Movie: Love Is Strange

[Frankly Rich]

97% of critics at rottentomatoes.com liked it, yet only 70% of audiences. John Lithgow and Alfred Molina star as a gay couple who marry after 39 years together. In their 40th year, Molina loses his job once the Catholic school that employs him finds out he married. (They already knew he was gay.)

 

So, the two can no longer afford their apartment and must separate, they will live with relatives for the duration. Problems ensue.

 

Lithgow and Molina are, in real life, long-time friends, and were thus considered appropriate to play a long-time gay couple even though both are straight. I had looked forward to seeing the movie, but found it quite boring. It's hard to believe that after 40 years they have no reserves to help them stay together, and for grown men to go live with the relatives, well, it was hard to see how that would work anyway.

[+ beethoven]

I liked this movie, and while the plot may be a bit far-fetched, I didn't find it boring at all; just the opposite. It's not really a movie about a gay relationship; it's about a relationship between two men who happen to be gay (as more than one movie critic has said). I infer from your comments that you expected a little more about a gay experience from this movie; frequently, our expectations color our perception and enjoyment of a movie or play. I think this is what happened to me when I saw "Boyhood." My expectations were unreasonably high.

I recently saw John Lithgow on "Center Stage." He's a wonderful person to have a conversation with, and I find Michael Kay a much more relaxed interviewer than Charlie Rose, the darling of the intellectuals. Michael knows how to interview someone: he does NOT interrupt, and does NOT drown out his guest with his own comments.

[Frankly Rich]

I didn't know that anyone watched Center Stage! Michael Kay is a sports announcer for the Yankees, and Center Stage is his vanity production. But, I also like Lithgow and Molina. And I am glad that you liked the movie.

[+ beethoven]

Yup, Center Stage has a gay audience -- of at least one. I like Michael Kay (also from The Bronx), and Center Stage interviewees aren't limited to sports. Lots of actors on this program.

[+ Cash4Trash]

I liked the movie as well. Frankly Rich - I'm not surprised at all the couple find themselves without financial resources. One has a career he enjoys as a teacher and the other is an artist who has not been successful. I had a close friend

who was working at 86 because he had too. I gave him money to pay his rent.

 

It's a simple story with the caveat for New Yorkers that any mention of real estate will drive you up the wall. 1) A coop bought at the bottom of the market (2009) for the insiders price barely turns a profit when sold in 2013

when prices had gone through the roof. 2) A rent controlled apartment can not be passed on to a stranger - when a controlled apartment is vacated it goes to market rate. Landlord's and the building's super watch like a hawk

when a stranger starts going in and out.

 

The great strength of the movie is that you could have replaced the aging gay couple with an elderly heterosexual couple and made the same film. We've come a long way baby.