"Cut! Cut!" I said, as I watched Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones having cinema sex. I wanted that horrifying image to leave the screen ASAP. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm an agist or unempathetic or in denial, but I don't want to see older people "making love" in the movies. Old women are meant to bake chocolate chip cookies and offer warm milk, and old men are meant to be crotchety and tell war stories. That's how I see the elder generation, and I'd like them to stay that way in the movies.
I understand the merit of Hope Springs. We live in a culture (of which I am obviously influenced) where youth and beauty are worshiped, while older people are left out to dry. The media is geared toward younger generations, and therefore make a subconscious or unconscious or maybe even conscious comparison between youth and sex. We never see older people having sex in the movies, and when we do it's something to be ridiculed.
Hope Springs attempts to show the real problems of an older married couple who are too comfortable and have lost that spark in their relationship. Unfortunately for me and my eyes, it was much more centered around the couple's lack of sex life...and not just problems in their everyday relationship. Essentially all their problems reduced to the fact that they were not physically intimate.
I think the casting is also a bit off. Steve Carell is known for his comedic roles, so I assumed the therapist (the character he played) would be comical. He wasn't. But it wasn't a serious dramatic role either. I kept thinking some gag or joke was about to happen, but Carell played the mediocre part with seriousness. It was just awkward. It was a dramedy, but there wasn't enough drama or enough comedy. It was just kind of there. In filmic genre purgatory. Blah.
Picture this: Steve Carell seriously asking Meryl Streep if she fantasizes about sex and what her darkest desires are. Then: a dolly shot into Meryl's face, a close up, as she giggles sheepishly and divulges...That's not supposed to be funny. Can you believe it? The lack of humor resulted in me and my friend squirming with discomfort in our theatre seats.
I kept wanting the scenes to be cut earlier (hence my screaming at the screen). It was just too much...and of course the ending was predictable. Maybe if Tommy Lee Jones left his wife, Meryl Streep, for his young secretary and Meryl Streep moved out and ended up on a bad online dating streak...then I'd believe it. But no...of course they end up having sex and being "in love" again...and we got to watch them masturbate, fantasize, and awkwardly date until they got to that predictable point. Lucky us! (sarcasm).
While we were in the theatre, I noticed that the older female crowd (50+) enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I heard a lot of laughing. While the story seemed unrealistic and unidentifiable to me, maybe I'm just an ignorant mid 20's gal who knows nothing of a long-lasting, committed relationship. It seemed like the portrayed relationship might have rang true to many of the women in the audience (and maybe the men?).
I wouldn't recommend Hope Springs either way. While I respect the attempt to make sex amongst older people less taboo, the movie wasn't really successful. I think if the sexual aspect of the relationship was more subtle it might have eased the younger audience into the idea, but instead the movie was ALL ABOUT SEX. And it was just uncomfortable.
I might recommend it to people in a similar situation to the protagonist, 50-70 year old women who are in a marriage rut. But then again, I can't be sure it rings true for that audience either...Meeehhh.
Learn more about Hope Springs here: http://www.hopesprings-movie.com/ You've been warned.
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