tdean Reviews

Entre Nous (1983)

Wonderfully Moving and Sad Movie About Style and Incompatibility

[20 February 2001]

This is a very moving film. I think I found it more sad than some of the other reviewers. It's really about the decline of a marriage through the incompatibility of the couple.

The incompatibility is brought home to the woman by her class, education, style, grace and education. (The sophisticated one, played by Miou Miou is just extraordinary acting). In essence, the sophisticated woman causes the central woman (played by Isabelle Huppert) to realize that her husband is a dolt, and that they share far more than she and her husband. The wonderful thing about the movie is that though the husband is a boob, insensitive and sometimes prone to violent anger, there is no doubt that he slaves for his family, is very humble, and deeply loves his wife and his two daughters - no question about it.

We get to see his pain as his wife falls out of love for him, his sometimes violent jealousy of the woman who has made his wife see him differently, and his heartbreak. It's quite profound. Those who say it all ends happily were watching another movie!

I loved the periods, the costumes, the settings - from Paris on Liberation Day through the 1940s and 1950s. Although it's the daughter's story, we see much of how the couple earlier met, married and began their married life. You will love it - it's more fast-paced than many French movies, and wrenching.

Peppermint Soda (1977)

Slow-Moving but Well-Remembered Realistic Slice of Life

[19 February 2001]

The director's Entre Nous is one of my favorite movies. I had never seen Peppermint Soda, which I understood was equally autobiographical, so rented it. It's quite different in style from Entre Nous - covers far less time, and the "events" in the two sisters' lives are all quite "micro".

Yet it's also true that I cannot think of anything that portrays adolescence as it really was (for boys as well as girls) as well as this movie. Kurys has a truly remarkable feel for the extent to which music on the radio was a back-drop, or the way that a long-running dispute with a parent over clothing (in this case, nylons) can punctuate daily life, or the way friendships in school change over time. It's really a brilliant movie - not the most entertaining, but in its way, profound and well worth seeing. You will find yourself liking it more and more and more as the movie develops.

A Modern Affair (1995)

A Sucker for Lisa Eichhorn, so...

[23 May 2000]

This is a very strange and dark movie. Solely on the basis of Lisa Eichhorn's presence in it, I saw it (alone) in a New York theater the evening I read the newspaper review. In this sole N.Y. theater for its performance, on the night it opened, only one other person was in the theater at the 7:30 showing.

I have loved Lisa Eichhorn since I first saw her in Yanks. If she's in a play, I attend the play. If she's in a TV program, I watch the TV program. I've never been like this about another actor or actress. She has qualities that are apparently unappreciated because she has not become a big star.

Perhaps her most evident characteristic is a look of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity. Although some other actresses share this (e.g., Mary Beth Hurt, Blair Brown, Lee Remick, Amy Irving, Meryl Streep), Eichhorn also has an other- worldly sort of presence. She is never really there - there are depths of feeling and perception and memory into which some random comment has thrust her. She is the most fascinating actress I've ever seen.

Although meant to be a sort of comedy, the movie is in fact quite sad and dark. Fortunately, Miss Eichhorn is wonderful at "sad and dark"! There is a short but very moving scene with Wesley Addy (playing her quite old father) in which his life-long contempt for his daughter's competence is made clear without too much being said.

The loneliness of a woman in a large city at the end of the century is what the movie is really about - and it makes one shiver. The niche of former times, places is gone - the preserving of jams and the quilting bee are gone, the organizing committee and the planned demonstrations are not for most, the spouse and hearth do not exist. What is left is an ageing woman, conscientious and longing for connection. It is Lisa Eichhorn's movie and she can be admired. (Although Mr. Tucci is fine, I think the character overreacts to the central turnign point in the movie and thus becamse unlikeable).

On a rainy day or evening, when your husband calls to say he'll be late, but your sister is visiting and the baby quietly sleeps, see this movie, and you'll be moved.

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

Sweet Moving Movie About a Teacher's Career

[21 May 2000]

I am truly surprised by the attacks on this movie. It is a very moving film reminiscent of Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Browning Version, Three Cheers for Miss Bishop, and even It's a Wonderful Life. In all of these movies (except the last), a teacher feels that his or her life is wasted because his or her ambition or (in Miss Bishop's case, grand love) was unrealized. However, the climax of the movie comes when the protagonist realizes that he/she has actually touched many lives for the better.

Most of the negative comments below are about the musical knowledge shown in the movie. I'm sure that would not bother the average viewer. The movie is quite sentimental at heart, but is more realistic in showing the protagonist's frustrations and anger over his frustration than most of the ones listed above. It's a lovely movie, and the acting by Richard Dreyfus was fine.