So a guy wins $300 million and runs into his house yelling, “Honey, we won the lottery, pack your bags.” Thrilled, his wife asks where they’re going. He replies, “I don’t know where you’re going, but pack your bags.”
Kay, the romantically disappointed wife in “Hope Springs,” would probably politely laugh at this kind of joke. But inside she’d be crying.
Portrayed with heart-wrenching conviction by Meryl Streep, Kay has been suffering in silence for the last five years or so. Her marriage of thirty-one years to Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) is on automatic pilot, their status quo illustrated by his perfunctory peck on the cheek as he leaves for work each morning. Even their small talk has been getting smaller.
Oh, they’re nice enough folks, and apparently dedicated to each other, even if Arnold never returned from their guest room after a brief back injury prompted the relocation. And, like the majority of married couples from Bangor to San Diego, these two Nebraskans simply don’t talk about it. But the 800-pound gorilla has begun to take its toll on Kay.
Peering into the den from the kitchen she tidies after the dinner she cooks nightly, the sight is always the same. Ensconced in his easy chair, the TV set to the Golf Channel, her sixty-something CPA husband has fallen asleep. It’s in her eyes: He is and he isn’t the man she married.
The keeper of romance’s flame, Kay decides she will no longer live a life of sexless desperation — at least not without a fight. And she’s going to do it without upsetting her frugal hubby too much. Pulling her own $4,000 out of savings, she purchases plane fare and a week’s worth of couples therapy in Hope Springs, Maine.
She’s going with or without him. It’s nip and tuck right up until flight time. But, whew, he shows. Score one for the guys. Of course he carps all the way, even once sessions begin with the famous Dr. Bernard Feld, recognizable from the ubiquitous book jacket dotting store windows across America. In a rare but solid dramatic role, Steve Carell plays the calm, smiley, self-assured marriage counselor. He has work cut out for him; resentful and doubtlessly hurt by the failure their presence implies, Arnold is as close-mouthed as a stubborn child. He just can’t help railing against the whole shebang.
However, propelled by
Kay’s honest determination and Arnold’s desire not to upset her, the sessions continue. The layers of built-up rationalization slowly peel away like onion skin, layer by layer.
Moments of discovery, oftentimes uneasy, are rivaled by even more uncomfortable setbacks — in the doc’s office, around town, and, ahem, back at the motel.
Note: This is a comedy in the classical sense — meaning it’s not a farce. The few laughs are the result of sad truths brought to light.
Vanessa Taylor’s script is ripe with the sort of fare served up with tea and sympathy on afternoon TV by self-help marriage gurus. But here, it’s cleverly served.
Ms. Streep is as phenomenal as ever as the genteel, injured party. Her facial expressions and wonderfully subtle, Midwestern lilt are alone worth the price of admission. And while Mr. Jones is a bit slow getting out of the gate, his attempt to play curmudgeonly without becoming a total Oil Can Harry exudes solid, professional poise.
But these characters are stereotypes, albeit stereotypes full of internal conflict; the couple deal with specific situations that turn into generalizations. Absent the humor the trailer led us to expect, we’re left hoping the film will impart some wisdom.
Fact is, though, we know no more about love than we do about the concept of infinity. Whether you deem yourself a hopeless romantic, the brunt of biology’s greatest joke, or something in between, it seems the secret to romance will not be discovered here.
Still, reason and common sense don’t deter us from developing a rooting interest in Kay and Arnold. Anticipating that director Frankel isn’t going to pull an Ingmar Bergman on us, we’d like to see them live happily ever after, partially because they seem like good people, but mostly to satisfy a human need to believe that “Hope Springs” eternal.