Oh, how to put the ‘sex’ back in ‘sexagenarian’?

MANILA, Philippines – Hope Springs is a complicated adult film. 

It is not pornographic, although sex is tackled quite extensively. 

It has a fairly strong female point of view, although two of the 3 main characters are male. (Coincidentally, Hope Springs’ scriptwriter is a gal and its director a guy: Vanessa Taylor and David Frankel.)

And its tonal scale tips more towards drama than comedy, even if the plot — of a woman in her ’60s encouraging her complacent, 60-something hubby to get horny — is a potential laughfest.

Touch him not

Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, cast together for the first (and, here’s hoping, not the last) time, play Kay and Arnold, a couple in their 3rd decade of marriage, their empty-nest abode and existence characterized by reliable predictability and a curious lack of intimacy and minimal communication.

Their mornings find her loyally making him a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, then him quietly chowing away while perusing the morning paper before going to the office. (He holds his briefcase every day but never her hand.) 

Their daytimes are all about work: he as an accounting firm partner, she as a part-timer at a women’s clothing store. (Just how exceptional is Streep? She can go from the mean fashionista in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada to a more casual, sheepish lady in Hope Springs with peerless ease.) 

And per the husband’s preference, bedtime means retiring in separate rooms, in effect killing her attempts at further closeness every single day. (The movie stops short of showing if the couple’s weekends are a different, better story.) 

Not all men are from Mars

So Arnold, for some reason, seems far too emotionally distant. If Kay were from Venus, then it appears that her man is not even from Mars — more like from Pluto.

What gives? Why does the hubby shun any romantic gestures beyond pecking his spouse in the cheek, especially since there appears to be nothing wrong with their marriage?

The potential solution takes the form of counselor Dr. Feld, whom Kay indirectly discovers in a bookstore.

Dr. Feld (played by Steve Carrell with his comedic switch turned off in favor of restrained-actor mode) offers weeklong therapy sessions and, despite the doc’s being in a far-off US state, Kay convinces grumpy old Arnold to spare a week for a possible marital perk-me-up.

Since Kay has long been ready to heat up Arnold’s, um, bacon and eggs at any time, the key is to unlock whatever passion still resides in the reticent man — no matter his reasons and reservations, and no matter how averse he is to the step-by-step bedroom exercises Dr. Feld soon prescribes.

Unanswered question, unsatisfying wrap-up

Contrary to people’s expectations of a romantic comedy, Hope Springs is more of a bittersweet affair — poignant for the most part, and genuinely funny only in a handful of instances. (A humorous high point involves characters raising their hands to confirm that they’re likewise “not getting any,” which might prompt some game viewers to raise their own hands as well.)

On that note, along with the fact that this film’s audience demographic is far from the usual pimply, popcorn-chomping lot, Hope Springs inspires a small measure of admiration. 

The movie is largely as subdued and straight-played as the 3 lead characters are — the audience getting served a cinematic equivalent of the ocean, compelling us to marvel at its mostly quiet sight even if nothing much happens beyond the crashing of waves onto the shoreline.

Despite the emotional gauntlet the movie throws, its own makers seems unsure of what the heck is wrong with its main male character, such that the denouement — a tidy, hurry-it’s-almost-two-hours closure — is more perplexing than convincing; its big, aforesaid what-gives question shifting from being barely answered to practically getting swept under a virtual rug.

While I myself still am some two decades away from senior citizenship, I know enough elder folks to understand the thrill-is-gone predicament that Hope Springs apparently aims to portray.

My main beef against the flick is its coyness in unraveling whatever is eating aloof Arnold, as if to imply that men are typical curmudgeons anyway or that married couples do get to a romantic standstill in time because, as we Pinoys might say, “Wala lang” (“Oh, nothing”).

Ironically, director Frankel, who had a more eventful gig directing Streep in their adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, is not averse to upping the emotional ante in some scenes, even if it means sound-tracking what should have been gentle moments with intrusive, literal use of tunes like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and Annie Lennox’s “Why.”

Hope for merits springs eternal

If Hope Springs’ storytelling seems tentative, the acting isn’t. 

Despite the script’s imperfections, Streep and Jones, the latter unabashed in exposing his wrinkled mug, come through with superb performances. If the movie is a letdown for film students looking into how to make or write a movie, it is at least a good reference on how great actors can take on roles, no matter how unflattering the parts can be. 

While watching, I also couldn’t help but imagine the movie in a more Philippine context. 

For one thing, given all the societal and economic burdens the average Pinoy has to contend with, it seems that Hope Springs’ married couple could have used some crisis outside of themselves — the kind of desperate situation that can blast any ennui to bits, compelling the pair to jointly deal with the dilemma like the active lifelong partners they ought to be.

And good thing we Filipinos have more accessible — and inexpensive — versions of marriage counselors: relatives for women, beer buddies for men. – Rappler.com