Today’s lesson: When Rick Atkins picks a movie that ISN’T American Pie, go. Tonight we saw Love Is Strange – a warm, loving, measured story beautifully built and executed. I am still reeling from The Normal Heart, as I wrote here and I hadn’t wanted another sad tale in the same week.
SO when I heard what this film was about, I balked. No More Sad. I ended up agreeing to go though, and am so very glad I did.
In most cases with “small” films like this people say they’ll wait for Netflix; there are no special effects or broad vistas that require the big screen. In this case though, Manhattan was such a part of the story that it was worth seeing it in all its glory.
It wasn’t even sad. Sad things happened but there was so much love and humor, Charlie Tahan, the young man in this photo, was so wonderful and Lithgow and Molina‘s couple was so much like any couple who’d been together a long time that there was also a deep familiarity that was a great part of the pleasure on the journey we took with them all.
No big conclusions here. We just got home and these are my first reactions but I doubt they will change; go and see for yourself and comment here if you have thoughts to share.