There’s a moment very late in “Love is Strange” in which the film’s central couple, Alfred Molina (“An Education”) and John Lithgow (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) leave a performance of Chopin. Molina states his dislike for the performance, claiming it added too much drama to something that’s already so romantic. This sentiment serves as an adequate criticism of the film as well, which finds the need to add weight to a story that is already powerful. A character ensemble piece with too little faith in its characters and its ensemble, “Love is Strange” has good intentions but is ultimately a victim of over-direction.
A riff on Leo McCarey’s classic 1937 tearjerker “Make Way For Tomorrow,” “Love is Strange” updates the story of an elderly couple forced to live apart by making the couple two gay men, while keeping its predecessor’s upper-class New York setting. The couple marries after 40 years of being together. George (Alfred Molina) loses his job at a Catholic school because of the openness of the marriage and, unable to subsist on Ben’s (John Lithgow) artwork, they lose their home. Forced to adapt while waiting for a new home, George moves into the apartment of their much younger downstairs neighbors, where his introversion is constantly tested by their seemingly constant house party. Ben moves in with his nephew, his nephew’s wife (Marisa Tomei, “Parental Guidance”) and their son, all three of whom are slowly drifting apart from one another.
When director Ira Sach’s camera is comfortable to simply watch these neatly-formed characters bounce off and react to one another, the film is incredibly poignant. Scenes like one in which Ben keeps his niece-in-law from working through his constant bombardment of questions shows the incompatibility of the routines of these two characters, while subtly establishing their inherent similarities. Any scene between Molina and Lithgow shows off their incredible chemistry and hints at a variety of very truthful physical and personal rhythms within their characters. When it focuses on these many realized relationships and characters, the film’s interest in the sustainability of relationships, their set patterns and the natural forces that allow them to both come together and come apart is neatly laid out for the audience.
The issue is that Sachs seems too impatient with simply letting this natural chemistry work out the film’s themes about love and honesty. He often feels the need to spell them out or amp up the emotion to a grating degree. The conflict of George’s need for honesty in his own life, as well as his reliance on set patterns — running counter with the Catholic Church’s needs for the same — is very moving. What isn’t moving is a long scene in which George cries watching a little girl play Chopin; this scene is intercut with his letter about “honesty” to the Catholic Church, and it hits the audience over the head with emotion. The film feels a need to highlight the inherent drama of the story by slathering it in a constant tinkling piano score or long shots of characters silently emoting.
Worse are moments where the characters awkwardly state either their relationship with another character or their own emotions with either a faint hint or a total lack of subtext. This need for overwrought meditation runs against the film’s strength in its dialogue and its performances. There are moments where the film’s tertiary characters interact with its leads, like a scene in which one of the downstairs neighbors explains “Game of Thrones” to George. These moments play off the strength of the film’s characters and allow the film to become much richer and fuller. Were the film to consist of more moments like this, it could easily become the moving study of characters in long-term relationships that it wants to be.
3 out of 5 stars
