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Movies on Wednesday

 My family has a tradition at Christmas, a "rom com" weekend. My niece chooses one--then her uncles follow suit.


This year, my niece picked "Love Actually," which had some surprises. (I'd seen it many years ago.) Keira Knightley was so lovely! The Laura Linney stuff is so sad!

I replied with "Walking and Talking," which I've probably blabbed about before -- and I'll just keep blabbing, and blabbing, until I die. Nicole Holofcener made her big debut with this film, and in the ensuing decades, she has continued to be "a name." In fact, the NYTimes just mentioned that she ought to score a screenplay Oscar nomination this year -- for "The Last Duel."

Before "Insecure," before "Yellowjackets," Holofcener's "Walking and Talking" pointed a spotlight at a thorny friendship between two women. The women haven't found their footing. One is training to be a therapist, and she pays so little attention in sessions, she doesn't realize that a faux-delusional patient is lying to her. ("I see little Satans on my hubcap, and they're talking to me.") The other friend hasn't really disentangled herself from a toxic ex-boyfriend, who uses her money to pay phone bills (the bills have become sizable because the New Yorker ex is having a phone-sex relationship with someone on the West Coast).

I cheated a little bit, because this movie isn't really a *romantic* comedy. It's just a sad/funny look at life. As I watched "Yellowjackets" recently, I thought of Catherine Keener's exploration of anger, her willingness to be "unsympathetic." I wished that Keener could have played a role in "YJ." One of my favorite moments in "Walking and Talking" has Keener delivering a long, ranting phone message to her friend. (These two have boundary issues.) Keener complains into the tape about the "ugly" guy she is seeing, then pauses to smell her kitchen sponge. "Oh my God," she says. "This sponge is the grossest thing I've ever held in my hand. It smells like death. And I can't stop sniffing! I just keep sniffing!" She giggles. "It's like if you're at the scene of a car accident, and you can't look away....."

A few decades ago, Nicole Holofcener put two women up on screen--and the women weren't heroic, or admirable, or even notably charismatic. They were just people having messy lives, miscommunicating, patching up holes when possible.

I carry these two in my heart.
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