Lovers

I chose to skip Wonder Woman for a shitload of reasons, among them that it’s really fucking long. These superhero movies just keep getting more drawn out, and it feels like overcompensating, trying really damn hard to be taken seriously. It’s the movie equivalent of a guy whose self-inflicted obesity has made him impotent getting bigger and bigger balls to hang from the tow tongue on his lifted diesel 4x4. If they don’t make these things longer and more portentous, someone might catch on that they’re only making variations on the same shit about magic people running around in their underwear and saving the world. If I wanted to spend 145 minutes with a woman who can coax the truth out of me I wouldn’t lock myself in the bathroom when my wife asks who ate her lipstick.

I’ll say this: those Goddamn grassfuckers have now made enough superhero movies that they are no longer compared to storytelling in general. The movies now get graded and considered in comparison only to other superhero movies. Hollywood has successfully made audiences act like that asshole with a man bun who thinks he’s a tequila expert. Yeah, all tequila tastes like shit, but some less shitty than others, and the tequila expert declares those the very best.

Besides, why would I want to watch a woman in tights? I can stare at my own Mrs. Filthy in her flannel pajamas at home any time I want while she watches TV shows about married couples who secretly hate each other remodeling homes.  And she is a better and more powerful superhero than any woman on a movie screen. To hell with invisible planes and magic ropes. She gets the shitstains out of my underwear, she never asks how all those clumps of pubic hair get on the kitchen ceiling, and she can hide money so well I can’t find it no matter how determined I am, how long I am left alone, or how many pieces of furniture I take apart.

Which leads me to the other reason I had no interest in seeing Wonder Woman: its makers are hyping the shit out of it as empowering to women. That’s disingenuous bullshit. That’s Hollywood assholes using feminism to sell tickets, and not because they think they actually are doing something good for women. If a man high on PCP shoots himself in the face with a spear gun, it does not empower women if a lady also shoots herself. That’s not getting stronger; it’s stooping to our level. 

I think it would be far more empowering for women to say, “Fuck this silly superhero horseshit. We’re not buying into your game because we have our own, better stories to tell.” Usually involving women who solve mysteries with their cats, but, whatever. Be true to yourself. Hollywood’s idea of empowering women is giving Wonder Woman C-cup tits. She’d have double-Ds, at least, if the grassfuckers weren’t pretending to be so damn interested in equality.

So, fuck Wonder Woman. Instead, I went and saw a little movie called The Lovers, written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, partially because I am on a quest to see a movie as the only person in the theater. I missed by two people this time.

The Lovers isn’t good. It suffers from trying to be too small, too internal, like artsy-farts crap often does. It’s about a middle-aged couple (Debra Winger and Tracy Letts) whose marriage has run its course. The love leaked out like the helium in a week-old party balloon, and now all that is left is a soft, shriveled ball hovering an inch off the floor behind the sofa. They barely speak, they go out of their way to avoid each other, they are miserable in each other’s presence. They are basically the human equivalent of desiccated lemons.

Both are having affairs, and they are secretly planning to leave the marriage to be with their new lovers. Don’t be misled, though; they are not fun with their paramours, either. This is the basic flaw of so many artsy-fartsy movies: this idea that the human condition can only be reflected as misery, and that the duller and sadder people are, the more “real” the story must be.

When an accidental moment reignites the marriage, the couple start humping like awkward teenagers, making each other giggle and finding some joy in life. That joy is shared between them but it also rubs off a bit onto their affairs. Husband and wife must decide what to do: stay married or still leave.

It’s an interesting premise, I guess. It could have been an entertaining comedy, but it’s not. It is, instead, a very valiant effort to capture “average” people acting average. Jacobs doesn’t have a sharp angle on anything, and so the movie has the presence of a guy in golf shorts pulling weeds. I fucking hate that. I go to the movies to see the average elevated to art, or for the impossible to be presented either with so much entertainment that I don’t give a fuck that it’s nonsense, or so cleverly that I believe--at least for the moment--that it really could happen.

Neither Winger nor Lett’s character is allowed enough redeeming qualities to be worth giving a shit about. An unhappy land surveyor and an unhappy middle manager are a hard sell. Like punches in the nuts for half price. Their only thrill in life is in cheating, having sex when they shouldn’t. And they barely enjoy that. They need dirt bikes.

I’m sure lots of people will declare the movie “Painfully realistic,” but I don't think people really act this way. Tedium and pain aren’t always realistic, and the people who declare them as such don’t necessarily know what the fuck they’re talking about. It’s just the dirty little secret of phony intellectuals to believe the darker something is the more “real” it is. That’s because they assume that all the little people who aren’t as smart as the phonies think they are must be miserable. Fuck the phonies.

There is always talk about how refreshing it is to see middle-aged and older people getting it on. It’s not refreshing. It’s a fact of life, and we don’t need movies to document it for validation. Why should middle-aged people give a fuck whether Hollywood has condoned their behavior? I think we see so little middle-aged bone-driving because moviemakers have correctly surmised that it’s not nearly as much fun to watch as young people sticking dicks in pussies. So, while there are scenes of passion in this movie, they aren’t exciting or interesting. They feel like someone getting extra credit in a social science class at a liberal arts college.

The Lovers is boring. It could have been something--funny or sad--but Jacobs would rather follow the well-worn path made by others who thought it more artsy to say nothing. And if you want to make a movie about middle-aged people, make them interesting. But at least it isn’t Wonder Woman. Two Fingers.