A STAR IS BORN

After a term spent studying popular culture, this movie speaks to me about singers being commodified, dehumanizing the person who owns the talent. The male protagonist was a well-known musician who apparently was allowed to be himself while his female counterpart was quickly commodified into a profitable pop culture icon for entertaining the insatiable appetite of mass audiences with little interest in appreciating the deeper message in her songs which once formed the heart of her performance.

This movie is also about two pop culture icons crossing paths: one near expiry date and the other one just starting out. Without giving anything away, the finale especially, is a poignant symbolism of the person that has to bow out to the star that is being born for mass consumption. Ironically, the price for a star to be born is very high indeed.

It is interesting that I had a pre-movie conversation with another woman friend about the movie Pad Man (the movie about the Indian man who made low-cost sanitary pads and was rejected by women steeped in traditional thinking), feminist activism, and how women can be their own worst adversaries without being even aware of how much they are playing roles prescribed by paternalistic systems, traditions and cultures. The right to deeper thinking about the messages circulating in our lies, the right to deeper self-reflection and the right be caring and humane to anyone who crosses our path on a day-to-day basis are often qualities of person hood that are obscured by what we imagine to be more important and louder rights for women to be heard. As women, it is worth cultivating the habit of deeper thinking so that how we live as women will add greater meaning to conversations about empowering other women. 

I found myself forgetting that it was a movie because I had seen a documentary of Lady Gaga before and in the movie, she appeared as down-to-earth as a star could on the big screen which made the story real. Best type of movie to go with company that doesn't mind the movie dialogues being interjected with your sniffles of over-identification with the movie characters.  

The 5-Year Engagement (2012) and Everybody's Fine (2009)

These two highly enjoyable movies mark the start and end of the family life cycle.

 THE 5-YEAR ENGAGEMENT tellingly describes the ups and downs that a young couple (Jason Segel & Emily Blunt)go through from the time they decide to get engaged. In the process of trying to strike a perfect balance and portray a picture of conjugal bliss, juggling career aspirations, and dreams, they began to lose their passion and personhood. In time, they found that the more they tried to be a couple – doing couple things as and when expected – the greater their tension for personal space. In the end, they separated just to recover the two individuals who had initially come together because they were fascinated by each other’s difference. (They met at a year-end costume party and were immediately drawn to each other: the man dressed as a fluffy frumpy pink bunny, and the woman as Princess Diana. How much more diverse can you get?)

On the other end of the spectrum, EVERYBODY’S FINE is an endearing movie about a recently widowed middle-aged man (Robert De Niro) whose four adult children conspired to hide the reality of their life struggles from him. In the process, he was alienated from the children he boasted about. But as he began to look at them as mere young children, he began to see their naivety and vulnerability, and to bring their follies as well as his fantasies to an end. In the end, his courage in facing reality with his children rallied the whole family and strengthened their bonds.

Undeniably, the underlying theme of both movies is the human tendency to sugar-coat our life and family experiences.

From the young couple on a long threshold of marriage, to the father struggling to connect with his grown children,  when we avoid unpleasant conversations, even arguments and confrontations, when we deny ourselves of expectations and aspirations by living in another person’s shadow, cracks are bound to show up in one way or another, and sooner or later.

There’s truly no better time to know who we really are than before getting hitched and after a loved one is gone – by death, divorce or desertion. After all, we are born single and will be single when we die. Singlehood is a precious time to discover self, to discover an amazing relationship with a living God, and to discover the ultimate meaning of life when you strip away considerations like if you married, who you married, the quality of your marriage, the children you have or not, etc. You begin to see life simplified when it’s just about you, and what on earth you are doing here.

Recently, a married friend asked me if it was possible for Christian couples to be lovey-dovey, affectionate throughout their marriage or if it was normal to expect decline.  Coincidently, this was brought up in a group discussion just a day before.

My simple reply to my married friend was to consider if the couple allow each other space and time to grow spiritually and emotionally. Or if they take the phrase ‘two become one’ wrongly and become so enmeshed in their identities, personalities, preferences and choices that they suppress, stunt, and stifle each other. In such a state, it’s hard for anyone to contribute to the relationship in terms of spontaneity, imagination, surprise and delight.

In Luke 17:1-3 Jesus issued a sombre warning His disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” Married couples would do well to apprehend this.

From sizzle to fizzle, when routine replaces romantic impulses, when what is expected replaces what you really feel like doing, and when familiarity replaces fascination, your relationship will become as interesting as dried prunes.

I persuaded my friend that it takes two people in love with God, who are continually renewed in His love and passion to bring passion and renewal into their marriage. Even if it is a one-sided effort, improvements will be seen as one draws on the enduring, immeasurable and indescribable love of God and lives in the freedom and power of His love. One vibrant is better than none. If it only takes a spark to get a fire going, then somebody has to light it first for all to enjoy!

Funny moments from The Five-Year Engagement include a really cute Italian song, 'Cu Cu Ru Cu Cu Paloma' sung at a wedding; father of the engaged bride-to-be who keeps bringing a different Asian girlfriend to family events; the lure and drain of a sweet young fling for the engaged groom; and the energy of a high-end restaurant kitchen. I have watched De Niro's Everybody's Fine twice and will probably watch it again before it's due for return at the video shop.

The Artist

It’s hard for me to watch a movie without audible dialogue and the usual sound effects that mark everyday life. To compensate, I found myself reading the actors’ lips with great effort, ad lib what should have been spoken and wound up mentally exhausted by the end of the movie. Kind of like running ahead of the laconic intertitles that leave a lot unsaid!

Silent movies, quiet libraries, and a solitary walk in the park without headphones have the capacity to accentuate one’s internal self-talk. The movie helps me realize that hearing people talk is so important to how I experience and enjoy life and relationships, and how frustrating and inhibiting it is when open communication is missing.

More than just an absence of sound, silence spans an impenetrable space between people. Look around and see if people don’t sit further apart when they are silent than when they are engaged in conversation.

Silent film actors have good mastery of body language, facial expressions and dramatic pacing to make up for the lack of sound. The Artist dramatizes the career trajectory of a well-loved silent film actor, George Valentin, from its peak to eventual demise. He feels inexorably that talking movies distract audience and downplay the dignity of acting. As talking movies appear and replace silent movies, George beomes a repressed icon that fades into his own world of silence. His dog, Uggy, becomes the de facto liason between silent George and the speaking world. George also has a guardian angel in the form of an up and rising silent-turned-talking movie star who is grateful for the first break he gave her earlier on.

If every man who hits rock bottom has a supportive community like George, the turnaround would be much faster. He has a faithful dog, a guardian angel, and a chauffeur cum buttler so loyal he works without salary for a year just to serve him. But he prefers to languish alone in the jaded glory of the past in an empty apartment than courageously embrace a new future in a supportive community. Pride can be an inseparable companion to a man bankrupt of hope.

Clearly, a change of circumstances hardly changes the core of a man. It’s often frustrating to help someone determined to spend his life in gloom and doom.

Fortunately, this movie ends on an upbeat note when George relents by taking a dancing role in a 'talkie' [speaking movie]. Ultimately, he learns to dance to a different tune and finds a new lease of life!

Hope Springs

People laugh at the movies for many reasons. Laughter could be a way to diffuse discomfort and normalize situations that are otherwise bizarre or disturbingly private. There are several scenes in Hope Springs that would have produced moments of awkward silence if not for seemingly misplaced sniggers, chortles and chuckles breaking out. It’s the audience’s way of saying, ‘Yes, I know what they are going through’.        

For sure, this is a middle-age themed movie about an ordinary couple in their sixties, complete with real wrinkles and unhidden flabs. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are endearingly imperfect and believable as a couple – Kay and Arnold - with an empty nest and even emptier marriage. There isn’t a sense that they are performing because they seem so comfortable being their age without vanity or fantasy. As Kay and Arnold, they are married for over 30 years, and are as straight-laced as can be, ho hum down to the unimaginative bacon with two sunnyside ups served each morning without fail.

Their marriage has only one dominant voice, and home life is painfully silent for Kay. Subdued in an unequal relationship, she cannot love back because of the lack of power and autonomy to do so. Not surprisingly, one who slavishly meets the needs of a spouse and walks around him or her on eggshells is unlikely to be spontaneous and fun because of fear and intimidation. Without any change, a co-dependence replaces intimacy and it only gets worse over the years.

Trapped in a dismal role she hasn’t signed up for, Kay initiated intensive counselling to save either her marriage or sanity. Her sharp intuition contrasts with her husband’s blunt ignorance of the state of affairs at home, and counselling doesn't help when one party is in denial. Yet in most cases, both parties are guilty of breeding marital malaise and ignoring the symptoms for too long.

As expected, the imbalance of power between Kay and Arnold causes everything else to be lope-sided in their married life. Tell-tale signs include: sleeping apart – different times, different beds, and even different rooms; one is always the talker, the other the listener with muted response; the only time they touch each other is when they take pictures together; there are no conversations about each other’s feelings and thoughts, no mutuality of enjoyment, no surprises. If a marriage is more perfunctory than passionate, more routine than romantic, it’s time to get help.  

This movie highlights the truth that a couple – newly married or older married - can be sitting together on a couch but are oceans apart in their hearts. It’s like watching a case study. You see the subtle nuances that can bedevil a marriage, and how couples use routine to cover up unspeakable woes to beguile outsiders.

A good movie with engaging performances by Streep, Jones and Steve Carell as the marriage counsellor. Be prepared for inappropriate laughter coming from some members of the audience who need the catharsis of laughter to face scenarios that could be painfully familiar. Just bear with them ...like I certainly did.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

A married couple, two men and three other women severally take themselves away from middle-class and middle-age struggles in England, and fly to Jaipur, India to what is touted as ‘the best exotic Marigold Hotel for the elderly and beautiful’. The appeal is totally senescent with the promise of a sanctuary that awaits them.

All except retired judge, Graham, have never been to India. Life, or niche marketing, has a way of putting together dissimilar people with common aspirations. But as shown in the photo above, it is a case of delayed domestic flight. Not wanting to waste a moment of their golden years, the motley crew resolutely pick up their luggage and follow Graham to take a train and then ride a bus to Jaipur.

Mahatma Gandhi is known to insist on travelling on train in third class. When asked why, his answer was simply that there was no fourth class. Public transport in India - train, bus or tuk-tuk [auto-rickshaw] - is notoriously over-crowded and over-flowing, and not for the faint-hearted. As Graham assures his fellow travellers while boarding a jam-packed public bus, “The rule in India: there’s always space!”

Mirroring their lives, the travellers soon find that India is ‘a riot of noise and colours, an assault on the senses. It’s like a wave - resist and you will be worn out; dive into it and you’ll soon find your own rhythm. This is another world, the challenge is to cope with it... not just cope, but thrive in it.’

I see that life is necessarily a cacophony of hope and despair, of love and pain, and of fear and discovery.

The 2-hour story allows each visitor to deal sufficiently with the discordance within while finding equilibrium in a culture that thrives on chaos. Some flounder as they stoically resist India’s offer of diversity into their lives and fail to recognize the imperative for change. Others take it all in – the dreams and disappointments, loneliness and little pleasures of life. The survivors embrace them all! 

Here's a run-through of the key characters and the issues that are especially pronounced in one's autumn years such as being single again, fear of aging, looking for new beginnings and relationships.

Tom Wilkinson is GRAHAM -

A retired judge who comes out about his sexuality as he looks for the lover he was forced to leave 40 years ago in Jaipur.  Each day, he visits the official records office to locate his lover. A day after they reunited and spent an entire night catching up, he passed away quietly sitting on a swing at the hotel.

Judi Dench plays EVELYN [my namesake]

A recent widow who has to sell her apartment to settle her late husband’s debts. Married for 40 years, she has never done anything on her own or even heard her own voice. She likes to write and blogs about her life in India to keep her grown son and his family back home informed about her going-ons in India. She is open to all that life delivers, and upon arrival, quickly lands a job that trains young and educated Indian telemarketers how to engage older prospects half-way round the world. From the moment she arrives at the run-down hotel, she accepts a broken chair and dusty bed in her room with an open mind. After all, nobody travels half way round the world to inspect chairs and beds, but to find new life experiences.

Bill Neihy and Penelope Wilton as DOUGLAS & JEAN

Married for 39 years, are as different as chalk and cheese, or in this case, cheese and chapatti. Douglas is hungry for affection and affirmation from his frigidly apathetic wife who has a crush over Graham [more because of his success as a judge]. In response, he tells her right out that he is gay. Rejected and revolted, she packs to leave without Douglas, but not before acknowledging the expiration of their marriage.  Douglas, who has become good friends with Evelyn, returns to the hotel to look for her to begin a new relationship.

Ronald Pickup as NORMAN

An aging and flailing don juan who is obsessed with his virility and picks up women with the hope of bedding them. Finally, he succeeds and finds the companionship of an affluent and lonely white woman whom he meets at an exclusive club in Jaipur.

Celia Imrie as MADGE

A serial bride who sees babysitting her grandchildren as an impediment to her prospect of finding a new man, flees to India to find a new husband. She makes clear her fears, ‘I don’t want to be old and condescended and marginalized.’ Like Norman, she pays a substantial subscription to access a prestigious club to meet rich men. With less than her share of candidates then Norman, she later becomes open to the local elite.

Maggie Smith as MURIEL

A housekeeper until she was replaced by younger recruits and let go by the family she has served all her life. While waiting for an operation to fix a fractured hip, she is told that she can get it done sooner if she accepts a new programme that outsources the procedure to India.  In the process, her negative cultural bias, assumptions and values undergo transformation, and she decides to stay and help the fledgling hotel owner run his business.

Dev Patel as SONNY

Sonny runs the dilapidated hotel with overpromises and under-delivery. With no funds to make the necessary repairs, he is optimistic to the point of being unrealistic and impractical. He is quick to override guests’ complaints and practical business advice with the ready catchphrase, ‘Everything will be all right in the end, and if it’s not all right, then it’s not the end!’ His youthful ways and fixation on the success of the hotel provides contrast and comic relief to the plot that centres on a group of elderly guests.

After the movie, a stranger turned to me and said, ‘What a wonderful show.’ It’s as if, somehow, we have also made the journey to India ourselves. Totally gratifying.

If you’re thinking of planning a similar getaway, please be warned though that it’s not the Marigold Hotel in Goa!

THE NOTEBOOK

My face was openly drenched with tears watching 'The Notebook' on Sunday night. It is a compelling story of a husband's enduring love for his wife whom he is losing to Alzheimer's Disease - a cruel illness that progressively erases the memories of those who suffer it, degenerates their cognitive and physical functions and emotional capacities leading to severe disorientation and disconnect with self and others. Alzheimer is a nefarious disease that inflicts suffering on not only its patients, but also their loved ones. 

Yet, Noah, the husband [played by James Garner] persevered. Everyday, he would pop in to visit his wife, Allie, [played by Gena Rowlands] and introduce himself to her as though they were meeting for the first time. And he would read to her  from a book she had written about their lives together before she slipped away, in the hope that she would remember him for even just 5 or 10 minutes. And he would have her back during those precious brief episodes of lucidity.

It was not like Noah was romanticizing his role as the husband caring for a disabled wife. He had always planted surprises throughout their romance and leaving her alone in the nursing home would be the most unnatural and unthinkable thing to do.

Thinking out loud: is being demented a great way for one to forget a painful past? But not knowing yourself, the people and places around you produces constant stress! Perhaps there really is no such thing as the bliss of oblivion for those suffering dementia.  

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

The title tells you defensively upfront that gay families are all right... perhaps as all right as traditional families declare they are all right. After all, the actors are the same: parents, children and extended families. I was happily surprised to find some mature faces in the audience catching the opening of the movie today. They looked like parents with adult children. Perhaps something else is playing out in their lives and they had come to take a peak at what gay family life was like. Buffered by the security of the darkness in the theatre, our reflection and response privately held court as we watched the life of a gay family unfold before us.

[Annette Bening is an actor I have long admired, one who has an aura of old Hollywood glamour that eludes many today. For Warren Beatty to be smitten enough to get hitched, she must be some woman.] 

I like the realistic portrayal of marital relationship, parent-teen conflict, [Bening's character sounded like me!], teenage angst, the vulnerability of loneliness in a troubled marriage, and the pain of betrayal. But there was something else that made me feel heavy: I sensed an unspoken sadness in a gay relationship that seems absent even in the worst heterosexual relationship. A buddy of the gay couple's daughter made a pointed remark about another teen: that she sexualized everything. That gave me the thought that maybe that is what gives place to same-sex romance: that perhaps something very good has been sexualized and romanticised.  

This is every bit a family drama but of a different kind. Julianne Moore and Bening are as credible as any married couple and parents. The drama was realistic and I cried when they cried. Maybe that can't be avoided when both partners are women. 

I hope people will see humanity and be humane in their attitude towards gays even though we may see things differently. At the end of the day, what makes them cry, will also make you cry; and vice versa. We can make more room for empathy.  

DATE NIGHT [GV @ Vivocity]

The feeling of lethargy on a very hot day took me to chill in the air-conditioned theatre with this after-you-get-married-and-have-kids comedy about a couple facing marital lethargy. Tina Fey and Mark Carell is the endearing couple who is so married they forgot how to dress up and make dinner reservations in uptown New York City. But life escalated with excitement when they took another couple's reservation by impersonation and got more than the table they bargained for.

Fey and Carell played the fumbling too-married unglam couple as real as you can get. [I just suffered a TV reality show where a woman had her ex-boyfriend take over her 2 young daughters for a weekend to experience the 'reality' of raising kids! The way he was smiling through the two girls' incessant ill-behaviour and his own immaturity is unbelievable. So, off I went to catch a real movie to compensate for having endured a fake one passing off as reality TV.]

In the movie, Mark Wahlberg's role as a private security detective represented sleek city sophistication whose presence makes any married man polish up his manners and a married woman straighten up her back. His constant state of shirtlessness [baring a super-shiny upper torso] in his super urban abode had distracting and differing effects on both the husband and wife. But am I normal? I was swooned more by the ultra high-end IT getup in his home-office and his fleet of power motors!

Glad I went for the show today!

THE BOUNTY HUNTER [Cineleisure Orchard]

VALENTINE

Valentine's Day

A star-studded romantic drama released on the Valentine's season. A super star-studded movie with all the stars flicking in and out in quick succession - it's exhilerating! For the rare movie-goer, this could make up for many movies to see the many super-stars. As a V-Day feel-good prelude, it delivered the good feel! Especially memorable is Taylor Swift as the ditsy high-school cheerleader!

Afterwards, felt impulsed to invite an old friend for dinner on the actual V-Day and dinner eventually lasted 5 hours! What a memory!

LOVE HAPPENS

Love Happens

about a woman happy doing what she's doing, and being single and confident is not a signal that she is on a love-hunt.

MANAGEMENT [Orchard Lido]

MANAGEMENT starring Jennifer Aniston

What I like - a woman who knows her feminity without being competitive or power hungry. Jennifer always plays a woman who does not intimidate others and I like that. After all, fable-land's Snow White and Cinderella are too needy, and Miss Piggy is too controlling.

Sadly, plot seems stupid, but point taken that sometimes you can be sooo driven and yet perennially lost in direction or some say... 'lost the plot'. Highly enjoyable movie. Thought sex scenes was included more for mass appeal than plot enhancement.