P2YL | 33. Five favourite films for a fallow season (plus a bonus film)
In Part 1 Of My Love-Life, books were for inspiration and films were for fluffy entertainment. In Part 2 Of My (Love?) Life, sitting in a London cinema as a newly-divorced woman, I had a revelation.
A film is like a book, right up there on a big screen. The right film at the right time can inspire and comfort and be a wise messenger. Especially in my own case during times when divorce-recovery, or the quest for new love, seemed to lie fallow like winter fields.
So here is my recommendation for five films (+ one bonus film) that for me paved the way through the fallow season towards a happy ending.
Crossing Delancey
Amazon Prime. Cert PG. 97 mins.
Thirtysomething New Yorker Isabelle, played by Amy Irving, has a stimulating job, artistic interests, and a rent-controlled flat (don’t you just love spying on NYC middle-class interiors?) but she longs for love and marriage instead of empty situationships.
Her Jewish grandmother consults a matchmaker who comes up with an eligible man, only he’s not the type Isabelle had in mind.
Question is: is her mind too closed for her heart’s good?
Why I liked it
It backs up my pet theory of keeping a flexible attitude when it comes to compatibility, and giving a good man who likes you at least three dates, even if you feel no instant ‘spark’ or ‘chemistry’.
Sliding Doors
EE TV. Amazon Prime (10 days remaining). Cert 15. 95 mins.
Ever tempted to look back and think, ‘What if I had/hadn’t…?’
A friend told me she knew people who took ‘guidance’ and ‘fate’ to such extreme lengths that they were literally afraid if they walked down one side of the road rather than the other, they might miss bumping into their future life-partner.
Sliding Doors imagines a split second in time which leads to two parallel but different paths for London City-smart Helen (a very convincing Gwyneth Paltrow). We get to follow both versions of Helen’s immediate future in the aftermath of one tiny minuscule event and its repercussions.
Why I liked it
No spoilers. But I think the film’s overall message is: keep doing the right stuff and even if you take some wrong turns, the right results will come about in time.
Broken English
Pluto TV. Cert PG-13 (in USA). 96 mins.
The opening scenes of Broken English showing Nora (Parker Posey) trying to perk herself up and exude some confidence as she gets ready to go alone to a party confirms this is a film made by a woman who knows exactly how it feels to push yourself when you’re in a low mood.
Nora Wilder has hit a barren patch in her dating life and begins to wonder what she’s doing wrong. We see her mistakes (drinking too much on dates, oversharing, and too early a bedtime) but we also see her getting over disappointments and growing in confidence through trying something new. She goes on an off-the-cuff travel adventure which flies in the face of her friend’s negativity: ‘You can’t travel alone, you have no sense of direction and you’re way too shy.’
Why I liked it
Apart from the loveable and vulnerable heroine there’s an underlying positive message that Life/God/Fate/the Universe will reward your bravery, and in more ways than one.
An Autumn Tale (Conte d'automne)
Curzon. Cert U. 107 mins.
Never be put off by a subtitled film. Ask yourself, ‘Can I read?’ If the answer’s yes then five minutes into a good film you won’t even notice the subtitles. I recommend the life-enhancing joy of French cinema to every woman interested in style and class, and that includes this heart-lifting tale of 45-year-old Magali, winemaker and widow.
Deciding to assist Magali in finding love because she can’t seem to do it for herself, her friend Isabelle uses that precursor of the dating app, the personal column, on Magali’s behalf. Will there be a fruitful harvest in matters of the heart as well as in the vineyard?
Why I liked it
I was tentative about online dating when I was first divorced as it had a sleazy reputation in those days, inhabited as it was by men with handles like Cute_Firefighter_For_You and Six_Pack_Surgeon. This film showed the possibility of genuine and intriguing people being out there too.
Persuasion (1995 version with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds )
DVD. Cert U. 103 mins.
Persuasion was Jane Austen’s last novel and possibly her most mature work. Anne Elliott (played here by Amanda Root) is a woman in her late twenties whose ‘spirits have never been high’ since breaking up with her suitor, Frederick Wentworth (Ciarán Hinds), when she was nineteen. Now he’s back on the scene and he and Anne are thrown together.
Will the quiet put-upon Anne be flattered by the suspicious charms of her unexpectedly attentive cousin William Elliot? Will Frederick Wentworth fall for the more lively Louisa, or will he recognise Anne’s true worth?
Why I liked it
This version made in 1995 is in my view by far the best on-screen adaptation of the novel, in fact my favourite Austen film ever. It feels authentic and real rather than Bridgerton-esque. In this film you can see the mud on women’s hems when they come in from a country walk and watch them drink tea and eat toast from normal household crockery of the time.
It reassures you: you are a heroine even if you’re not given to obvious showing-off. Have patience: your romantic life isn’t over.
Frances Ha
Amazon Prime. Cert 15. 82 mins.
What a tonic of a film. Greta Gerwig glows as an impecunious twentysomething with dreams of being a dancer despite many obstacles, living her life with joy and lightness. Lots of quirky turns and slip-ups in her life but she always manages to spring back somehow. Even when something she attempts isn’t successful, she says, ‘I feel good about myself for just being brave enough to try,’ which is a valuable life-message I hug to myself.
Why I liked it
I felt unaccountably exhilarated after watching it as though I’d drunk a glass of something that reminded me not to take life too seriously and, like Frances, dance with life instead of treating it like an opponent to be grappled with.
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Coming soon: 5 books for a fallow season
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I've watched three of these, and my favourites are Crossing Delancey (an all time favourite) and Persuasion, which is my favourite Austen novel (studied it for A level) -- the book, and this excellent adaptation, are the perfect story for women of a certain age who haven't 'settled down' yet. Other recommendations for feelgood, women-led films are Claudia Weill's 'Girlfriends' (1978), another New York film, a wonderful take on female friendship and the search for love, and 'Enchanted April' (1991) from the brilliant book by Elizabeth von Arnim, about an ill-assorted group of discontented women who take a villa in Tuscany for a month and are transformed by its magic charms (and at least one finds love too...)
Great films! My favourite is Sliding Doors.