It has realistic doses of heart and hilarity, though less of the latter than may be good for it.
The Lovers
Grade: B
Director: Azazel Jacobs (Terri)
Screenplay: Jacobs
Cast: Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment), Tracy Letts (Wiener- Dog)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hr 34 min
by John DeSando
“Writers are always writing about infidelity. It's so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you're also this other person.” Alice Munro
Rare it is to see a romantic comedy about middle-aged couples whose marriage breakup is so realistically painful that I found myself fidgeting out of discomfort at the very-human acts. The Lovers, written and directed with a sure, quiet hand by Azazel Jacobs, is about those who love and those who discard love at the same time.
I hope I didn’t mislead you into thinking this is a comedy in the laughs motif. Married Mary (Debra Winger) and husband Michael (Tracy Letts) shift between their lovers and their spouses like different courses at the same meal. The film is sometimes farcical, however, as when his emotionally-unstable lover, Lucy (Melora Walters), hisses like a witch at Mary but more tragic than comedic.
Unlike the traditional comedy, The Lovers is neither light nor humorous and has neither a cheery nor happy ending. That ending is perhaps too ambiguous for its own good but nonetheless true to the uncertainty of love. It does have a jaundiced eye about the sincerity of humans in their attempt to be faithful and caring.
What The Lovers has is a wickedly critical take on the state of true love, or on the ability of lovers to remain faithful. Although it took me a while to adjust to the realism cum farce, after a bit I saw that Jacobs had caught the restless heart of humanity, its ever-searching for love.
Jacobs leads us to a surprising ending in which the restless heart is not down for the count. Regardless of how you like the ending, it is sure to spark conversation; a line from The Crying Game and other places is in order: “Who knows the secrets of the human heart?”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
