Polarization is the new normal — and not just in politics.
And "Adore," an Australian–French movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on this day in 2013, was as polarizing (along gender lines) as a movie can get. At least, based on my experience.
In that experience, I have found that most women seemed to love "Adore," and most men seemed to hate it. For the record, I did not hate it. I thought it was silly, preposterous, but I didn't hate it.
The fact that the movie's stars, Naomi Watts and Robin Wright, were two of the more respected if underrated actresses in the business only partially hid the fact that, whatever else it may have been, "Adore" qualified as a guilty pleasure.
The story was simply too implausible, the circumstances too flimsily connected. I heard the movie described once as a chick flick for grandmothers. That summary vastly oversimplified things, but there was a kernel or two of truth in that description.
I suppose there were reasons for interpreting it that way. After all, the general plot was about older women who were sexually involved with much younger men. In fact, the women in the movie, who were lifelong friends, were involved with each other's sons.
Setting aside, for just a moment, the ethical implications of that situation, isn't it everyone's fantasy — at some point — to be desired by a much younger person? Wouldn't that be the best of all possible worlds — to possess the wisdom that comes with age and the physical appeal of youth?
Of course. But the setting was just too implausible for my taste. Watts and Wright's characters had grown up best friends in an affluent Australian beachfront community that seemed to exist in some kind of bubble where the normal rules didn't apply — which encouraged all kinds of behavior — and they were raising their sons in the same place.
Now, I live in Dallas, Texas, and I know there are pockets all over this city that would fit that description. I'm sure there are similar pockets in cities all over this country — and, indeed, all over the world. But this one was just too perfect for the story — the sun, the sea, the sand, the isolation.
The women were very close — so close that sometimes the male characters wondered if they were lesbians.
They weren't, of course, and the audience knew that — they even marveled at the godlike attributes of their progeny as they watched them surfing the same waters in which the women had cavorted together as children — but there was an absence of male figures in their story that helped promote that idea among the men — and even, to an extent, among some of the women — in the movie. Watts was widowed early in the story, and Wright's husband was offered a job in Sydney; consequently, he was not around much as he was busy with the demands of the new job and getting settled.
Their sons were best friends as well, but no one suggested that they were gay.
The problem audiences had with "Adore" was rooted in the age–old differences between men and women and how they perceive love, sex and intimacy (which is not always physical) — the eternal tug–of–war between the emotional and the physical.
Anyone who has interacted with the opposite gender (in other words, everyone) knows that the genders don't see those things in the same way — yet we always seem to assume that the opposite sex will come to see those things the way we do. I don't know why we do that — and I will concede that there are some who don't but comparatively few.
The women with whom I have talked about this movie expressed admiration and praise for the story. One spoke of the courage of the actresses, which baffled me. And that could be because I am a man — but I tend to think it is more because of the insipid dialogue in the movie.
For example, at one point when Watts and Wright were speaking about the situation, Watts lamented that they had "crossed a line." Ya think? I really had to wonder how she could say that with a straight face.
The ludicrous writing really surprised me because the screenplay was adapted by Christopher Hampton, who won an Oscar for his adaptation of "Dangerous Liaisons."
It goes without saying, I suppose, that he received no nominations for this one.
And a couple of cautionary words for any hot–blooded young people hoping to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of nudity, given such a provocative premise.
Look elsewhere.
The mothers in the story are beautiful, yes, but they and the boys who play their sons are, with maybe one very brief exception, nothing more than eye candy with clothes — skimpy clothes, perhaps, but clothes nonetheless.
