Soppy Love Story for the ladies alert, brought to us by the main actress, producer and director Barbara Streisand - Academy Award nominated, and so required viewing, so what do I think?
Tooth ache sweet!
The gist: lifetime-long plain girl Barbara Streisand portrays prime spinster candidate Professor Rose Morgan, and English Professor who is a romantic at heart, holding out for the ka-boom in her heart. She has a glamorous mother portrayed by screen legend Lauren Bacall in her first Oscar nominated performance in her 50 year career, against whom she has been locked in a life-long struggle to be seen as pretty, and equally glamorous sister played by Mimi Rogers, who is marrying the man she fancied, Pierce Brosnan. Into her life stumbles mathematician Professor Gregory Larkin played by Jeff Bridges, and love looks like it could finally be on the cards for her except for one detail, he has forsaken all the physical aspects of love wanting to focus on the superior notion of companionship.
Will her dreams come true?
The truth, and it was a bone of contention for critics upon its release, is that this piece of fluff really is an excercise of self for Barbara Streisand, an ego project and ego trip if there ever was one. It simply is a fact which oozes out of the screen.
That said, these movies do have their place in the history of cinema (not the ego aspect, but the romance), and light and frothy is sometimes possibly a break against the consistency of tragedy, violence and drama that is the usual Oscar fodder. In this way, being that I have been absorbed into a world of serious movie watching, I cannot say I absolutely hated the movie - it has it's charmingly funny moments, and is a breath of fresh air for my current head space of watching serious movies. Lauren Bacall is well deserving (finally) of receiving not only some form of recognition for a career in cinema (and damn she was a beautiful screen siren when she was young, with an incredibly sexy husky voice), but the role she portrays by itself is a great character to watch on screen, part of the great charm of this movie.
The movie by itself is a fresh approach to the subject matter of this non-conventional relationship, in alot of ways drawing the audience into intelligently written, witty, dialogue and discussions around the issues of this relationship - it is so well written that it eventually becomes totally relatable in so far as no matter what the issue you are facing in any relationship, we all face them with with the respective other of the relationship - compromising, disagreeing, seeking validation, dealing our stuff, etc...
But let's be honest, this is definitely one for the Mrs...
So this is the 37th Academy Award Nominated Movie from the list I have watched since Blog commencement, and the 3rd from the 69th Academy Awards - realising I am gonna be rewatching The English Patient, hated it first time around, enjoyed it the second time I saw it, let's see how I feel watching it again...
nuff said...
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