A refreshingly offbeat romantic comedy, A Perfect Couple (1979, Robert Altman) benefits from the stubbornly unconventional approach of maverick director Altman. A master of anarchic, satiric ensemble comedies defined by a wickedly caustic yet generously forgiving view of human nature, a distrust of authority, and a slow-zoom-happy observational style (such as M*A*S*H and Nashville), Altman is definitely working in a minor key with Couple, but he has frisky fun defying genre expectations while still respecting the innate sincerity of the romcom form.
Altman's desire to toy with formula manifests itself in his casting of the two leads. Jowly, middle-aged character actor Paul Dooley, nobody's idea of a typical Casanova figure, is paired with Marta Heflin, whose rail-thin build and ethereal presence make her a dead ringer for another of Altman's muses, Shelley Duvall. When their characters, Alex and Sheila, are glimpsed in the first scene enjoying a symphonic performance from their box at the Hollywood Bowl, a viewer can't be faulted for assuming that they're, say, an uncle and an older niece instead of a couple in the middle of a pleasant if occasionally awkward first date.
As is typical of sly fox Altman, he lets background information about Alex and Sheila arise gradually and realistically instead of stuffing early scenes with artificial character exposition. So we learn after that leisurely first-date sequence that Alex and Sheila are lonely singletons who come from two totally different worlds. Alex is part of a wealthy Greek-American dynasty so tight-knit that the adult children--Alex included--still live under the roof of the imposing family mansion, while Sheila is a member of a proudly counterculture rock band called Keepin' 'Em Off the Streets whose members live commune-style in a vast loft.
In performance set pieces showcasing Sheila's band, Altman allows the music to beautifully guide his camerawork and editing style, as he has done in some of his best work. But what can't be said about Nashville and A Prairie Home Companion is that the music powering those films is flat-out lousy when divorced from Altman's remarkably fluid filmmaking--and that's sadly the case here, but only in the Keepin 'Em-heavy third act is the band's cheesiness much of an irritant.
And no amount of dated rockin' prevents Altman from infusing his love story with welcome unpredictability and emotional complexity. Though the famously left-leaning director has fun with the culture clash between Sheila's hippie brethren and Alex's old-world values, what concerns him most here transcends politics--namely, the way in which two insecure grown-ups in love allow themselves to be kept apart by ties to possessive families (biological and otherwise). That Altman creates such a humanly plausible obstacle in the way of Alex and Sheila's blissful union only makes us root for his two lovebirds to find a "happily ever after" conclusion all the more. Grade: B+
An unconventionally expressed romanticism also dominates my second film of the day, the lushly gorgeous and strangely touching historical epic The New World (2005, Terrence Malick) (third viewing, second of "Extended Cut" DVD). An elusive, one-of-a-kind genius who has made only five films in the span of nearly 40 years and who specializes in boldly abstract tone poems that juxtapose unforced (and sometimes, seemingly unscripted) human behavior with the splendors of the natural world, Malick here tackles the story of Native American teenager Pocahontas' (Q'orianka Kilcher) transition from her romance with Captain John Smith (a soulful Colin Farrell) to her marriage to tobacco farmer John Rolfe (Christian Bale, tapping his rarely utilized gift for understated decency) with uncompromised artistry.
As it happens, compromise is one of the key themes under study here. Pocahontas' idyllic frolics with Captain Smith occur on her turf, a leafy, unspoiled Eden that European migrants haven't yet turned into the industrialized America. When events transpire that lead Pocahontas to believe incorrectly that Smith has died, she must decide whether to give in to the attentions of the besotted Rolfe, which could compromise not only her passionate attachment to Smith, but also her connection to her people and her land. If she travels with Rolfe to his bustling, densely populated homeland of England, will she be betraying her family and her deeply rooted sense of what is natural and true in the world?
That question leads to another of this film's many layers--the idea that the very title The New World takes on different meanings when applied to different characters. The first two-thirds of the film are guided by Smith's subjectivity. When he steps foot on American shores and is immediately taken with the wild landscapes and the purity of Pocahontas' soul, we see how he views this "new world" as a site where he can atone for past criminal misdeeds and find spiritual rejuvenation. Then, Malick audaciously switches narrative focus so that the movie's final third is filtered through Pocahontas' point-of-view. As she arrives in an English port, we see what her "new world" is--a land where animals are caged instead of roaming free, and kings treasure gold over a communion with nature, but not one entirely devoid of the possibility for contentment.
The last half-hour of The New World takes on an emotional urgency that's somewhat of a surprise coming from a movie that moves with such a serene, drifting rhythm. Pocahontas discovers that Smith is still alive, and is thrown into a romantic triangle that resembles the one at the center of Malick's '78 stunner Days of Heaven (though, as a sign of Malick's maturing wisdom, Rolfe is much less villainous an "other man" than Sam Shepard's landowner was in that past work). Once Pocahontas makes her choice, the remainder of the film finds her keeping the spirit of her people alive on European land--she spends her days in a topiary maze instead of in palace interiors.
This triumphant final affirmation of all the freedom and integrity that the Pocahontas character represents wouldn't be nearly as moving without the particpation of Kilcher. Throughout his career, Malick has made a productive habit of finding previously untested actresses and giving them a chance to emote with a staggering lack of affect or artificiality, and Kilcer is no exception (another Malick discovery, Jessica Chastain, is delicate perfection as a Texas matriarch in his current masterpiece The Tree of Life). With its free-associative flow and rejection of historical-narrative shorthand (the name "Pocahontas" is never even uttered onscreen), The New World is not for everybody, but for those open to it, the film--and Kilcher's performance--is a unique heartbreaker. Grade: A
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