Thursday, June 8, 2017

[Review] The Lovers


Debra Winger and Tracy Letts star in The Lovers, a comedy-drama (lighter on comedy) of diverging marriages and wandering infidelity.

Michael (Letts) and Mary (Winger) are one unhappy couple together, and they're each having an affair. If the film were shown in split-screen, their promiscuous lifestyles would practically mirror each other. But once they re-spark their relationship, complications arise and feelings are twisted.

The Lovers observably dives into the banality of a long-term, dissipating union--where the only proclamations left are "We're out of toothpaste" and where the "How was work?" question is met with an apathetic shrug. While the film is downbeat in tone and plainly shot (and kinda bland overall), it's contrasted with a perkier old-fashioned musical score that injects a bit of levity, as if the film is paying homage to (much better) romantic mix-ups of the past. The whole cast here is solid, but Tracy Letts is a standout. He's been on an impressive role lately with great turns in Imperium and Indignation.

Unfortunately, the film itself gets repetitive and banal, and the longer it goes on the more it begins to feel one-note, as if not much is actually happening. Once the irony of Michael and Mary's situation is pointed out, there's really nothing else to say, and I personally lost interest in the lives of these lovers.

( 6/10 )


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