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Friends With Money - film review
Jan. 21st, 2007 12:13 pm( personal stuff )
Saw an interesting flick last night via netflix - Friends With Money starring Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Gregg Germane, Jason Issacs, and Jennifer Aniston. Not at all what I expected and very comforting. The story is about three couples and one single gal, Anniston, who are all friends, in their late thirties/early forties, and all struggling with their relationships and careers. All feel discontent. Uncertain. And think the other person has it better or worse than they do.
Anniston's character is working as a maid; she quit her last job as a teacher because she didn't like it and it wasn't working for her and is struggling to find something else. Her friends think she should just go back to it - do that. They also don't understand why she hasn't found anyone, why she has had such horrible results with men, and feel an odd combo of pity, guilt, and frustration with her. Wanting to fix her life yet at the same time not be bothered with it. They themselves aren't that happy either. One is a writer (Keener) - who writes television and film scripts with her husband, and they are on the verge of a separation. Another is a designer (McDormand)- who is 43, depressed, has two kids, overworked, frustrated, and given up on her hair to such a degree she no longer washes it - meanwhile her husband is being hit on by men. The third (Cusack) is wealthy with a wealthy husband, a cleaning lady, a nanny, and hosts benefits. What the movie discusses is how these people relate to one another, how the gaps between their experiences cause friction and how they struggle with it, but find a way of dealing with it.
The reason it comforted me, as I sat there knitting, a blanket over my legs, is it hit on a few themes echoing in my own life. Anniston's character in particular who was struggling with the fact that she had not hit any of those so called "bench markers" yet - she wasn't married, she didn't have kids, she didn't have the successful career, or for that matter much money. Yet her friends appeared to have all four - from her perspective, her friends had no problems, nothing to complain about, their lives were easy. But as we zig-zag into each character's perspective, we discover none of them are truly happy and at the end, oddly, Anniston's character seems to be the most content - having found someone she can talk to and relate to and not feeling stuck in a marriage, lifestyle, or job she's not happy with.
Anniston's character who is both single and unemployed or struggling with employement - wonders how her friends did it. As if there's some magical formula out there which she hasn't figured out and other's have - or if she's lacking something integral for her to have that life - the husband, the job, the house...and why, she seems to wonder do her friends take it for granted, as if it's something as simple as getting heat, food, or turning on the tv.
Truth of it is - marriage isn't simple - we're shown that in the film, nor is any job.
Getting it isn't easy, making it work certainly isn't.
These themes are not shown explicity, but implied through the interactions of the characters, none of whom are played by "pretty" people. The filmmaker never preaches or tells us what to think, instead they show us through the day to day lives of these people. Nothing "major" happens, no one dies, no one gets fired, no one screams at someone about having an affair, the drama is duller, realer, less melodramatic than what you might see on an episode of Grey's Anatomy or Brothers and Sisters or even Notes on A Scandel or Little Children. The fact that the film is so quiet, may be why it has been largely overlooked by the critics and the public, with the possible exception of a scene in an Old Navy store with Frances McDormand - which is the only piece of "melodrama" in the film and is handled in a manner that is not only realistic but sympathetic to everyone involved.
I remember a while back reading a Q&A with Jack Nicholson in one of the popular film/entertainment magazines. Nicholson stated that somewhere in the 1980s films had become more melodramatic. He thought at the time it was a passing trend, wouldn't last. But for some reason audiences liked melodrama, preferred it even to quieter films. He didn't, he preferred the quiet character pieces like Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge,and to a degree Easy Rider. His later roles, he termed as over-the-top but only because that was what was demanded. Friends With Money reminds me a great deal of those earlier, 1970s films - or the films of John Cassevetes - Scenes from A Marriage.
It isn't flashy. It's not something that will wow you with its atmosphere or tricky cinematopgraphy like Lost in Translation, but it does leave a lasting impression and does an excellent job of detailing the disconnection we feel with one another, the discontentment, the envy, the desire for something that forever lies outside our reach and we think if only I could find it, I'd be happy.
Saw an interesting flick last night via netflix - Friends With Money starring Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Gregg Germane, Jason Issacs, and Jennifer Aniston. Not at all what I expected and very comforting. The story is about three couples and one single gal, Anniston, who are all friends, in their late thirties/early forties, and all struggling with their relationships and careers. All feel discontent. Uncertain. And think the other person has it better or worse than they do.
Anniston's character is working as a maid; she quit her last job as a teacher because she didn't like it and it wasn't working for her and is struggling to find something else. Her friends think she should just go back to it - do that. They also don't understand why she hasn't found anyone, why she has had such horrible results with men, and feel an odd combo of pity, guilt, and frustration with her. Wanting to fix her life yet at the same time not be bothered with it. They themselves aren't that happy either. One is a writer (Keener) - who writes television and film scripts with her husband, and they are on the verge of a separation. Another is a designer (McDormand)- who is 43, depressed, has two kids, overworked, frustrated, and given up on her hair to such a degree she no longer washes it - meanwhile her husband is being hit on by men. The third (Cusack) is wealthy with a wealthy husband, a cleaning lady, a nanny, and hosts benefits. What the movie discusses is how these people relate to one another, how the gaps between their experiences cause friction and how they struggle with it, but find a way of dealing with it.
The reason it comforted me, as I sat there knitting, a blanket over my legs, is it hit on a few themes echoing in my own life. Anniston's character in particular who was struggling with the fact that she had not hit any of those so called "bench markers" yet - she wasn't married, she didn't have kids, she didn't have the successful career, or for that matter much money. Yet her friends appeared to have all four - from her perspective, her friends had no problems, nothing to complain about, their lives were easy. But as we zig-zag into each character's perspective, we discover none of them are truly happy and at the end, oddly, Anniston's character seems to be the most content - having found someone she can talk to and relate to and not feeling stuck in a marriage, lifestyle, or job she's not happy with.
Anniston's character who is both single and unemployed or struggling with employement - wonders how her friends did it. As if there's some magical formula out there which she hasn't figured out and other's have - or if she's lacking something integral for her to have that life - the husband, the job, the house...and why, she seems to wonder do her friends take it for granted, as if it's something as simple as getting heat, food, or turning on the tv.
Truth of it is - marriage isn't simple - we're shown that in the film, nor is any job.
Getting it isn't easy, making it work certainly isn't.
These themes are not shown explicity, but implied through the interactions of the characters, none of whom are played by "pretty" people. The filmmaker never preaches or tells us what to think, instead they show us through the day to day lives of these people. Nothing "major" happens, no one dies, no one gets fired, no one screams at someone about having an affair, the drama is duller, realer, less melodramatic than what you might see on an episode of Grey's Anatomy or Brothers and Sisters or even Notes on A Scandel or Little Children. The fact that the film is so quiet, may be why it has been largely overlooked by the critics and the public, with the possible exception of a scene in an Old Navy store with Frances McDormand - which is the only piece of "melodrama" in the film and is handled in a manner that is not only realistic but sympathetic to everyone involved.
I remember a while back reading a Q&A with Jack Nicholson in one of the popular film/entertainment magazines. Nicholson stated that somewhere in the 1980s films had become more melodramatic. He thought at the time it was a passing trend, wouldn't last. But for some reason audiences liked melodrama, preferred it even to quieter films. He didn't, he preferred the quiet character pieces like Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge,and to a degree Easy Rider. His later roles, he termed as over-the-top but only because that was what was demanded. Friends With Money reminds me a great deal of those earlier, 1970s films - or the films of John Cassevetes - Scenes from A Marriage.
It isn't flashy. It's not something that will wow you with its atmosphere or tricky cinematopgraphy like Lost in Translation, but it does leave a lasting impression and does an excellent job of detailing the disconnection we feel with one another, the discontentment, the envy, the desire for something that forever lies outside our reach and we think if only I could find it, I'd be happy.
