Jerry Ryan (Robert Mitchum) is a lawyer from Nebraska, having moved to NYC to flee his failing marriage. Tired of just walking the streets all the time, he visits a painter friend and briefly encounters Gittel (Shirley MacLaine) as she explains to someone else why they should buy an icebox for $5. Jerry ends up calling her and after a lot of faltering and hemming and hawing, they go out for dinner.
They seem like they're meant to be a couple that could have been good, but they met at the wrong time. Too late for Jerry, who is still hung up on his soon-to-be ex-wife, which Gittel realizes even if he doesn't. Too soon for Gittel, who's had one long string of loser boyfriends that play on her kindness and then bail, and doesn't know how to react to a guy who actually wants to help her.
Jerry feels like everything in his marriage was just handed to him, and wants to earn his success via hard work. But as soon as he and Gittel get serious, he starts trying to just give her everything. She has dreams of running a dance studio, he'll pay the rent on a place for her. She has ulcers, he monitors her diet, takes away the French fries and cigarettes. He didn't want to be a pet or charity case, but he does it to her almost immediately. And even if it's done out of love, or at least affection, it throws Gittel. So they argue a lot, about him not taking chances, or her trying to push him away. They find equilibrium for a time, but it seems to involve her holding herself back. Much less energy, much less activity.
It's a movie with Robert Mitchum, so of course there's a scene when he's getting a little too pushy and judgmental about her (admittedly self-destructive) habits and she snaps back with something he doesn't like, so he smacks her. MacLaine at least gets to smack the taste out of his mouth later.
MacLaine's character feels like a prototype manic pixie dream girl. Mouth running a mile a minute, always flitting to some new idea or notion, leaving Mitchum trying to keep up. But the movie avoids having Mitchum "fix" her. He maybe gives her some stability and kindness, lets her get her feet solid underneath her, but that gives her the clarity to ultimately demand more in the relationship than he can give.
In contrast, Mitchum is playing a sad sack, but one who hides it in a way that's really obvious that's what he's doing. He makes a lot of self-deprecating comments, and often seems at a loss for what to do in a way that has nothing to do with Gittel's swing in mood. Like he wants to take command of his life, chart his own course, but he's so accustomed to 12 years of his wife and father-in-law doing it he doesn't trust his own judgment enough to start. Gittel acts like the catalyst that gets him moving again, but when she's fully herself it still leaves him feeling like he's following someone else's tune.
Neither of them can exactly be themselves to stick with the other. The movie uses this technique of having them talk on the phone, and making it look like they're on opposite sides of a wall. Close, but still separate. It contrasts their living arrangements - hers in bright colors and full of stuff, his a dingy place with sparse furnishings - and their attitudes. Gittel's always moving, while Jerry pretty much stands in one place. The opposites attract, but combust when they mix.
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