David Frankel’s “Hope Springs” is one of the first movies
I’ve seen in a while that deals with the struggles of marriage and sex in a
mature way. Of course you wouldn’t get that from the advertisements. The
trailers make it look like a Nancy Meyers-style older-person romantic
comedy. And while “Hope Springs” does
have jokes, it feels more like a light drama than a comedy.
The tone of the picture is calm as opposed to being high
energy and screwball. Frankel moves the story along slowly and patiently and
the script by Vanessa Taylor is frank and free of fat. It has two seasoned
veterans: Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, giving rather subtle and complex
performances. All in all “Hope Springs” is a nice little movie that the AARP
audience will probably enjoy more than anyone else.
Streep and Jones play Kay and Arnold, who have been married
for thirty years. Although you wouldn’t think so. They live in the same house
but they sleep in separate rooms. Arnold gets up, Streep makes him the same breakfast,
he goes to work without acknowledging her. He gets home; they eat dinner,
barely saying two words to each other. Then they go to bed. Oh yeah and they’re
not having sex.
Again, all of this is handled with maturity and sophistication.
They don’t get into bickering fights where they exchange snappy dialogue at one
another and Kay doesn’t complain about him to her girlfriends the next day.
They’ve clearly been in this routine for years now and they seem to have
accepted it. Jones is crabby, straight edged and no nonsense -- traits that he
can convey effortlessly -- while Streep is fragile and timid, which is actually
surprising considering she played such a shrill and domineering character in
Frankel’s 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada.”
But it’s she who decides that their marriage needs help.
While browsing the relationship section at the bookstore she finds a book by a
highly regarded marriage counselor, Dr. Fields (Steve Carrel, playing against
type but ultimately in a thankless role). Eventually Kay and Arnold
(begrudgingly) head off to the small town of Hope Springs to attend a week long
intensive counseling with the Doc.
Not a whole lot “happens” in the movie. Arnold and Kay go to
Hope Springs and get counseled by Dr. Fields. It’s far more character driven than
plot driven. It’s more about the internal struggles of Kay and Arnold rather
than the outer. Sure, Dr. Fields will give them an occasional marital exercise (cuddling
with each other, for example), which will lead to some comically awkward moments,
but thankfully there isn’t a ton of those, and the ones that are there don’t
feel like dead weight or filler.
Instead, Frankel devotes a lot of time to the
actual therapy sessions. He gives the characters time to talk and lets each
scene unfold patiently instead of quickly moving on to the next one. Jones is
damn good at playing a man who’s uncomfortable and uninterested. Arnold is
reluctant to do the therapy at first, he barely says anything and even storms
out once or twice. However, slowly but surely his tough exterior begins to
crack and he opens up. Kay does the same. Both of them have some kind of
subconscious fear that prevents them from making contact with one another, let
alone having sex. Sometimes they make progress, other times they go backwards. The
whole mystery of the movie is, what exactly went wrong and can their marriage be
saved? In that way “Hope Springs” is much deeper and more nuanced than you
might think it is.
Really, the only major flaw of “Hope Springs” is that perhaps
it plays things too safe. Overall, it is fairly plain and conventional, not
taking many risks. For that reason old people will enjoy it the most. On the
other hand, it’s still pleasant to see a romantic comedy/drama that’s this
subtle and mature. Kay and Arnold don’t go to any extreme places or go on any
extreme adventures. It’s simply a comfortable picture about an older married
couple trying to save their marriage.
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