Streep, Jones deliver heaps of hope
Source: Agencies |
August 19, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
HERE'S how surprisingly effective "Hope Springs" is: It will make you want to go home and have sex with your spouse afterward. Or at least share a longer hug or a more passionate kiss.
You don't have to be married for 31 years like the couple Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play to feel inspired by the film's message about the importance of keeping your relationship alive. It sounds like a cliché, yet "Hope Springs" unearths some quiet and often uncomfortable truths. The script from television writer and producer Vanessa Taylor ("Alias," "Game of Thrones") explores the complicated dynamics that develop over a long-term relationship with great honesty and little judgment. What looks like a standard romance comedy turns into something akin to a contemporary Ingmar Bergman film.
The performances from Streep and Jones make this movie work.
Streep's character, Kay, sells clothing at a chain store for middle-aged women. She and her husband, Arnold, live in a nice home in Omaha, Nebraska. Their children have grown up and moved out, leaving them to settle into a drab routine. She cooks bacon and eggs every morning before he goes to work. A similar routine takes place at night. It's been this way for years.
Tired of the sexless complacency, Kay insists one day that she and Arnold take part in an intense, one-week couples' therapy session. In Maine. Arnold grudgingly agrees to join her in the idyllic New England hamlet of Great Hope Springs. Their therapist is the soft-spoken but persistent Dr Bernard Feld (Steve Carell, playing it straight to allow the two stars to stand out).
The therapy scenes are exquisitely acted with body language and slight facial gestures that speak volumes. Once they do begin answering questions, they reveal regrets and resentments, yearnings and fantasies they'd never dared to speak aloud before.
Jones is gruff but eventually shows vulnerability that provides depth. He's great. And Streep is lovely, slightly naive and always accessible. She never has a moment that feels forced or false.
Without a single special effect or explosion, "Hope Springs" is the unexpected summer movie with real punch.
You don't have to be married for 31 years like the couple Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play to feel inspired by the film's message about the importance of keeping your relationship alive. It sounds like a cliché, yet "Hope Springs" unearths some quiet and often uncomfortable truths. The script from television writer and producer Vanessa Taylor ("Alias," "Game of Thrones") explores the complicated dynamics that develop over a long-term relationship with great honesty and little judgment. What looks like a standard romance comedy turns into something akin to a contemporary Ingmar Bergman film.
The performances from Streep and Jones make this movie work.
Streep's character, Kay, sells clothing at a chain store for middle-aged women. She and her husband, Arnold, live in a nice home in Omaha, Nebraska. Their children have grown up and moved out, leaving them to settle into a drab routine. She cooks bacon and eggs every morning before he goes to work. A similar routine takes place at night. It's been this way for years.
Tired of the sexless complacency, Kay insists one day that she and Arnold take part in an intense, one-week couples' therapy session. In Maine. Arnold grudgingly agrees to join her in the idyllic New England hamlet of Great Hope Springs. Their therapist is the soft-spoken but persistent Dr Bernard Feld (Steve Carell, playing it straight to allow the two stars to stand out).
The therapy scenes are exquisitely acted with body language and slight facial gestures that speak volumes. Once they do begin answering questions, they reveal regrets and resentments, yearnings and fantasies they'd never dared to speak aloud before.
Jones is gruff but eventually shows vulnerability that provides depth. He's great. And Streep is lovely, slightly naive and always accessible. She never has a moment that feels forced or false.
Without a single special effect or explosion, "Hope Springs" is the unexpected summer movie with real punch.
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