Film / Reviews
Love Is Strange
Love Is Strange (15)
USA 2014 94 mins Dir: Ira Sachs Starring: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Darren Burrows, Manny Perez, Cheyenne Jackson
How come Alfred Molina appears to be channelling Timothy Spall? Only relatively late in Ira Sachs’ gentle drama do we learn that his character originally hails from South London and has somehow retained the accent after more than four decades in New York. Molina and John Lithgow are George and Ben, a cultured middle-class gay couple whose low-level bickering is born of a close and affectionate relationship forged over 39 years. The film opens on the duo’s big day as they finally tie the knot with the enthusiastic support of their friends and relatives. Alas, this also sends their comfortable life into a tailspin.
When George returns to his job as a music teacher in a Catholic school, he’s fired on the spot for the crime of being publicly homosexual. Since seventysomething Ben is a retired artist, this loss of income proves catastrophic and they have no option but to sell their tastefully decorated Manhattan flat. Desperate to remain in the Big Apple, the couple are forced apart for the first time and have to prevail upon the hospitality of their friends. Ben moves in with his businessman nephew Elliot (Burrows) and his novelist wife Kate (Tomei), crashing in their troubled teenage son’s bunk bed. George sofa surfs in the apartment of hard-partying gay cops Roberto (Perez) and Ted (Jackson). Inevitably, tensions soon arise.
Sachs has received much extravagant praise for his low-key, occasionally rather soapy drama, whose third act relies upon a coincidence that would get most screenwriters thrown out of film school. On the plus side, this is a scrupulously honest portrait of a long-term relationship that boasts superlative performances by veterans Lithgow and Molina. It scores primarily in its subtle, smaller moments; in particular, one beautifully played warm and funny conversation in a bar is an absolute masterclass in emotional intimacy. Incidentally, if anyone can work out why the BBFC decided that the wholly non-explicit ‘Love Is Strange’ merited a 15 certificate, do let us know.
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
