I saw this movie for the first time last night and have been reading the comments here with some interest. Having read in the past that it was nothing more than a soap opera, to my great surprise I found the movie to be subtle and very stylish with fine performances and production values. It seems to me that the recent movie it is most like is Far From Heaven in that the writer and director of Making Love uses the same narrative strategy - recreating the Hollywood romance - but adds twists that illuminate what was not spoken of in the genre before. In Making Love (the title speaking to the difference between sex and love) we see the characters watch An Affair to Remember and there are other movie quotes of that genre. Claire and Zack share a somewhat improbable passion for Gilbert and Sullivan and have been befriended by an elderly woman (the great Wendy Hiller) who had loved a poet killed in WW1 who was a friend of Rupert Brooks, another poet killed in that war. So the theme of physical love being separate from emotional love and devotion is set up. This is the life that Zack refuses to accept either for Claire or himself in the scene in which he renounces their marriage, declaring that she must have a marriage in all senses of the word just as he must. Although they break up, in the final scene we see that Claire has settled for a good marriage, but one which lacks the heady excitement of her time with Zack. By naming her child 'Rupert' she, in effect, makes him be Zack's, the child they always wanted together. And Zack, too, has to settle for a good man, although not the man he first loved.
So it's an elegant and nuanced structure, given the sleek gloss that declares it to be quite frankly 'a movie'. It's an intelligent strategy in that it shields what might be a less than sympathetic audience from having to deal with anything too threatening. We've all read comments by those self-consciously straight posters who must insist on sharing how 'grossed out' they were. Stories of soldiers all but rioting at screenings of the movie. Such babyish acting out is still sadly very much with us. Indeed, it almost seems to be a sport for straight men - competing to see who can be most grossed out.
Other points of interest seeing this movie now: The gay bar. The men are quite ordinary looking. Compare this to the relentless 'hotness' of all the men seen in movie representations of gay bars now.
Of course the big difference is that AIDS is nowhere in sight. Though the epidemic may have been under way it's nowhere visible in the movie.
Michael Ontkean is very believable and his dilemma is treated seriously. And more sympathetically than the same dilemma in Far From Heaven.
Of course, having straight men play the parts distances the actors from the sex but again, the director deals with this by abstracting the sex into movie terms. It's no more or less real than watching Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
How grown-up it seems. In some respects it is a more adult take than the current movie romance, Brokeback Mountain. It may be less frank about the mechanics of sex but it allows the characters to grow and achieve a realistic, adult life. Not perhaps having it all (though they do get have great apartments and clothes. but that's part of the style) but having something worthwhile and treating their regrets as an inevitable part of life. The final shot - very Douglas Sirk - of Claire returning to her domestic life while Zack takes a different fork in the road, sums up the movie's point of view with great elegance and wit.
So watch it. It's fascinating to see how far we've come and how much we've retreated. Compared to the dishonest posturings of Philadelphia this movie really has something to say and says it very well. Directed with enormous skill the performances are first-rate and Kate Jackson is more than that. It's a performance that should have led to a big movie career.
So it's an elegant and nuanced structure, given the sleek gloss that declares it to be quite frankly 'a movie'. It's an intelligent strategy in that it shields what might be a less than sympathetic audience from having to deal with anything too threatening. We've all read comments by those self-consciously straight posters who must insist on sharing how 'grossed out' they were. Stories of soldiers all but rioting at screenings of the movie. Such babyish acting out is still sadly very much with us. Indeed, it almost seems to be a sport for straight men - competing to see who can be most grossed out.
Other points of interest seeing this movie now: The gay bar. The men are quite ordinary looking. Compare this to the relentless 'hotness' of all the men seen in movie representations of gay bars now.
Of course the big difference is that AIDS is nowhere in sight. Though the epidemic may have been under way it's nowhere visible in the movie.
Michael Ontkean is very believable and his dilemma is treated seriously. And more sympathetically than the same dilemma in Far From Heaven.
Of course, having straight men play the parts distances the actors from the sex but again, the director deals with this by abstracting the sex into movie terms. It's no more or less real than watching Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
How grown-up it seems. In some respects it is a more adult take than the current movie romance, Brokeback Mountain. It may be less frank about the mechanics of sex but it allows the characters to grow and achieve a realistic, adult life. Not perhaps having it all (though they do get have great apartments and clothes. but that's part of the style) but having something worthwhile and treating their regrets as an inevitable part of life. The final shot - very Douglas Sirk - of Claire returning to her domestic life while Zack takes a different fork in the road, sums up the movie's point of view with great elegance and wit.
So watch it. It's fascinating to see how far we've come and how much we've retreated. Compared to the dishonest posturings of Philadelphia this movie really has something to say and says it very well. Directed with enormous skill the performances are first-rate and Kate Jackson is more than that. It's a performance that should have led to a big movie career.