Couch Festival
No Ordinary Love
By Jennifer Hearne

This month, the couch offers a much needed refuge from last month's over-saturation of the valentine industry.  Amidst all the greeting cards, Meg Ryan flicks, and plastic surgery TV, I became lovesick for some real sincerity.  Cupid's come and gone and something's still in the air, but I wouldn't call it love - more like the burnt Velveeta stench of the cheese factories churning out gobs of sentimental pap to all the love junkies.  I did manage to get up and off the couch momentarily to brave the evil pink and red miasma but my motivation lay in the wait for and subsequent acquisition of marked down boxed candy the day after the love fest.  Said candy did little to fill the void left by all my missed cinema connections. Trust me, I wanted to be out there looking, but nothing moved me.

If you too were disappointed by the lack of real meaning in your February films, I invite you to join me on the couch for a March mixer - allow me to introduce you to some cinema moments that will leave you certain that what you have found on the big screen at last is No Ordinary Love.
 
At the top of my list this month is the cleverest romantic comedy I could find, 1967's Bedazzled.  So burned by bad valentine viewing was I that only Peter Cook in the form of the devil could bring me salvation.  In this overlooked treasure of British cinema (so overlooked I couldn't find it on DVD), the combined genius of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook bring unparalleled hilarity to the tale of Stanley Moon, a fellow so lovelorn and hopeless that he is about to kill himself when the devil shows up and grants him all his wishes in exchange for his soul.  This film is brilliant on so many levels, the least of which is that we can't help but recognize our own romantic follies as Stanley's fulfilled wishes become foibles.  Bedazzled should hit a home run with all the dutiful boyfriends who had to endure last month's barrage of chick flicks.  Monty Python fans too will appreciate that the teaming of Cook and Moore that gave birth to their genre of sardonic British humor.
 
Devil aside, it's only human to believe that when you marry the right person, you'll live happily ever after.  But who among us ever stops to ponder what happens when happily ever after sours into real life and its complications?  The following films offer some valuable lessons in everyday devotion.  In Iris, Jim Broadbent delivers a moving tribute to John Bayley, the long suffering husband of acclaimed writer, Iris Murdoch, whose tender loyalties to his wife remained strongest as they succumbed to her deterioration by Alzheimer's disease.

As a remarkable everyman, Robin Williams brings a touching sincerity to his role as T.S. Garp in The World According To Garp.  When Garp meets the woman who will become his wife he has no idea that their sweet college courtship belies their dark fate, and that her infidelities will result in the biggest tragedy of their lives.  How their marriage weathers this storm is one of many ordinary but remarkable moments in Garp's life. 

Finally, in The Accidental Tourist, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner portray a typical suburban couple desperately seeking their lost connection after their only child is murdered.  In the final moments of this film, Hurt's character realizes that it's not how much you love somebody, it's who you are when you are with them that matters.
 
Hollywood romance should never be mistaken for the real thing.  In real life, you cannot predict who you will fall in love with, you cannot control love, and most importantly, love, if it is anything, is truth.  Peter Weir was well aware of this when he chose Andie MacDowell and Gerard Depardieu to play Georges and Bronte in Green Card.  MacDowell's limited acting range worked to her advantage in her portrayal of an ordered, uptight New Yorker who cannot recognize that what she desperately needs is to be opened up and brought to life by Depardieu's raunchy and bombastic Georges.  I'll take Green Card over any Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan flick any day of the week.  This movie is the litmus test - if you can't relate to these two characters by film's end, then you've never really been in love.
 
Emo poster boy Bud Cort revolutionized my idea of the romantic lead when I first saw Harold and Maude.  And as Maude, the immortal Ruth Gordon changed any tired notions I had that only youth could be sexy.  More than just a story about an old woman and a young boy, Harold and Maude is visual proof that real love is ageless and that it is more important to get busy living than to get busy dying.
 
If A-list ingénues are not exactly your cup of tea, try Christina Ricci in Miranda and Buffalo 66.  As Miranda, Ricci changes the life of a lonely librarian who is inspired the minute he lays eyes on her.  Although she is dangerous, he realizes that he had no life before her and it is ultimately his love that will save her from herself.  In Buffalo 66, Vincent Gallo's emotionally starved protagonist is such an outsider that he has to kidnap a stranger in order to pass her off as his wife.  Luckily for him, Ricci's Layla genuinely grows to love him. Hard to believe, but by the end of Buffalo 66 you'll be craving a heart shaped sugar cookie and a cup of hot chocolate.  
 
Viewers who require nothing less than a timeless romance will want to submit to the classical charm of Somewhere In Time, the story of a playwright so stirred by a portrait from the past that he succeeds in turning back the clock to spend mere moments with the love of his life.  Christopher Reeve fans should agree that if this wasn't the best of his performances, it was at least the most well intentioned.  The haunting theme as well as the sweetness of the cinematography make this a cameo portrait come to life.  
 
There are people who knock back drinks without tasting them and others who nurse a small, elegant glass all night, allowing the subtle taste to linger on the very tips of their tongues.  And so it is with great cinema.  At its best, cinema is the medium in which a great love story can best be illuminated.  To waste the big (or little) screen with mediocrity when films like Jules and Jim, Elvira Madigan and The Scent of Green Papaya are just begging to be shown is like cutting down a cherry tree then buying a McDonalds cherry pie.  
 
Forbidden love spices up the screen in Like Water For Chocolate and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, two exotic and erotic tales of passionate lovers inhibited by their social obligations.
 
A guilty pleasure is the cheese-tastic Love Story.  Ali MacGraw's acting is so bad, but her boho style is so good!  Besides, women who spent last month trying to get a date with "The Rules" should just throw that book away and study Jennifer Cavilleri.  

For those who say it isn't a romance unless their heroes are doomed, their tragedy is inevitable and their lovers are star crossed, I offer just a few of the finest literary loves.   

After wading through many muddy versions of the Heathcliff and Cathy saga, I have finally come to the promised land via 1992's Wuthering Heights - this is the version that offers two unprecedented events: Ralph Fiennes finally getting the sadistic and cruel Heathcliff right, and Sinead O'Connor turning up as the movie's narrator, Emily Bronte.  With all due respect to the Oberon/Olivier version, I sometimes wonder if fans of Olivier's Heathcliff have ever really read the book?!? This version at least stays true to the novel.

Fans of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac will delight in seeing Gerard Depardieu's robust depiction of the brains-before-beauty iconoclast and possibly Steve Martin's attempt in Roxanne.  In Martin's modern version, he plays a fire chief in love with local astronomer Roxanne.  When the handsome but low IQ Chris confides to "C.D." that he shouldn't be nervous around Roxanne because, after all she's not a rocket scientist, Martin quips, "actually, she is."  Lines like these drive the clever humor of this affectionate take on the classic.  Franco Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet still endures as the quintessential tale of lost love and A&E's version of Tess of the D’Urbervilles is more faithful to the Hardy novel than Roman Polanski's sensational Tess, finally out on DVD.    

Those who prefer to fly solo might give their hearts to the following films that offer a more universal approach to love.  Educating Rita finds Michael Caine and Julie Walters paying a long overdue tribute to the nurturing exchanges between teacher and student, as does Jon Voight's depiction of real life teacher Pat Conroy in Conrack.  And parental love knows no bounds in these unusual but essential family flicks.  An unapologetic bachelor discovers that the great love of his life is a displaced child in Kolya.  In Gloria, Gena Rowland’s title character reluctantly takes in a child wanted by the mafia; as Gloria pleads for the young boy's life, her former lover and mob boss informs her that even though he once loved her, he has a job to do - and so does Gloria, as she realizes she needs to save the child's life. Set to a wailing dirge, the last shot of Gloria is one of the most memorable "mama" moments in film history. Finally, in Audrey Rose, a pre-Hannibal Anthony Hopkins turns a horror flick into a love story about a father so devoted to his daughter, he is willing to save her soul even after it has been reincarnated in the body of another child.  
 
Finally, the quiet wisdom of Cinema Paradiso allows us to reflect on the many different facets of love that can bless (and curse) a long life.  

And this leads me to my closing couch thought.  If I fail in love or if I succeed, at least I choose what's on my screen.  The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love great films - it is the greatest love of all.
 
Next month, we take to the couch for cover as April showers bring May flowers.  While it's raining cats and dogs, we'll literally be looking to film for an onscreen exploration of rain, cats and dogs!!

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