Friends With Money
This space is usually occupied by my feelings about the movie that I saw yesterday. Unhappily, my mind is so limited that I can no longer recall the important matter that I was going to raise, forgotten while I talked about (or so I thought) the movies.
I go to the first showing of something every Friday, and then I come home to clean the apartment. Why these occupations should fit so well together is beyond me. Seeing a movie a week is such a break with my past that my past no longer recognizes me. It's as though I were the son of a Lubavitcher rabbi who has taken up charcuterie.
I went to see Friends With Money, an existential film about four women in Los Angeles. The lack of plot is not annoying, and the thwarting of expectations is almost amusing. One example will suffice: Aaron (Simon McBurney) is thought to be gay by his wife's friend Christine, and indeed he has a lovely lunch with another man, also named Aaron, whose name I can't seem to drag out of IMDb. Aaron's wife, Jane (Frances McDormand) stomps through the movie in a more or less unbroken hissy fit - could she be "upset" that her husband is gay? (And why would that make her refuse to wash her hair?) The question is never answered. At least Aaron and Jane are still married at the end of the movie. Oops, sorry.
To the best of my knowledge, I was the only man who showed up to see Friends With Money. Ladies, save the husband, at least until video. Unless he's a cosmopolitan like me who finds deft social comment truly piquant.
It's ungallant of me not to say that Jennifer Aniston is a great comédienne. Really not, when you look closely, another pretty face. Another intelligent face.
