I'll See You In My Dreams

I’ll See You In My Dreams is not your typical meet-cute romance. For one thing, instead of starring whatever generic, baby faced ingénue is on the cover of Maxim that month, it stars 72 year old Blythe Danner. Most of the rest of the cast is well over 60 as well and that alone makes it an unusual film. But also, it’s a strange film because it’s unusual combination of love story, meditation of aging, and awkward inter-generational buddy movie. I’ll See You In My Dreams is a hard film to categorize and so, it’s hard to know what to expect. If you go in hoping for a safe, senior citizen-empowerment tale or a raunchy, “don’t old people do the wackiest things” comedy, you’ll be disappointed on both counts. 

 

Danner plays Carol, a woman who has been widowed for the last twenty years, placidly living a very comfortable life in southern California. She plays bridge and golf and has lunch with her friends. She goes for walks in the balmy weather and watches TV with Hazel, her trusty but aging dog. At the outset of the film, Carol has to put Hazel down, and we see her struggling to know how to grieve. She drinks a lot of wine and finds that there’s little pleasure to be had in her life.

Then, almost simultaneously, two new relationships begin for her. First, she unexpectedly befriends Lloyd, the 30 something guy who cleans her pool played by Martin Starr They drink and commiserate together, first just when he comes to work and later when they go out to karaoke together. Lloyd has moved home to take care of his mother but is lost and directionless. Their friendship is as platonic as it is unlikely. They don’t form a mother/son bond nor are they lovers. They simply get along because both are uncertain of what they’re supposed to be doing with their lives. While their relationship is innocent, it’s not without its tension. Lloyd is a gentleman at all times, but Carol is also a stone cold fox, so it makes for some interesting moments of unexpected awkwardness.

The other relationship that begins for Carol is with Bill, played by Sam Elliot. Bill is also a retiree but one who, rather than spend his later years quietly, has decided to spend all the money he has and enjoy his life. After seeing each other around town several times, he pulls up to Carol in his expensive sports car and simply says, “I want to take you to lunch. What’s your name?” Of course, he’s Sam Elliot so that actually works instead of sending her scurrying for the nearest police officer. They begin to date and, after twenty years, Carol rediscovers what romance feels like. While Danner’s chemistry with Martin Starr as Lloyd is charged and quirky, her work with Elliot is warm, charming, and sexy. Watching two actors as experienced and charismatic as that work together is a real pleasure.

There are some aspects of I’ll See You In My Dreams that seem a little artificial. There are times when the dialogue by writer/director Brett Haley feels very much like dialogue. It has a very writerly, scripted feel to it and made me wonder if the film was originally a stage play. It wasn’t, but it definitely has a careful, self-aware tone to it. Carol’s group of girlfriends and their antics also have a crafted, “Hey, let’s be wacky” vibe too.

I'll See You In My Dreams is unusual and refreshing, and Blythe Danner in her first leading film role in a fifty year career is worth the price of admission alone. The film can't be easily categorized, and in our age o f niche marketing, it's a pleasure to see a film that is something unexpected.  

This review  originally appears on Q90.1. Go to deltabroadcasting.org for more information.

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

It’s been a couple of weeks. The premiere came and went, the hoopla has calmed down, the sentimental nerd tears of joy have subsided, and I feel like I can talk somewhat realistically about Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  

This review is going to feature a few plot spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, stop reading now and then go evaluate your priorities.

With so much history and anticipation surrounding the release of the new movie, there’s a lot to talk about, but really, there’s only one important question: how was it? Is the new installment of this historic, influential franchise any good to watch? 

The short answer is, yes, it’s good. It’s actually very good.

J.J. Abrams and his team have managed to make a film that looks and feels like it belongs with the original trilogy while still bringing 21^st century style, technology, and humor to it. This is one thing I wasn’t sure about. When Abrams took over the Star Trek franchise, it was exciting and action packed, but there wasn’t anything particularly Star Trekky about it. It was a reboot. The Force Awakens, on the other hand, is a continuation, and that’s an important difference. The film doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it returns to the wheel after George Lucas spent a decade turning the wheel into a computer generated, Jar Jar Binks flavored square. 

 

Anyway, what the film gets right is that it has the same universal mythic feel of the originals. Star Wars movies aren’t really science fiction at all but rather are archetypal quest stories about a young knight assisted by a wise wizard, a charming rogue, and a beautiful princess to defeat the dark king. The Force Awakens returns to that same kind of mythic story. This time, our young desert dwelling knight is Rey, a woman mysteriously left by her family. Like Luke Skywalker, she encounters a droid with a hidden message that sets her on a path of destiny. Things are inverted a little because the entire film is about her trying to track down her wise wizard, Luke Skywalker, who vanished after one of his pupils turned against him and slaughtered all the other jedi trainees. Like Luke, Rey is just a nobody who turns out to be a really big somebody.

 

Famously, several of the original characters return. Han Solo plays to biggest role, helping Rey and her droid meet up with the good guys. He also is important because we find out that it is his son with Princess Leia who is the evil jedi-killing, Darth Vader-worshipping Kylo Ren. In a climactic scene very reminiscent of Luke’s clashes with Vader, Han confronts his son, telling him there’s still good in him. As you probably know by now, it does not go well for Han and Star Wars fans lose one of their favorite characters.

Han’s death isn’t just a stunt though. It is a part of the quest story the film tells. The loss of a mentor/father figure is an important turning point for our young knight, Rey. His death is part of what galvanizes her and allows her to combat Kylo Ren in what will undoubtedly go down in Star Wars history as one of the coolest lightsaber battles ever. 

 

There are so many other things to talk about – the fact that it was shot on film and not digital, the practical special effects, the cameos, the theme of being rescued, the brilliant casting, Poe Dameron’s hot rod X-wing fighter, and so much more.  But suffice it to say, The Force Awakens is as good of a Star Wars film as there is. If you haven’t seen it, you should. If you have seen it, you’re probably like me and want to see it again.

Christmas In Connecticut

This week I continue my annual holiday mission to provide alternative Christmas movies. Of course, I love It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Elf as much as anybody else, but I also think there should be other options, good options. There’s no end of Hallmark and Lifetime movies on TV with generic titles like A Christmas Wish and The Santa Plan, but I’m talking about real movies, things that are worth seeing and not anything that stars Jenny Mcarthy or former cast members of Beverly Hills 90210.

This year my suggestion is 1945’s Christmas in Connecticut. Directed by Peter Godfrey, the film stars one of my all-time favorites, Barbara Stanwyck, along with Dennis Morgan, a popular leading man of the day, and Sydney Greenstreet, the famous “fat man” from both The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

 

Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a young, single, city woman who writes a kind of Martha Stewart-esque feature in a Good Housekeeping type magazine. While sitting comfortably in her city apartment eating take out, she writes about her farm in Connecticut, her charming husband, and beautiful baby, and about cooking delicious, elaborate food. Of course, as I said, Elizabeth is single, lives in the city, and can’t cook her way out of wet paper sack. She consults a chef friend for details on cooking and basically makes the rest up. This becomes a problem when a returning war hero, a sailor who was stranded on a raft in the South Pacific for fifteen days, tells someone his only request is to have a Christmas dinner made by the famous Elizabeth Lane on her farm in Connecticut.

Elizabeth’s blustering publisher played by Sydney Greenstreet has no idea that her columns are totally fabricated, so he thinks her hosting the sailor is a great idea and an excellent publicity opportunity. He’s also obsessed with the truth and would fire her if he knew she was making stuff up.

So Elizabeth has to get a farm, a husband, a baby, and cooking skills in time to host this random sailor or be outed as a fraud and lose her job. She has a would-be boyfriend played by Reginald Gardiner who has proposed to her repeatedly, and as a matter of expediency, she decides she should finally accept his proposal because, if nothing else, he happens to have a large, beautiful farm in, you guessed it, snowy Connecticut.

The film beings to pick up speed once Elizabeth, her fiancée who insists they get married right away, the judge who is supposed to marry them, the chef Elizabeth brought to help with the cooking, her publisher who invited himself along, and the handsome and charming sailor are all under the same roof. The pace isn’t quite fast enough to qualify Christmas in Connecticut as a screwball comedy, but it’s definitely in that neighborhood.

 

As ever, Stanwyck is delightful. This is the first film she made after playing a cold, platinum blonde killer in Double Indemnity in 1944, and those two films side by side show her tremendous range. Here, she’s charming, smart, and flirty and she makes a great comedic and romantic lead. 

The Connecticut farm set is big, elaborate, and lovely. It’s a fantastic example of classic Hollywood set design and every bit of the snow covered farmhouse, the barn, and the snowy fields was built and shot indoors in sunny California. Like the great performances and the sort of silly, old fashioned plot, it’s an example of the Hollywood dream factory operating at its best.

So if you’re in the mood for some vintage Christmas cheer but have seen Jimmy Stewart running down the streets of Bedford Falls a few too many times, give Christmas in Connecticut a try.

This review originally appeared on Q90.1. www.deltabroadcasting.org