up the cellar that he wrecked after his father's attempted suicide and finds Apollonia's discarded earring. A gift that he gave her. He picks it up and tosses. She catches it. We did not know that she was sitting on the cellar steps, reunited with her love. Nice reunion reveal.

Catching up with this movie was not a bad way to spend holiday time. I hadn't forgotten why I was such a Prince fan. I didn't need a reminder, but a good time never gets old and even in 2012, we still want to party like it's 1999.

Skyfall (2012)

During the opening sequence, I certainly noticed that the lines in the faces of both Bond and M were deeper and more pronounced than usual, but I had no idea that would be the movie's theme: that they were old dogs, incapable of learning new tricks and evolving with the digital times. Just three movies in, it seems premature for the producers to start foreshadowing this Bond's retirement and, though worn, he doesn't look all that decrepit, despite characters trying to convince us otherwise, neither does M for that matter.

As always, the movie starts with a chase. Bond is after a villain who has stolen a list of all MI6 NATO operatives. If Bond doesn't get it back, all of those agents' lives will be in danger when their cover is blown. M is monitoring the chase through an earpiece. We all hate bosses who micro-manage, but M is taking it to a new level. As Bond and an assistant are driving, running, and ducking for their very lives, M is constantly bugging them for a continuing status update and barking out new orders for them to follow. The fact that Bond even acquiesces shows that he's not as "old school" as the film would have us believe. Only someone who grew up under the watchful eyes of a nannycam would put up with this level of disruptive, no dangerous, supervision.

The assailant Bond is chasing has shot another agent, Ronson, who lays dying by the time Bond reaches the apartment. He needs immediate aid. Bond wants to stop to help him. M barks that there's no time. She'll send a medical evacuation unit to Ronson. Bond says that they'll never get there in time. M doesn't care. Bond is to LEAVE. The dying agent hears M. He doesn't beg Bond to stay, but he doesn't tell him to go either. On the way to meet his maker, he looks like he wouldn't mind receiving a little compassion from a fellow man. He took a job where he's asked to risk his life for his country, but those type of jobs usually promote brotherhood and loyalty, rather than undermining it. When your life is placed at risk every day, you tend to depend on your colleagues, the only other people in the world who know what that feels like. A soldier never leaves a fellow soldier. Firemen, policemen, they follow the same creed. But secret service agents don't. At least not the ones under M's rein. After hesitating, Bond finally obeys M and leaves the fallen agent behind. To die.

He runs after the villain with a nameless assistant by his side. He has to leave their car to climb on top of a train to get the MI6 list back from the assailant, while the assistant is left to follow him in a car and keep M updated every second. The train is headed under a tunnel, with Bond and the villain struggling on its roof. M tells the assistant to try to shoot the assailant. She can't get a clean shot. Take it anyway, M commands. But it's not a clean shot. Not only is the train moving, but so are the fighting men. She could shoot Bond. Take the shot, M yells over the earpiece. TAKE THE SHOT. The assistant reluctantly shoots. Hits Bond, who falls. The killer part of this scene is that after Bond falls, she DOES have a clean shot at the villain before the train enters the tunnel. She has several seconds when she could have hit him easily, but she doesn't. To me, she should have been fired for this failure (which she doesn't relay to M over the earpiece) more than for shooting Bond.

The scene is very powerful because even though we know that Bond will not die, the tension still mounts. He can hear M in his headpiece as clearly as we can. "Take the damn shot!" She's told that she might hit Bond and yells again, "take the damn shot." When the bullet flies and hits Bond we're shocked. Yes, we know he won't die, but there will be emotional consequences. We begin to feel them as soon as his body starts to fall.

Bond falls into the water and is presumed dead. M writes his obituary. We see Bond drinking on an island, an anonymous woman helping him heal. He lounges. Plays drinking games (with a scorpion on his wrist) and tries to forget. But when he's watching the telly and sees that the MI6 building has been blown up, he returns home. Or breaks into M's apartment, to be more precise. M greets him with, "where the hell have you been."

She wonders why he didn't call. He reminds her of the last words he heard her speak, "take the damn shot" and decided he needed a little break. She says that his life wasn't worth the 20 she could have saved if she had been able to prevent the theft of that secret service list. He doesn't say she should have put his life above others, but she should have trusted him to do his job and get the list back, rather than assuming he would fail and forfeiting his life. She shrugs it off. That's their job. I guess he comes to accept this, but I don't. When an agent does something reckless (and Bond certainly has in the other 2 films, but not in this one) and puts everyone at risk, then leave him to die. But when he's giving his all and following orders for a change, then the country (or at least his supervisors) need to give their all too and not abandon him -- much less put a hit out on him. I don't think you can build a force of agents or soldiers or gang members or even teachers who will sacrifice everything for the common good, unless they know they have a support system and they are considered valuable. They'll fight for you until death, but they have to believe that someone will fight for them that hard as well. If you make them feel expendable, then their job will be as well. I don't buy the premise that until now M has been a successful head of MI6 with an attitude like the one she is displaying here.

Later in the movie she says that orphans (like Bond) make the best recruits. That's true of many professions. That's why pimps hang out at train stations looking for runaways. They take someone who doesn't feel wanted, doesn't belong. They give them a sense of family and then, once they create trust and dependency, they take advantage of it. If you skip the middle step, if you never make the lost person feel that they belong to something, if you never give them the surrogate family that was lacking, then they won't sacrifice everything for you. Not unless you're using force (like the pimp eventually does). In this case, it would do no good for M to recruit orphans if she keeps them in an environment that's lonelier than the broken homes they came from. You may have a maverick like Bond who thrives on the isolation, but you'll never build an army or agency of loyal operatives if you don't give them something solid and nurturing to which to attach that loyalty.

M tells Bond he's needed back at work and suggests he go take a shower. He says he'll go home and change. His flat has been sold and his belongings placed in storage. After all, he was presumed dead. He should have called. He says he'll find a hotel. Of course he will, she assures him. He's not bloody well staying with her! Back at their temporary headquarters Bond spies a familiar statue on M's death. An ugly bull dog wearing the flag as a blanket. The whole MI6 building burned up and that thing survived, he asks in disbelief. M counters that she never relied on his taste in interior decorating.

He will have to pass physical and mental tests before he's allowed back on active duty and she wants him to take them seriously. M is in hot water herself. The prime minister's aid, Mallory, cites the number of recent security breaches and tells her that she's going to have to "resign" in two months. She was once the best, but she's become soft and is not objective when it comes to Bond (really, because she just gave the order that "killed" him). They'll give her the highest commendations and make it seem like she's leaving on her own terms. But she has to go. Fine she says, but she's not leaving the agency worse off than when she got there. She's going to find the enemy who took the list of agents. Meanwhile, whoever it is has infiltrated MI6's computer system (including M's own) and is releasing the names of 5 agents every week. When their cover is blown in a foreign country, unless MI6 can get them out in time, they're violently killed. M bows under the weight of guilt she feels over agents who have died because she is forever one step behind of this anonymous adversary.

Bond prepares to return to work. Physically, he exhausts easily. His body is stiff and sore. His target shooting is way off. He meets the assistant who shot him on the train. She's been taken out of the field and is now working for Mallory, but she wants to get back out on active duty. Why Bond wonders. It's not for everyone and he, personally, would feel safer with her behind a desk.

Bond has a psychological assessment. Say the first word that comes to mind: murder= employment. M = Bitch (M smiles from behind the one way mirror where she is observing). Skyfall = this session is over. When Bond hears the word, he abruptly stands up and walks out.

He digs shrapnel out of his own chest wound and has it examined. It's a special type of uranium that is only used by 3 people, one of them is known as "Patrice". Bond will follow that trail. He meets with the agency's new quartermaster. A college aged kid who gives him a gun (which recognizes Bond's palm print and will only shoot for him) and a radio transmitter. Bond is surprised that that's all he's getting. If Bond is looking for an exploding pen, they don't make those anymore, the young quartermaster informs him. Bond thinks he's too young? He thinks agents like Bond are antiquated. while they're out chasing each other, he can do more spy work and cause more destruction to their enemies on his laptop before even rolling out of bed than Bond can. Bond thinks the computer wizards who only spy from their computers in their pajamas like the quartermaster (whom Bond dubs "Q") don't know what the real job is like.

After a couple of impossible break ins and close calls (and one close shave, given to Bond by the assistant who almost killed him, when she climbs onto his lap and sultrily uses his vintage straight razor blade to slice the hair from his face) Bond finally finds his way to Patrice's boss' Silva, on a deserted island. Clair Dowar, the woman he goes through to find Silva, seems powerful, but Bond soon detects (from her wildly, almost laughably, shaking hands) that she's scared of Silva. Bond takes a drink. When the bartender shakes it, Bond declares the martini perfect. I don't get the impression that he's ordered it this way (although he did introduce himself to Clair, as "Bond. James Bond.") It's just that has become his preferred drink preparation and when it's randomly made like that, he is pleasantly satisfied.

Speaking to Clair over drinks, Bond notes that the men who surround her are not part of an entourage. They're really her captors. Bond doesn't know her full story, but guesses that she's been Silva's pawn and virtual prisoner for years, since childhood. We learn later it's a parallel to his own story. He was orphaned and recruited by M. In Casino Royale, Vesper said (while profiling him) that he had a benefactor who gave him an expensive education, but that he never fit in with his rich classmates. Was that rich benefactor M?

Javier Bardem's evil Silva oozes sinister all over Bond, even making a sexual play for him, talking about what Bond's first time with a man will be like. "How do you know it's my first time," Bond retorts. Silva smiles. Silva tells a story of growing up on his grandmother's beautiful island, but it was overcome by rats. How to get rid of them? Well, use coconut oil to lure them all into a drum. Then, when all the rats are in, close them in together with no food. They will eat each other. When only the last two rats are left, let them go back to the island. They won't have a taste for its fruit any longer. Their diet has changed. They now hunger only for other rats. One will kill the other. The last rat standing is the winner.

Silva says he and Bond are the last 2 rats. He used to be a secret agent himself, but M betrayed him. Let him get captured. They tortured him for 5 months. He got free and now all he wants is revenge. Will Bond stand with him. Can they join forces and destroy their "mother" together? [Nice that M can stand for "Mother"] She has used them both and will betray Bond like she has him. Silva says she has already lied to him. Bond denies it. Silva says that M didn't tell him he flunked his mental and physical exams and the medical recommendation was that he was not fit to return to duty, yet M put him back out there. Silva makes a point of killing Clair in front of Bond, but when it looks like Bond is cornered and alone, helicopters swarm overhead.
He's called in back up forces on a little thing known as a radio he informs a surprised Silva.

Silva is held prisoner back at headquarters. When M comes to observe, he declares himself glad to see her again. He never stopped thinking about her. She claims to hardly remember him. He says that she betrayed him, gave him to the enemy. He suffered for 5 months then, broken, he broke his back molar where the cyanide tablet is kept and tried to kill himself. It didn't work. It just burned his entire body. He takes out his teeth and gums. His face shrinks, skin wrinkles and all that is left of his mouth is a narrow, black cavern. The abyss. Both M and Bond seem quietly horrified. He puts his mouth back in, slimy saliva smearing his lips as he scowls at them.

Alone with Bond, M tells him that Silva used to be one of the best agents out there (so she does remember him quite well, despite what she said), but that he broke the rules. Start hacking Chinese computers, caused exposure for them all. So she gave him up to the enemy and saved 6 other agents' in exchange and won an easy transition. Bond seems to buy this thing about forfeiting one to save many, but I don't. What M did to Silva is a little different from what she did to Ronson and Bond. Silva's acts jeopardized others and she gave him up to save them, the ones he himself endangered. Ronson and Bond deserved a little more from her. And if agents like them felt that the organization would risk a bit to protect them, then maybe she would have a lot more of them and those with Bond's and Silva's commitment would not be the exception.
Of course, Silva is the classic example of anger being love disappointed. Once abandoned by M, Mother, he put all the single-minded drive and emotion he once gave to the agency into his mission to destroy it.

M has to go speak before the prime minister's panel to explain the leaked security list and computer breaches. It is while she is testifying that Bond and M realize that Silva wanted to be caught. He wanted to get into MI6 headquarters. As soon as this becomes obvious, Bond runs to Silva's cell only to find him gone. He realizes that Silva is after M and messages her to leave the hearing and take cover immediately, but she refuses to run. She continues her testimony and gives them a lot of balogna about the job that she is doing keeping them safe. It takes men on the ground, old fashioned agents doing that brick and mortar style espionage to keep the country safe. The digital world can't protect them. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty. You think computers can do everything for you? How safe do you feel right now, she demands. Just then Silva and his men break in and start shooting the place up. I think this is supposed to prove M's point that the job that she was doing was not outdated after all. But really the job that she did caused Silva to come after her and MI6 in the first place. Do computers become feeled with resentment towards their former employer and go postal? I think he's a good argument as to why the agency and its obsolete cloak and dagger tactics should be phased out. But it doesn't appear that the movie script sees it that way.

She says her late husband was a poetry lover (so she's been widowed since the last movie) and some of it rubbed off on her, against her will. She quotes Tennyson's Ulysses. "Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Are she and Bond the ones possessing the heroic hearts of equal temper? Like minded in their old guard ways? Outnumbered, but with a determination that gives them more power than contemporary technology ever could.

Bond shows up and hustles M out of the hearing room. This is all her fault she says. Yes, Silva is after her, but they can nab him. Using her as bait, she asks, answering her own question. "So be it," she agrees easily. After all, she was feeling guilty anyway, so this is justice to her, in a way. Of course, would she have sacrificed her life for others on principal, even if she didn't feel guilty, in the same manner that she was willing to sacrifice the lives of individual agents to save multiple lives?

Meanwhile in Q's lab, with Mallory's blessing, they ditch protocol and Q uses software to leave breadcrumbs for Silva, taking him exactly where Bond wants him to go.

On their way there, Bond takes M to an old storage shed and she tells him that there's no way she's hiding there. He says they're only changing vehicles. The shed harbors the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, complete with ejector seat. "Oh, no, that won't be conspicuous at all," M snarks. They drive down barren roads and she complains so much that he touches the red button. "Go ahead and eject me. See if I care," she snarls.

They reach an abandoned Scotland estate and she says, "is this where you grew up." He doesn't answer. She already knows the story, he says. This is Skyfall (Bond's rosebud in a way). She doesn't deny knowing his entire history and comments that orphans are always the easiest to recruit. They go into the home which looks abandoned but there's a caretaker inside. Kincaid (Albert Finney) recognizes Bond immediately, even though he, presumably, hasn't seen him in decades. He was the gunskeeper when Bond was a boy. But they sold the estates and all the guns when Bond was presumed dead.

He only has one shot gun left, a few explosives. But Kincaid thinks that sometimes the old-fashioned methods work best and also lays a knife out on the table to add to their little arsenal. Bond, Kincaid and M lay traps and prepare the house for an invasion. Kincaid asks Bond if he remembers how to shoot as Kincaid taught him. Bond says he thinks he can manage. He's such an excellent shot (he's gotten better since the last MI6 exam, then) that kincaid is taken aback. "what did you say you did for a living again?" Oh, so Kincaid was told that Bond was dead, but wasn't told who Bond was working for at the time? He must not have read M's obituary then. Speaking of which, Bond tells M he read it and he found it appalling. But he liked the part that suggested his love of country. That bit was all right.


There's an old passage way, a priest's hole that will lead to a chapel in back of the house. Kincaid tells M to use it, if they get trapped. He says that when Bond's parents were killed when he was a boy, he hid in that hole during the attack and stayed there for 2 days. When he came out, he was a man.

Silva comes with his men, fighting and explosions ensue. We've only known Kincaid for a few minutes of screen time, but he's obviously an instant kindred spirit to the other two and I already feel attached to him and hope he isn't killed. The makeshift defense he and the others have put up are a good match against Silva's expensive weapons. They are outmanned, but not for long. Silva's men fall by the wayside.

M and Kincaid escape through the tunnel to the chapel in back, M's hand has been hit and she is bleeding heavily. Silva chases after them. Bond follows, but he and one of Silva's men fall through an ice hole and Silva assumes they're dead. In the chapel, he ignores Kincaid, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Since he was looking for a show down between just him and M, why not dispense with the old man who might interfere in it.

Silva tells M that of course they would have to confront each other in the chapel wouldn't they? It's really the only fitting place. "Mother," he says. He grabs her bleeding hand, caresses it, and wants to nurse her wounds. His attitude is faux loving, obsequious, maybe even a little erotic, definitely Oedipal. Putting his face close to hers, their cheeks together. He places his gun in her hand and pulls it to her head, their heads. He urges her to shoot. By doing so, she will kill them both. The bullet will go through her skull and then his, which is joined to hers. They will die together, he says. M doesn't really resist. Not so much because she is scared, but one feels it's because she believes that killing herself will be a small price to pay for ridding the world of Silva, especially considering the agents under her who have already died.

Just as M might pull the trigger, Bond bursts in. Silva is almost resigned to his reappearance and has a weary, but unsurprised, "Oh you again" expression on his face. Bond and Silva tussle. Silva is getting the best of him, when Silva is hit from behind. The forgotten Kincaid has thrown his thrusty old knife into Silva's back. I keep wondering if Silva will seem dead, but then pop up for one last attack, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, but that would spoil the message of the movie. It didn't take fancy, automatic weapons to kill Silva. Silva was an electronic mastermind, creating computer programs that rivaled Q's genius, but they didn't vanquish his enemy or save Silva in the end. A simple knife, wielded during face to face, hand to hand combat, the kind of weapon used by Kincaid and Kincaid's grandfather before him, was all that was needed to bring Silva down for good.

So, Kincaid not only survived, but saved the day. To my surprise though, M was not so lucky. She succumbed in Bond's arms. I didn't even know she had been fatally wounded. Maybe she lost too much blood from her wounded hand. The cause of death was unclear to me. Bond closes her eyes when she passes and puts his lips to her forehead.

Back in London, the assistant brings him a box. The assistant isn't back in the field after all. She listened to Bond. It's not suited for everyone. She places the black box in his hand. I briefly think it's M's ashes and feel, "C'mon. They weren't that close." But then I know what it is. M's will was read and she left Bond this. He opens it. It's the porcelain bull dog from her desk. The assistant laughs. Maybe this means that M thought he should leave the field and take a desk job too, the assistant suggests. "No, Q meant just the opposite," he concludes.

They go back downstairs and Bond tells the assistant that they've never been officially introduced. "It's Eve. Eve Moneypenny." Nice to meet you Ms. Moneypenny.

She works for Mallory now. Bond enters Mallory's office and picks up his next assignment. He thanks Mallory --or M -- and leaves. Closing credits.

Of the three Daniel Craig Bond films, I think I liked Casino Royale best, but this one is certainly better than Quantum of Solace. They don't hammer us over the head with Bond's repressed pain as they did in the last two, but I think that due to M's coldness in ordering the assistant (whom we now know is Eve Moneypenny) to take the shot, the tie between Bond and M which is the focus of this third entry isn't one that's compelling to me. Of course, what binds them is not truly the mother/son relationship that Silva bastardized, even if M did recruit him for the agency when he was just a boy. Instead, what they really shared was the same vision of patriotism, duty, doggedness and sacrifice that the world around them seems to have outgrown, along with the knowledge that the "old" crude ways were practiced so well, so long, not because of a misplaced sense of nostalgia, but because they worked.