Even More Movies

            Again, Kim and I spend a lot of time streaming movies – at least, we did this winter. So many choices! So easy to reject some of them after five minutes! I put together a list of our recent favorites and tried to identify something they have in common. Again, I see we are drawn to character – especially, to interesting relationships between characters.

 

Falling for Figaro (Amazon) Millie, an American fund manager, realizes one day that her life-long dream is to become an opera singer. Quitting her lucrative job and moving away from her boyfriend, she travels to the Scottish Highlands where she eventually becomes an opera singer following intense vocal training from a former opera diva and fierce competition from other opera singers including Max, another student. I don’t particularly care for opera (except Carmen), but I love the characters here, and I love the Scottish Highlands.

 

Magic Mike’s Last Dance (Amazon) “Magic” Mike heads to London for what he hopes will be one last hurrah. Once he discovers what she truly has in mind, will he be able to pull it off? What he does pull off is his clothing. I was surprised how much I enjoyed erotic male dancing – a surprise I decided not to explore. Good fun! And I guess you can call these interactions “relationships.”

 

Jules (Amazon) Milton (Ben Kingsley) finds his quiet life upended when a UFO and its extra-terrestrial passenger crash land in his backyard. Things become even more complicated when two neighbors discover his secret and the government closes in. In case any of you can identify with an old guy’s being ignored, you will relate to this movie. Ben Kingsley is wonderful, as usual.

 

Blueback (Netflix) Inspired by her activist mother and her own special bond with a sea creature, a woman strives to protect her local Australian marine habitat from poachers. Nice look at a mother-daughter relationship, as well as the woman’s relationship with a blue grouper.

 

Hello I Must Be Going (Amazon) An affair with a 19-year old actor helps reinvigorate life for thirty-something Amy after she moves home to her parents’ house following her divorce.

 

My Sailor, My Love (Amazon) Howard is a widowed sailor living alone on the coast of Ireland. His daughter, Grace, hires Annie, a lovely older woman to help around the house. Initially resistant to this support, Howard is soon charmed by Annie’s gentle care, and the two fall in love. This new romance illuminates the hurt within Howard’s relationship with Grace, tearing at Howard and Annie’s seaside love story. Great Irish scenery. And accents.

 

Broken (Amazon) Drama series about a well-respected Catholic priest presiding over a large parish on the outskirts of a major city in northern England. This was a fascinating look at what a devoted clergyman does outside of the weekly services. The series also showed this non-Catholic the power of ritual and tradition. No, I’m not ready to convert.

 

Mending the Line (Amazon) A Marine wounded in Afghanistan undergoes a recovery process through learning to fly-fish from an older war veteran. This is a very moving examination of a guy-bond, but I was bothered by the fact that none of the catch-and-release fish had a hook to deal with.

 

Hemingway and Geldhorn (Amazon) The powerful story of the war-torn romance between literary giant Ernest Hemingway and trailblazing war correspondent Martha Gelhorn. Powerful stuff, especially showing the destructively macho Hemingway. Along the way, I learned a lot about the Spanish Civil War.

 

Alice and Jack (Amazon) – “It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Being in love?” This extraordinary British series follows a complex 15-year relationship between two very intelligent people, told with great dialogue and subtlety. The plot does not look like much, but the story is gripping.

 

Secrets of Elephants (National Geographic through Hulu) This wonderful series reveals the intelligence, communication skills, family relationships and cultural richness of elephants – four different species (who knew?) in four different geographical settings. They seem to be making better use of their intelligence than we are. National Geographic has a similar series about whales. Outstanding!

 

So B. It (Amazon) The title of this movie is the name of the main character. Really. She’s a young girl living with her seriously autistic mother and a caretaker who suffers from severe agoraphobia. The girl, also known as Sophia, has a gift of being lucky, which she takes advantage of in casinos, but the main story is her trip to a mental institution in upstate New York to discover her and her mother’s origins. The incredible acting makes the story credible.

 

            So: relationships. Let me conclude with the line from Alice and Jack: “It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Being in love?” Yes, relationships can be exhausting, but watching somebody else’s can be enjoyable, and even instructive – and a good distraction from war and politics.