There is a scene in the rom-com satire They Came Together (2014) in which Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler’s characters recount their love story. They make a point to add however that in addition to the two of them “there’s another character that’s just as important… New York City.”
It’s a funny joke and a great riff on the now cliché fetishization of New York especially in romance narratives. One imagines director Ira Sachs is acutely aware of the potential pitfalls such an overdone trope can introduce but thankfully he doesn’t care. Love is Strange his wonderful new film is both a love story and an unabashedly New York one at that reimagining the city typically considered dense — the epitome of close proximity — to one that can also keep people apart.
The film stars John Lithgow as Ben an artist and Alfred Molina as George a music instructor and Ben’s partner of 39 years. The film opens on their wedding day offering us a glimpse into the minutiae of their shared domestic life in preparation for the ceremony. The joy of their long-awaited marriage unfortunately proves short-lived as it quickly leads to George’s dismissal. Forced to sell their Manhattan apartment the couple must take separate temporary abodes — George on the couch of a friend in the city Ben in Brooklyn with his nephew and his nephew’s wife (Darren Burrows and Marisa Tomei respectively).
While one might suspect the film of positioning itself as a polemic or social critique it is above all a love story and one of the highest order. The narrative is an updated retelling of Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) one of the all-time great weepies losing none of the earlier film’s classicism or emotional heft in translation. While engaging at points with contemporary issues of gay rights and the New York real estate market both are utilized more as plot devices to launch a study of the questions of love sacrifice and commitment. Not only does their rupture upset the dynamic between the two of them it also begets a ripple effect that reverberates through all their surrounding relationships. As Ben and George are forced to settle into their temporary homes we see the pressures of neighbourly or familial hospitality mirrored in their newly established existence as burdens.
If we’re willing to consider the city as an essential element of the world Sachs creates in Love is Strange we must also consider the film’s music. In Sachs’ previous movie Keep the Lights On (2012) — another tender New York love story — the drama was buoyed by the songs of Arthur Russell. This time around the emphasis is on classical music especially the work of Frédéric Chopin. Employed sparsely and consciously each occurrence grounds the film’s emotional high points without simply functioning as affective sign posts. In one of the film’s most extraordinary scenes we watch as George tutoring a part-time pupil silently wells up to a loaded piano piece.
The scene is a testament to the talents of the great and under-utilized Molina whose performance is matched note-for-note by an equally terrific Lithgow. If a complaint can be lodged it’s that the film focuses too much on Lithgow’s Ben and his satellite dramas without enough time spent with Molina’s George. His character emerges fully formed and Molina inhabits the role beautifully but one regrets he isn’t explored even further.
We may only see the two of them together for 20 minutes of film time before their separation and intermittently afterwards but each onscreen moment they share feels so effortless that it’s easy to imagine their 39-year relationship. At one point in the film Tomei’s exhausted character remarks how “when you live with people you know them better than you care to” but when we’re granted scenes of Ben and George together their unspoken bond is palpable. Warts and all they know each deeper than anyone else and could hardly exist any other way. When we see Ben staring at Manhattan from his nephew’s Brooklyn rooftop we know the distance may be just a couple of kilometres but it might as well be infinite.
LOVE IS STRANGE directed by Ira Sachs starring Alfred Molina John Lithgow and Marisa Tomei opens Friday October 24.
