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Crush

Andie MacDowell & Kenny Doughty in \"Crush\"
Andie MacDowell & Kenny Doughty in \"Crush\"

Andie MacDowell is "better than sausage"...By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

If I told my buddies I was having an affair with a woman seriously younger than I, I don't think they would endanger the young woman or their own friendships just to derail my temporary insanity. Welcome to the film "Crush."

Thank God for the Cotswolds, England's grand pasture, and for a great little town, Chipping Campden. Otherwise, John McKay’s film, which he wrote and directed, would have crushed me in its off-center feminism, plot, and buddy system.

Andie MacDowell plays an American headmistress of the local private school; her two female buddies are a physician and a police chief. Andie falls for a much younger organist (Yes, the obvious organ joke is not just presented but also repeated). Her friends' ensuing struggle for her common sense is so nonsensically brutal as to confuse the dilemmas facing single women everywhere. That all is resolved lovingly among the ladies is an insult to logic and true friendship anywhere.

A cleric who almost wins MacDowell’s hand by default reveals the film’s weak dialogue and sensibility when he says, "You're better than sausage." Or witness MacDowell's love-struck mind when she confuses someone saying "stuck with the senses" with "fucked senseless." She does experience the latter, causing the confusion of jealousy and malicious sisterly concern leading to tragedy and renewal.

Buddies, male or female, just don't act the way these women do. But those Cotswolds are worth seeing.

John DeSando co-hosts WCBE's "It's Movie Time" and vice-chairs the board of The Film Council of Greater Columbus.