Cinema Talk

This film came in-between two of Joan Crawford and George Cukor’s more celebrated collaborations, The Women in 1939 and A Woman’s Face in 1941. I can’t speak on behalf of the former, but in comparison to the latter, it falls quite short of that film’s promise. What we have here is something of a failed comedy, an attempt at “religious satire” and whether it succeeds or fails is beyond me because the idea of a religious satire just seems so stale and uninteresting to me. The limitation of such a commentary makes the humor all a bit simplistic and if satire is meant to provide a larger critique of social life, then that is missing here. Despite this being a laborious viewing and one of Cukor’s more boring efforts, it actually is interesting, albeit in a way that is unintentional. The film glosses over an interesting dynamic involving self-image and public perception. It doesn’t save the film, but it does suggest that even when he was boring, Cukor was still interesting.

Wealthy socialite Susan Trexel returns home from her European vacation with a surprising announcement for all of her friends: she’s found God. Although they all act supportive of her new lifestyle, many of them are skeptical of it as nothing more than another mask for her to try on, a personal trend that will soon fade into obscurity. The most skeptical is Susan’s husband, Barry, who she seeks a separation from. Using their daughter Blossom as motivation, Barry coerces Susan to spend the summer together with her husband and daughter. Barry’s intentions are to make Susan see the error of her ways, and realize that she needs to keep the family together. At the same time, Barry himself begins to find himself increasingly interested in Charlotte.

All of the relationships emphasized here are remarkably dull. Susan’s relationship with Barry goes so in tune with typical drama that one feels the sensation of it working too perfectly, even as the setup itself is completely nonsensical. The entire film goes a great length to show Susan’s own unrest with Barry. This is something that is reinforced up until the final minute when the two inexplicably reunite. Everything gets tied up nicely because this is a Hollywood film, but it’s so jarring that it seems conscious of the unreal way the couple’s feelings manifest. The screenplay is based on a play byRachel Crothers, which was reworked by Anita Loos. Despite the presence of women in the film’s writing, the discourse suggests something remarkably misogynist. Susan’s spirituality is just an act, and she just needs to be won over by Barry. She finally submits to his constant pressure, which seems heartbreaking enough, but maybe it is even more so when the film treats their relationship working out as a happy ending. All of her complaints about Barry are thrown out the window. Susan is constantly framed as a superficial individual so we’re led to expect any reservations she had about reuniting with Barry were trivial and silly.

It’s important to distinguish that the film does position its perspective with Barry. We’re told to sympathize with him, feel his hurt and anguish by the flaky Susan breaking his heart. The fact that he never bothers to listen to Susan is also a fault of the film. I could here say then that it is sort of brilliant in that a woman’s voice being muffled by a man’s own heartbreak is something that happens so frequently that the film manages to capture this phenomenon. I think, instead, that this is the film’s biggest fault. It allows Susan no room to breathe, or even wear a face of concern. Her only problems that the film bothers to articulate to us are immediate and none of them are crucial. In reality, her disappointment in her marriage might have been the very thing that motivated her to become religious, or even pretend to be religious. This is where Cukor actually stumbles upon something kind of brilliant: the film unintentionally illustrates the problems that come when self-image doesn’t match perception.

To use a modern example, think of Susan’s spirituality along the lines of modern Hollywood stars and their philanthropy. I find nothing especially wrong with someone using their fame to call attention to certain issues, but often this is only done in service of an image. Modern celebrities, particularly white and male ones, have control over their self-image. This is why Bono’s name evokes images of starving third-world children just as much as it reminds of us his actual music. I suspect that Susan here is actually attempting something similar. She might really be religious and Bono might really have concerns for every starving child alive, but the broadcasting of this personality implies that it is somewhat performed. Bono, as white and male, does gain control of his image but Susan has no such luck. Her spirituality is her trying to take control of how she’s perceived, but it is ultimately undone by Barry’s control. The film attempts to mock her at every turn for her vanity, but there is something tragic about her destination. She never changes how people see her, and more importantly, she’s forced back into marriage that despite the swooning Hollywood love music, she is actually against. In the middle of this forgettable “religious satire” there’s an engrossing and devastating portrait of someone whose voice can’t be heard.

I was going to start this review by saying that this effort is more of the same from Cukor, as if I had plummeted back down to earth with him after the high of seeing A Woman’s Face but the negative connotation would be far too dramatic. This a wonderful film, tight and theatrical like Dinner at Eight yes, but one that works better because the drama is confined to three characters and about the same number of rooms in a single house. Yes, Barrymore and Hepburn play things broadly, but I don’t think that immediately makes their performances silly nor does it make their characters simplistic and dull. They’re quite the opposite, the film is a tragic portrait of a family experiencing an extreme failure to communicate. They’ve pushed their emotions to the ground, and the resurfacing of their patriarch, who they never expected to see again, brings all these things to the foreground.

Margaret and her daughter Sidney seem to have finally found a moment of happiness and peace. Margaret herself is finally ready to remarry and she’s found a quality suitor. Sidney might have a long future with her boyfriend, Kit, but she’s not particularly concerned with their relationship. She’s fine tagging along with him back to Canada, but doesn’t show much interest in showing commitment to him. The two seem to have escaped a dark shadow obscuring their lives for years, that of their family’s patriarch, Hilary. He’s been kept away from the family, dealing with PTSD following the war. However, he’s been let out, and he’s come back to resume life with his family, who has already moved on.

It would be a glaring problem for a film that is about mental illness to, you know, fuck up dealing with mental illness. One could give the film a benefit of the doubt and just say it hasn’t aged well, but the dialogue about mental illness might be unintentionally effective. The insensitive nature much of the public talks about it is not that different from how the characters here try to accurately describe it. The film’s central conceit is that that maybe Sidney has inherited Hilary’s illness because maybe it’s not just PTSD from the war. This is awkward because mental illness is not something you “have” in a way that is immediately identifiable. It doesn’t hep that Hilary’s illness is never described beyond being “crazy” which obviously isn’t the most medically accurate term. The film weirdly frame’s Sidney’s possibility of inheriting this disease as something of a mysterious twist. There’s hints dropped, but there’s no implication that it will be a problem to her.

So Cukor doesn’t exactly win me over with this kind of hokey handling of mental illness. Hilary’s relationships are the main thing at risk here, and Cukor actually offers something interesting here: he tries to situate Hilary himself outside of the center. As opposed to being “insane” as the film insensitively puts it, he does show a chronic inability to comprehend the struggles that face both Margaret and Sidney. He’s been locked away for fifteen years, but he sees Margaret trying to start a relationship with another man as betrayal. The film frames his reasoning as one to sympathize with: he’s been struggling to handle his disease and she’s basically abandoned him. She hasn’t been there for him “in sickness or in health” but the dedication of the wedding vows are only seen from Hilary’s expectation of Margaret. She’s had no obligation to sit idly and alone by the window until he’s finally cleared to return to the outside world. An audience in 1932 might have sympathized with Hilary’s situation, but the film goes the extra mile by presenting his argument as the correct one, but instead shows that Margaret herself has shared his suffering. Her loving another man has not weakened her feelings for Hilary, but his expectation for her complete romantic dedication is simply too unrealistic.

This is all actually really complex and difficult to process, which seems like an odd thing to say about a film that runs barely over one hour and whose filmmaker frequently paints with broad strokes. While the characters that inhabit the film may not be that complicated themselves, Cukor’s positioning of them is interesting. They may be “flat” or whatever, but that doesn’t mean inherently less interesting. In my review of Hong Sang-Soo’s Our Sunhi I discuss the way he de-centers heterosexual relationships from the men. In love stories, they are almost always the ones who endure pain and heartache and the women are merely the agents that bring on that heartache. Here, the opposite is the case. Romantic love is not the context here, but here’s a rare moment where a male figure, one who is suppose to represent protection and care, is the agent of emotional distress for two women. Weirdly, Hilary himself never learns this. He can only accept Margaret’s decision to move on when he sees her new boyfriend declaring his passion for her. He can only let go when he sees the situation through the eyes of another man.

Hong seems like a distant connection for some, probably. Maybe Yasujiro Ozu is an easier connection to understand. The failure of a patriarchal figure echoes his The End of Summer. Upon first encountering his daughter, Sidney, Hilary mistakes her for his wife. “My wife’s not my wife, she’s my daughter” is almost too on the nose for Freudian psychoanalysis, but people speak about Late Spring offering a similar relationship. I don’t buy it in that film, personally, though Cukor’s film ends with the type of father-daughter moment that is rare in all of films but makes up a great part of Ozu’s classic. Here, Hilary and Sidney quietly accept their fate together: they’re to spend the rest of their life ostracized from the rest of the world for reasons they can’t control. Their companionship can’t save them from this fact and I won’t suggest something trite like they can “work through it together” but a community of those suffering is a important thing. It can help make you feel a lot less alone.