Script: Unfaithful

I’d seen previews for Unfaithful, so I kind of knew what was going to happen (when will trailers learn we’ll respect them more if they stop just giving it away?) but I found myself so caught up that I forgot I knew what was coming.

And I learned three great things. Less talk is more, perspective can be forced, and shades of grey are better.

Less talk is more. First off, no one in this film ever talks about what’s happening. They never admit, “I’m having an affair,” even to themselves, or “by the way, I’m married.” All the characters, despite steamy sex scenes, are so repressed they never talk about anything. And this is powerful, because it’s this big gorilla, just sitting in the room, and we become increasingly anxious for someone, anyone, to just SAY it.

The most powerful moment in this film is not when a wife decides to cheat on her husband, or when the husband is driven by jealousy to commit murder, but when the husband and wife finally talk about the fact that she’s slept with someone else. Up until this point, all the information the husband has gotten about his wife has been from other people – from her lover, in fact.

So when one of them finally tells the other what’s actually, honestly happening and how they feel about it – it’s huge. And for me, that’s smarter than just sex and murder.

Perspective can be forced. The first half of the film is told from the wife’s perspective. But when her husband meets the lover and kills him, we suddenly spend a lot of time in his point of view. I wasn’t sure how they got away with this, but then I realized they’d done exactly what my buddy over at Brollywood did once.

He was given the task of writing a short western – with no guns. He came up with a great solution. He built a story around the conspicuous absence of guns. It was about people who were desperate but unable to get their hands on a gun. It worked really well, and made a weakness into a strength.

And that’s what they’ve done in Unfaithful. The scene is built around a wife-shaped hole, as the two men in her life talk about her. So when the husband kills the lover, we feel her presence through what she has indirectly made him do, and thoughts of her drive him as he cleans up after his crime.

Shades of grey are better. Nobody was a bad person in this story. We don’t hate the wife for cheating, but we don’t dislike her husband enough that we want her to cheat on him, either. And when the husband commits murder, we actually feel pretty bad for him.

The same thing can mostly be said for the lover. He’s charismatic, but not in a sleazy way, so we don’t really hate him for seducing another man’s wife. Although, he does conveniently reveal himself to be a dick right before the husband kills him.

No one here is a stereotype. The film hasn’t made it easy to judge these people. There’s no black and white, only intriguing shades of grey, that leave the audience questioning whether anyone really did anything wrong – and questioning themselves, morally, for wondering about that.

Scone: Aunt Lisa's Trifle

This is one of my favorite desserts. The ingredient list makes it sound kind of ghetto, but it really rocks. It’s totally easy, and goes over well at gatherings. There aren’t really specific measurements, you just layer in as much or as little of each thing as you want.

Sponge cake**
1 pkg Strawberry Jello
Fresh Strawberries (about a quart)
Fresh Blueberries (about half a quart)
1 pkg Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding
2 Bananas
1 tub Coolwhip

** My Aunt uses Billet Jelly-roll logs, but I couldn’t find them here in BC, so I use a small store-made sponge cake. Works just as well.

Cut sponge cake into cubes. Place in the bottom of a large bowl.

Prepare Strawberry Jello according to directions on box. Chill about one hour, or until jello just starts to set. Pour over the sponge cake, allow to set until firm.

Slice the strawberries and sprinkle liberally over the jello. Sprinkle with blueberries.

Prepare vanilla pudding according to directions, pour over the layered fruit. Allow to set.

Slice bananas and layer on top of pudding. Spoon the tub of thawed Coolwhip over the bananas. Garnish with a couple sliced strawberries, if desired. Enjoy!

Script: Must Love Gimmicks

A friend of mine read my post on Chicken Run, and commented how sad it was that we think of rom-coms as unfunny. It got me thinking.

Just what the hell happened to the romantic comedy? I can’t think of the last time I saw a good one… except maybe Shaun of the Dead. But hey, they can’t all have zombies. So what happened to this once strong and mighty genre?

The answer might lie in Must Love Dogs.

Must Love Dogs is bursting with clichéd rom-com gimmicks. Whether it’s the dreaded “suddenly burst into song for no apparent reason or comic value because a brief moment of karaoke worked in When Harry Met Sally” or the ol’ “pointless car chase that is for… um… condoms. Yeah, they’re on the run in a car the male protagonist can’t possibly afford doing his shitty yet artistic and eccentrically full of integrity job for condoms.”

They fall into the “let’s reference a movie that was actually good, by having our character be a big fan, in a blatant attempt to rub some of that shine off on our dog” trap. John Cusack’s character, for no viable reason, has a thing for Dr Zhivago. And maybe that’s part of the problem – the characters have no viable reason to do anything. They’re watery shadows of what good rom-com characters should be. They have no depth, no history, and, to quote my friend at Reversals, lame-o cookie-cutter jobs that don’t say anything about who they are.

Then there’s the “older woman who gets a surprise when her internet boyfriend turns up and is only 15 years-old”. The climactic run to intercept the love interest as s/he is about to do something that will take her/him away from her/his real love forever, is terribly and unintentionally parodied in a pointless swim in the river – for no reason. There’s no urgency here, John Cusack’s just thinking about selling out by selling his boat to a jerky yuppy. Which has no meaning to this story, because his relationship with Diane Lane isn’t built around his artistic integrity, so who cares?

The rom-com needs new life. It’s cannibalized itself so much that each new entry is only so much re-vomit of stuff we’ve seen a million times. This doesn’t have to be true. Must Love Dogs could have worked new angles and didn’t. The idea that this couple fit because they like dogs is only mentioned in passing and neither one actually owns a dog.

I realize I’m being pretty cranky here. But this is a genre I love and miss. Part of me is desperately awaiting the Z-Boys to come and use their surfing skills to reinvent skateboarding – because that’s what this genre needs. A fresh twist, a new influence. It happened to the noir, it happened to the western… please, let it happen to the rom-com.

Putting zombies in Shaun was a step in the right direction. But really, how can you go wrong with the walking dead?