Sick Day
It took a while. I woke at five-thirty, my throat a torrent of gunk. It wasn't until eleven that, wondering why I was feeling so poorly, I remembered Monday's flu shot. They don't ordinarily affect me, but this one seems to have kicked up some reactions.
On the bright side, it was a sick day! I could stay in bed and read. I felt well enough for that. What I read was Tom Perrrotta's Little Children. I missed the recent film*, somehow, which is just as well, because I enjoyed Mr Perrotta's deft narrative. The only problem was that I instinctively cast the movie quite differently. I saw Cynthia Nixon and Aaron Eckhart as the guilty lovers. Mr Eckhart is perhaps a bit too old for the role of Todd/Brad, but I'll be surprised if Patrick Wilson, who actually plays the role in Todd Field's movie, clouds his face with the character's confusion as well as Aaron Eckhart would.
Then I watched a movie - it was by now after dark. I watched La femme de Gilles, by Frédéric Fonteyne. It stars Emmanuelle Devos, an actor whom I've been following ever since seeing her in De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté. She plays Elisa, the wife of a factory worker in the north of France in the Thirties. Her husband (Clovis Corvillac) conceives a passion for her sister, Victorine (Laura Smet), and when he confirms his wife's suspicions, she resolves to wait out the passion. She assures him that it will end, and it does. But whether she foresees what will follow - what Gilles will feel after he loses interest in Victorine - is the question that haunts the movie. All I'll say is that if the movie ended a minute or two earlier, I could show it to Kathleen. But I recommend it highly to anyone who can take a strong French film, beautifully made.
I'm feeling better this morning, which is good, because I'm going to conduct Ms NOLA's parents on a Met tour at noon.
PS: I've been listening to old music interesting enough to get me to refresh the "Tune de la semaine" feature. Don't forget to click on the "(about)" link if you want to know what the new tdj.ra is.
* The 'recent film' opens this weekend. Good timing!
