Revelations of a First Love

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"First loves are always the same and always different," Roger Ebert wrote after French film "Blue Is the Warmest Color" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival five years ago on May 23. That may be the most truthful statement Ebert ever wrote.

I experienced my first real love when I was 17, which is roughly the age of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), but it was not as confusing as Adèle's experience. I knew I was attracted to the opposite sex. Adèle did not, and she experimented with a young man from her school but found that unsatisfying.

Then, after sharing a kiss with a female student and fantasizing about an older girl with blue hair whose name, the audience would learn, was Emma (Léa Seydoux), she began to question her sexuality. The movie was about the relationship between Adèle and Emma — told, as Ebert wrote, in "epic detail."

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It had to be told that way, I suppose, because, by their very nature, same–sex relationships are learn–as–you–go types of things. There is no shortage of advice books about heterosexual relationships because the vast majority of relationships are heterosexual. When I was a teenager — and I presume it is still that way — there were few if any books on same–sex relationships that could answer the myriad of questions that accompany them.

Emma was more experienced than Adèle and had already found answers to her questions. In fact, when Adèle first encountered Emma, Emma was with another female and, the audience would learn, had had previous same–sex relationships.

As Ebert said, first loves are always the same and always different. In the unlikely event that the viewer had not experienced a first love, there is much truth in that. To tell the story of a first love, it is necessary, as Ebert observed, to do so in "epic detail."

That includes all the awkward moments and the sexual exploration, which are the same for all and yet different. Awkward moments will always be awkward, and — considering how much of the population is estimated to be heterosexual — it must be a real challenge for homosexuals when it comes to those initial sexual experiences.

I remember when I was a teenager, and all the males in my junior high were herded into the auditorium for a lecture on sex. The emphasis was entirely on heterosexual sex. I presume it was the same for the girls. Those students who were homosexuals — or, at least, had concluded that they had homosexual tendencies — probably found those assemblies boring — as, I am sure, any heterosexually active students, did.

The assemblies really only addressed the physical aspects of sexual relationships, not the emotional ones.

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I was one of the rare ones, I guess. When I was in junior high, my sexual activity was, at best, flirtation with girls I found attractive. Even through my high school years, it never went any further than that.

Which proves Ebert's point. Many of my classmates — I didn't know which ones then, and I don't know today, either — had already engaged in some sexual experimentation, even if they hadn't yet experienced their first loves.

I was very naive as a boy. I tended to believe just about anything my classmates told me, assuming they had more experience than I did, and teenage boys are always eager to take credit for sexual exploits whether they happened or not. Looking back, I would have to say that my faith was misplaced. Most probably had the same experience level I did — although everyone's experiences are different.

Anyway, to a certain extent, I suppose some critics' complaints that "Blue Is the Warmest Color" was a pornographic film were justified. There was considerable nudity in the movie. And some critics complained that it was pedophilic, given the fact that Adèle was under 18.

But it had to be that way because most people, it seems to me, have their first sexual experiences in their teen years. Sometimes they are 18 or older, but often they are not. I wasn't.

I knew a girl in college who suspected, back in high school, that she was homosexual, but she didn't have her first physical homosexual experience until she was over 18.

Like Ebert said: "First loves are always the same and always different."

Rewriting a Wrong

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"How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? Do you have to be 18 before you can own up to a lie?"

Robbie (James McAvoy)

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Sometimes people pay for mistakes all their lives — and sometimes people pay for mistakes with their lives.

"Atonement," which premiered on this day in 2007, was about both.

It was a rather complex plot, centering around Saoirse Ronan, who played a precocious 13–year–old aspiring writer from an upper–crust British family in the years before the outbreak of World War II. As the movie began, she had just finished writing a play and planned to put on something of a backyard production of the play starring her visiting cousins.

Mind you, when I say backyard, her family had quite a backyard. You could accommodate a sizable stage and a considerable audience there.

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Briony (Ronan's character's name) was, as people that age so often are, given to flights of fancy.

She also had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on the son of the family's housekeeper (James McAvoy), who was bound for Cambridge thanks to his mother's employer. But Robbie was attracted to Briony's older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley).

And one day Briony observed interaction between Robbie and Cecilia — from afar. Cecilia stripped to her underclothes, then plunged into a fountain pond, then re–emerged a short time later, all while Robbie watched. The audience later learned that it had been an entirely innocent act that, having been misinterpreted, went on to form the nucleus of other false assumptions and accusations that ultimately sent Robbie to prison.

Four years later Robbie was serving in World War II, having agreed to serve in the military in exchange for his release from prison. An older and somewhat wiser Briony was regretting what she had said and sought the forgiveness of her sister, discovering that she and Robbie had reunited and Robbie was on leave from the war.

They had a confrontation, and Briony agreed to have her testimony changed and the official record altered. But there was a problem. One of the cousins who had been visiting the house that summer had been sexually assaulted by a man she had not seen. Briony had initially claimed it was Robbie, having seen the episode by the fountain and read an explicit note Robbie had written while working on drafts of apologies to Cecilia for his behavior, but the assailant turned out to be a friend of Briony's brother. She had realized that when she saw the cousin marrying this man — which meant that she could not be used as a supporting witness for Briony's revised account of events.

And if Briony went to the authorities to change her story, she would be regarded as an unreliable witness. Robbie's name could not be cleared in the public record.

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But then the audience was thrown a curve.

And, with the noteworthy exceptions of the finales of "The Sixth Sense" or "Psycho," it just might be the best twist ending I have ever seen.

Briony, now in her 70s (played by Vanessa Redgrave), was being interviewed on TV. Apparently she had grown into a professional writer and was speaking about her latest book. It would also be her final book, she told the interviewer, because she was dying of vascular dementia, "which is essentially a continuous series of tiny strokes. Your brain gradually closes down. You lose words, you lose your memory: which, for a writer, is pretty much the point. That's why I could finally write this book; and why, of course, it's my last novel. Strangely enough, it would be just as accurate to call it my first novel. I wrote several drafts as far back as my time at St. Thomas's Hospital during the war. I just couldn't ever find the way to do it."

Briony explained that Robbie and Cecilia never reconciled. Robbie had died of an infection at Dunkirk and Cecilia died a few months later during an air raid.

Briony, who apparently never changed her hairstyle in the 60–plus years covered in the movie, had written the book — including that confrontation that never happened — to give them the happy ending they were deprived in life.

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It was an interesting twist on the traditional coming–of–age movies I have seen. The problem with coming–of–age movies is that too many of them treat that time of life as a magical mystery tour that sometimes features lapses in judgment. This story spanned a lifetime and addressed the kind of real mistakes that the young often make — and sometimes must live with for the rest of their lives.

And it contained a touch that, as a writer, I can appreciate.

It used the staccato pounding of typewriter keys as part of the score — largely because of Briony's determined development as a writer but also Robbie's hesitant typing of the drafts of his apology to Cecilia.

It was a very effective touch and probably deserved a special Academy Award nomination.

As it was, though, "Atonement" received seven Oscar nominations — and won for Best Original Score so I suppose it was rewarded for that.

Ronan received the movie's only acting nomination but lost Best Supporting Actress to Tilda Swinton.

'The Breakfast Club' Was More Than Just a Comedy

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Brian (Anthony Michael Hall): Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us — in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain ...

Andrew (Emilio Estevez): ... and an athlete ...

Allison (Ally Sheedy): ... and a basket case ...

Claire (Molly Ringwald): ... a princess ...

John (Judd Nelson): ... and a criminal ...

Brian: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

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"The Breakfast Club," which began playing on America's movie screens 30 years ago today, was better than most of the coming–of–age flicks I have seen — and more than just a comedy.

So often, "coming of age" seems to be code for "losing one's virginity" — or trying to lose one's virginity and failing miserably. Excuses for exploiting the young and the beautiful. (That seemed to be especially true of movies of the mid–1980s.)

That really does seem unfortunate to me because there are so many other aspects of the maturation process that do not involve sex — but do involve a voyage of self–discovery. And, to be fair, there have been some movies that have tried to tackle the topic of coming of age from a more cerebral perspective. Some succeeded. Some did not.

"The Breakfast Club" was one of the better ones.

The premise was that five students, each occupying a different rung on the ladder of high school popularity, were brought together to serve a day of detention on a Saturday. They didn't know each other when the day began, but they knew each other pretty well when the day was over.

This was an old tactic, critic Roger Ebert observed, given a new spin. "William Saroyan and Eugene O'Neill have been here before, but they used saloons and drunks. 'The Breakfast Club' uses a high school library and five teenage kids."

OK, it wasn't an original tactic. But the folks who put the movie together managed to attract an audience by casting five of the hottest young stars around at that time — Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.

Once they had 'em in the theater, they could tell their story.

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With nearly all of the action taking place in that high school library, the dialogue became the most important part of the movie. "The Breakfast Club" was like a high school version of the United Nations, with each campus clique represented. Thirty years later, the labels are probably different — language, after all, defines each generation — but the types are universal.

Anyone who ever spent any time in high school is familiar with them. The athlete, the brain, the criminal, the prom queen, the misfit. The cast of "The Breakfast Club" seemed to accept the spots in the high school pecking order to which they had been assigned by life; when the movie began, the characters knew little about each other — and really did not want to know much about each other.

An hour and a half later (by moviegoer's time) they knew all about each other. They had bonded, each in his or her own way but learning in the process the things that they had in common.

The two girls bonded in ways their peers never would have been able to comprehend. The prom queen (Molly Ringwald) was applying makeup to the face of the misfit (Ally Sheedy).

"Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked with the wary suspicion of one who has been humiliated before.

"Because you're letting me," the prom queen replied, and one suspected that, in her experience, things like trust frequently came with strings attached. At the same time, the audience knew that Sheedy didn't trust people easily, that it was a pretty big deal for her to allow Ringwald to be that close.

But girls' agendas are always more complicated than boys'. For the boys in "The Breakfast Club," it was about making the grade. One was driven to get grades that were good enough to merit a full academic scholarship. Another was driven to get grades that were good enough that, combined with athletic skill, would merit an athletic scholarship. The third was driven, simply, to get grades that were good enough to get by.

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And, while there has always been and always will be a certain amount of macho posturing in male relationships, the boys managed to get past that on several occasions.

I don't think I ever expected that any of them would win acting awards, but I hoped that the movie might receive some recognition from Oscar. But it did not. That was in keeping, I suppose, with the Academy Awards' general — and long–standing — bias against comedies.

But there were many dramatic moments and dramatic lines in "The Breakfast Club." To dismiss it as a comedy is to do it a disservice.

When the Past Kicks the Door Down

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"Whenever it wants, the past can come kicking the door down. And you never know where it's going to take you. All you can do is hope it's a place you want to go."

Bobby as an adult
Hearts in Atlantis

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I'm a fan of Stephen King's writings, and, a few years ago, I read "Hearts in Atlantis," mostly during my lunch hours at work.

I would pack a lunch — usually a couple of sandwiches — and go out to my car and read my book for about an hour. It was good, but it wasn't a single novel, like many of the King books I have read. It was one of his collections — some short stories and novellas that were linked (modestly and, to a great extent, chronologically) via some recurring characters.

And it wasn't the best of King's works that I have read. If I had to recommend any of his books — even a collection of his short stories — to someone else, I would never choose "Hearts in Atlantis."

The general theme of the stories in the collection is summed up by Peter Fonda's line from "Easy Rider" — "We blew it" — which is how King (or, at least, the narrator) opens the first story — and apparently feels about the postwar generation (also known as the "baby boomers") and its perceived failure to live up to expectations.

In a sense, I guess, that was a good simile for the movie, which was released 10 years ago today. It's kind of a Reader's Digest condensed version, emphasizing one story but trying to link elements of the others in the process — usualy without much context. At least the stories in the book were linked in ways that the reader could see clearly.

It was hardly clear in the movie, which was told as something of a flashback, with a now–grown man returning to his childhood home for the funeral of one of his childhood friends.

The title was explained in the movie only through a somewhat contrived comment that must have been created specifically for the movie. It actually comes from the name of the second story in the published collection, which takes place on a college campus, but the only story that was told in the movie, really, was the first, which was titled "Low Men in Yellow Coats." In that story, a young boy befriends an older man who moves in a couple of floors above the boy and his mother.

The man and the boy spend a great deal of time discussing books, and the man eventually works out an arrangement to pay the boy to read the newspaper to him, supposedly because his vision is not as good as it once was. As the two develop a bond, the man confides in the boy that he is being stalked by "low men in yellow coats," and he man tells the boy of the signs that warn of their presence.

Well, I don't want to give away the rest of the story, but it is a Stephen King coming–of–age story, in the mold of "Stand By Me" with some elements of some of his novels — and kind of a supernatural twist.

(The way King frequently focuses on childhood has often made me wonder if there was something traumatic in King's own childhood that perhaps the rest of us should know about.

(Well, he does what he does so well that perhaps we should be grateful that we don't know all the details ...)

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Anthony Hopkins was wonderful, as always, as the older man who comes to live above the boy and his mother. Sometimes I think Hopkins was born to play the older man roles, even though he has been appearing in movies since he was in his 20s.

At such times, I can't help but think the first 20 or 30 years of his career — as loaded with praise and award nominations as they were — were merely prologue for this phase.

And I thought 12–year–old Anton Yelchin did a good job as Bobby, the boy who finds himself torn between his mother and his friend, but I wasn't overly impressed with Hope Davis as the mother.

I rarely have been, I guess. I mean, I wasn't impressed with her supporting performance in "About Schmidt" as Jack Nicholson's daughter, and I guess that was her most noteworthy role after "Hearts in Atlantis." To be honest, I can't recall seeing her in anything, even though I know I have seen movies in which she appeared. Perhaps that will tell you how little of an impression she has left on me.

But, to be fair, Davis' character was not as developed in the movie as it was in King's original story, and that really isn't surprising. King was able to explore many of her fears, her motivations, her reactions to her experiences in ways that a movie never really could — especially if the director (Scott Hicks) showed no real interest in making the attempt, which, apparently, he did not.

That is odd, too, because screenwriter William Goldman was responsible for the adaptation of King's "Misery" in 1990 — and "Misery" was one of the better (although, like the rest, far from ideal) adaptations of King's work.

Davis' character was self–absorbed and bitter about her relationship with her late husband, for reasons that became less clear as the story unfolded. But, in spite of her seeming disinterest in her child, she did show her maternal instincts in both the book and, to a less obvious extent, the film when she fretted about whether Hopkins' character might be molestiing her son.

But King, as I recall, left some gaps in the readers' knowledge of the mother that might have been helpful in understanding why she jumped to the conclusions she did.

Her concern was unfounded, of course, and it appeared to be mostly based on her own experience of sexual harassment by her employer (an angle that was explored in more depth in the story than in the film), not on anything Hopkins' character had ever said or done in her presence. Although Hopkins' character was courteous when they met, Davis' character clearly did not like him from the start.

Maybe there was more to it than met the eye..

It's been several years since I read "Hearts in Atlantis," but it seems to me that Bobby's mother may have had issues with men in general that predated her relationship with her husband. Perhaps she had been abused as a child. Perhaps she had been raped even before her boss assaulted her. I could be wrong, but I don't think King ever got into that much detail.

I suppose you could debate whether it was wise to tell readers and viewers so little about what influenced Bobby's mother to make the decisions she did. But the story really wasn't about her. It was about Bobby, his childhood friends and his special older friend.

"I wouldn't have missed a single minute of it," Hopkins told Bobby when the low men finally caught up to him and took him away. "Not for the whole world."

I'm glad I didn't miss the book — or the movie.