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The Signal (2014)
Feels like a student film
-Marked spoiler only for very subtle reasons...no reveals in review.-
If you are wanting another Event Horizon or even Interstellar look elsewhere. This film is more like a student work grabbing at obvious sci-fi tropes and suspense mechanisms than like a major release picture. I was thinking of The Signal as a poorer THX 1138, then I read Robert Blau's popular review on this site, and I need write no more along those lines since his review parallels my impressions exactly.
The style artlessly cuts among various genres from the deep psych sense of The Cube to found footage to Westworld creepiness and does manage to hold on to a line of suspense that will constrict your chest a little but will leave your mind chuckling at the obvious next thing and thinking about the original film or Star Trek episode that it comes from. You buy in enough to care about the characters but not about the plot or any greater meaning.
What is more, The Signal even plays on what it isn't...hinting very deliberately at times that it is Alien, Westworld, Signs (or any other tour through the Area 51 museum in Rockwell), The Matrix, or The Impostor. But just when you think the screenplay is taunting with these references and going to give you something new, well, it doesn't. Not even close, not to any frame of mind.
I did manage to write in a little of my own meaning, and normally I would wonder if I was supposed to be reading between the lines. Not here. Anything beyond some suspense and the egg hunt of what film a given scene originally comes from is pure mercy.
Three Guys Named Mike (1951)
Slow start, great finish
Three Guys Named Mike is an unapologetic romantic comedy with a strong twist of chick-flick, but turns out to be way more than that in the final act.
After fulfilling her childhood dream and becoming a stewardess the sprightly Marcy encounters three men, the Mikes, as she takes to the skies. Each comes to represent different possible futures not so much for what they are but for what Marcy herself is at her core. When all three come together at once her decision-making will doubtless determine her future. A false step here and she will be trapped in the "wrong life." But how to decide? Well, fortunately with a good bit of humor! While Marcy's adventures start out pretty slow they pick up pace in the second reel, and when the girls get an apartment in Hollywood the dialog starts to explode with humor and wonderful comedic situations. We start to see not only the original sprightly nature but the wits and building character of this young woman, coming to the rare case of a film that leverages our love for the characters, our concern for what they do, and our sheer entertainment with great lines all sweeping into an ending that we may have--or may not have--guessed.
Public Stenographer (1934)
Flat plot but the women are endearing throughout
Just daring to produce a film called "The Public Stenographer" deserves some sort of respect. But even if that very flat, unemotional title matches in some way the overall plot and editing of the film, there is still a lot to enjoy including a few rare scenes that really touch the heart.
Ann and her roommate Lucy both work at a posh city hotel dodging, or choosing carefully, the interests of wealthier men as they go about there independent and busy lives. But because of a simple mistake Ann comes to know one of the hotel patrons, Jimmy, in a different way. He is head over heels, but she is much cooler.
As the screwball sparring progresses, particularly in a series of incidents with Ann's and Jimmy's automobiles and the ever-present motorcycle cop, so too progresses a scam concerning a large public works project and lots of government money.
Ann gets tied up in the possible relationship as well as a possibly disastrous professional choice, all along comforted as well as tempted by her somewhat more worldly roommate. It is the relationship these two women have and their various interactions that make this film memorable, even while the love story and financial intrigue are relatively mundane.
The Second Woman (1950)
Even-paced psych thriller shuns melodrama
This fundamentally simple film has a great set of characters in an upper-class California coastal community, but while the backdrop is that of privilege the storyline is entirely one of the psychology and motivations, or in a sense anti-motivations, of those characters. An architect, his coworker, his boss, a local doctor and the niece who comes to town to visit her aunt all lead the viewer to wonder what is really going on, and who is behind it all, if anyone.
Especially notable are the visual noir, at times even a little impressionist, and the highly symbolic elements that foreshadow and mis-foreshadow throughout.
The performances are wonderfully subtle, and Betsy Drake carries the point-of-view with a strong, intellectual style, while Robert Young plays his role close to the chest without giving the feeling that he is trying too hard to keep the audience guessing.
Young's character is troublingly complex, perhaps a little too much so since as plot information unfolds it is difficult for the audience to evaluate believability for a character with so much going on, but that difficulty is far preferable to silly attempts at acting out in-the-brain events that the point-of-view character, Drake's, would not be privy to in any case.
Evenly paced, captivating, and shunning melodrama, this thriller is what subtlety can win for a film that, to be honest, even out binds the much better known Spellbound.
Spellbound (1945)
Stylish, fun, glowing Bergman, split Hitchcock
One often non-admitted aspect of Hitchcock's directing is that it could be very mainstream when it wanted to be. Even the second The Man Who Knew Too Much had a mainstream feel quite different from Lifeboat or 39 Steps, or the first version itself. Hitchcock's films were usually, in the end, story-telling over style or cinema, but he swayed from the psychical to the mundane within any film, and certainly across films.
In the context of that analysis Spellbound has a dual personality. Some might argue this springs from Selznick crossed with Hitchcock. I would argue that it is more a cross of The Farmer's Wife with Psycho; that is, it exposes Hitchcock's love of the extended conceit (however unbelievable in a practical sense) with an exploration of the human mind in unusual contexts, always with an emphasis on how the main characters make decisions and do or do not abide by those choices--usually an emphatic, even driving "do abide." Notice that Bergman's character is named, in fact, Constance, possibly just a Germanic hint, as Bergman was often cast as German, or possibly a play on "constant" or loyal.
This take on the film apologizes a little for Bergman's era-based woman-in-love performance by regarding it as a display of determination to see through her choices to the end. A wonderful, and antithetically feminist scene where Bergman is bothered by two men and ends up using one of them for information legitimizes this interpretation...this brilliant scientist is taken for being a pretty schoolteacher, and instead of being offended, plays it toward her cause to follow through on her choice.
Honestly, I have a harder time with Peck here. He is at his most beautiful, in the sense of "a beautiful, messed up man," but I can't read his inner struggles, and between him and Hitchcock all I get are mug shots with deep gazes, no breathlessness, panic, or fighting with an angel (even though the last doesn't go unmentioned). Perhaps I am foolishly responding poorly to a more fragile, even feminine Peck, but Mr. Chekhov as the father figure really outshines Peck so much that there are moments where one might slip into thinking, "Constance, look elsewhere."
As for the Freudian aspects of the film a lot of dialog goes into apologizing for how unrealistic they are. But then, is gun play ever realistic in a film? Is love? Are waistlines or biceps? Spellbound may "throw bullets" compared to real psychoanalysis, and it may not really be the top of the game for anyone involved (other than Chekhov), but it doesn't violate our trust of Hitchcock, and he didn't lose sight of those core Hitchcock questions we love to see the characters he brings to us struggling with.
The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002)
Pray and Learn: This could be me someday?
Compared to bigger-budget Hollywood films that are easy to give 7 stars, even 8 stars, since they are slick, nicely paced, and what we've come to expect, Secret Lives of Dentists is a little like listening to Willie Nelson...rough but artistic, done with great care but not sweet-voiced.
Not that the film leaks or loses the viewer. It is solid. Nonetheless the over-consistency of the pacing or the minimalism of the plotting move the film in such a way that we have a little too much time to think if entertainment is the goal. In fact, I am reminded of the Joseph Conrad story called The Secret Sharer, whose introversion and pacing are not-so-secretly shared with this film, although I understand that the addition of the secret sharer character to Jane Smiley's novella was for cinematographic reasons.
If the goal is to learn the mistakes not to make in marriage, or at least not to aggravate with the easily-made errors these characters commit, then the slowness becomes an opportunity for us to think about the everyone's-sick days when we wonder about those moments that have stretched into years of self-doubts that foolishly stop us from ever being the hero--the hero everyone who loves us would let us be if we believed.
Not married myself, I come away from this movie praying that I would avoid these mistakes, at least this depth of mistakes. I am convinced more than ever of the adage that anything you do "for a marriage" is lost if you don't live for it first, before anything else (which is explicit, ironically, in the dialog). Of course many marriages fail, and many more become traps, since really, in all of humanity, how many people are wanting marriage more than anything else? Like Rodger Dodger, this is a film I'd like every high school student to see (put cardboard over the sex scene...) because it drills out the bolts of Barbie/Hollywood dreams and looks at what's inside ten years down the road. Prepare for this, and we might be ready to say "I do." If we fail to prepare--ourselves or our relationships--then this could be me or you, or the high school girl dreaming about how great married life will be.
My First Mister (2001)
Stories and reflection
**SPOILER begins down at word SPOILER**
If you dig a deep hole, even if you do a perfect job of digging a hole that serves a very good purpose, you still have to climb out. I think I'm happier that My First Mister does the climbing, even though that makes the last part of the film more trite than the glorious beginning. Some stories dig, and dig deep, but to be a 'story' at all, they have to end, not just stop, although for this film I would have chosen a less Hollywood-tied-up ending. (But I didn't invest the money in a film that needs to pay the bills).
I'm glad the medium and considerable talent using it could bring me this lovingly ambiguous event.
Beyond that, the film showed me a few things I enjoyed learning.
From the story I especially took away the re-enforcing message that if we let our lack of boldness rule, we may be letting others down. Humility isn't thinking we have nothing to offer, or even that we might not be the only person in the world to offer it. The happiness of the rest of someone else's life may depend on us. In fact, a la It's a Wonderful Life, it probably has. Ignoring this isn't "humble," it's cowardly.
**SPOILER** In a mix of story and film, I thought after the great day R and J spent together that J was going to be molested, or in a car accident, to precipitate the third act with a crisis--I felt a TV moment coming on. So when we made it clear until R was late coming back from his jog (did we know he jogged?), I was actually holding out that a heart attack (turns out to be leukemia) would straight up kill him, then J would have the burden of the third act entirely in her court (Sobieski could have handled it), say, by having to do all the things a wife does after her husband's death while being treated as a child by ambulance personnel, funeral home director, clergy, et al. Think of the scene where she wants to dress R's body but is pushed away by funeral home people, and so can only leave a piercing stud attached to his clothes--an icon of her lonely youth used as a symbol of her maturing love. Her kiss from death would play out in a social role she wanted, but was not accepted in, in ironic juxtaposition to how she had imagined it playing out beyond any (accepted) social roles. And the scene where she almost but doesn't cut herself, and breaks down in shoulder-shaking sobs, and her mother shows up at her partially-open apartment door with food, hears her, and enters into the darkness, crossing into her own acceptance of the other side of life.
But, the TV moment came...by comparison, listen to the deleted scene commentaries for Passionada--if only My First Mister had gotten the same chance at a new third act... Perhaps I'm learning that our imagined endings are still valid. Who's to say that we can't enjoy a film because of where it pointed us, even if it didn't really go there?
As for the strictly film aspects, I still dislike non-standard dissolves popping up in the last one-third of a film, especially if it isn't strictly romantic comedy. Why, in such a delicate film, would an editor do something like that? But in the last supper scene the apparent discontinuity, then toast, then fading of individuals were inspiring. Did J really give that toast? To follow hinted continuity (R and Nurse Patty had already moved to the sofa, though they could have returned) she didn't, or perhaps she did, but it wasn't really like that...such a beautiful suggestion of how we remember those evenings that were too good to be true in the face of realities too bad to accept.
A hole well dug, even if I didn't dig the whole as much as I might have.
Little Black Book (2004)
Old school meets new school romantic comedy
**Spoiler is not especially spoiling.** Wanting to see this film since noticing the one-shot poster at the theater, I nonetheless figured it was just because of Brittany's looks. Since I pretend to have too much self-respect to see a film based on that alone I didn't watch it until the DVD was too cheap to pass up, and I'd heard that it wasn't just another boppy romantic comedy.
By waiting so long I almost missed out on a really good film. It certainly isn't just another romantic comedy. In fact, Murphy channels Drew Barrymore in a quaint mix of His Girl Friday styled patter and modern over-obvious humor while the film packs a punch with a dark side spearheaded by Holly Hunter, whose performance unifies a character of such scattered motives and needs that the result is downright bewitching to behold.
The film isn't a girl-catches-guy-cheating (oh, but really he's not, happy ending, wahoo) story. It's a girl catches (the) reality (of) cheating story. You can hear the screenwriters' gears stripping with the otherwise useless voice-overs by Murphy to keep the audience going with the film as it trashes expectations. Had I been on a date, I might have thrown popcorn. But truth is the film is deep.
Does Stacy (Murphy) come to find out how slick and untrustworthy men are, or does she really just come face-to-face with "knowing too much," and learn how decisions become unmakeable in the light of too much understanding about how we always know too little about what's just beyond the life we lead? The main character here is flawed, lovely, likable, and gets genuinely hurt not just by her man, but by her eating of the forbidden fruit, symbolized by the Palm Pilot little black book. It's not simplistically knowing that her boyfriend is "still out there" with other women, but it's knowing (and respecting or even liking) the personalities of those women. Here Julianne Nicholson really comes to the fore with a portrayal of ex-girlfriend Joyce, who bonds tightly with both Murphy and the audience.
Bonding, in fact, happens everywhere. The energy within the cast is remarkable. Hunter's bond with Murphy is so compelling that given their age difference there is a slight sexuality to it...sort of as if Hunter's extra years grants her a worm-hole to masculinity that she slides through with a school girl's youthful vibrancy.
By breaking the genre the film is, in a sense, necessarily flawed. Knowing that, the final ending is at once corny and recognizably required to stop the audience from burning down the concession stand. But given a chance to see Hunter enraptured at the end as she creates her life's great piece of performance art makes the broken promise of the one-shot that attracted me well worth suffering.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Hollywoodization rather than cinema...but with some moments
**TOTAL SPOILER**
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) is to the genre what I, Robot is to science fiction...not really bad, not good, rehashed, leaky in plot and structure, but entertaining enough not to feel like the film was a complete waste of money.
In other words, the adage about remakes stands. I paid $4 for the DVD and think I wasted about $1.50 of that. Just like the (did he leave or was he offed?) Albanian brain-meister said, the plot could have centered on good drugs and sleep deprivation (and some gene therapy?) rather than IMPLANTS that take years to surface, but can be bit out of any given shoulder. Imagine the kind of hole you'd have to make, really... Oh, and if I had just pulled out something someone had implanted under my skin I would 1)take off the drain trap to retrieve it and 2)not remove the next one from my mouth over another sink! The $2.50 I didn't feel I'd wasted was seeing the close coverage of Meryl Streep playing a heavy, the fact that Ray Shaw was a pawn not a bad-guy per se, and the idea that the male bonding between Shaw and Marco was enough to foil the Manchurian scheme...in fact, I think the idea that these two men had shared something (and thus Shaw swerved from the star) was the only screen-play-worthy part of the film, the only real MEANING in the picture. Oh, the line from Rosie that she'd "made a decision" when she first met Marco was, if a little corny, worthy...don't we, in fact, later make big decisions that are really based on snap choices in our past? Rent this one if you're curious, or send me $1.50 plus postage! (No, not really...).
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie (2003)
If only hearts had this much going for them all the time...
['Spoiling' is very mild since I'm sure you've guessed it's a happy film...] Having worked with high school students for some time, I really enjoyed several of the subtle and not-so-subtle commentaries, such as the principal and vice principal just watching a fight and discussing it, doing nothing (in this case a positive thing, but in reality dangerous because of liabilities, no matter what might be best for the boys), the sister not even talking to her boyfriend when she heads back in the house, and the dynamics when the parents have to come into the office.
Far from realistic, nonetheless the sunshine is written into the characters (e.g. the father is a good Catholic after all) and so doesn't come off completely Christmas film-like.
Mrs. Ritchie and the principal are beautiful models of patience and the principle of allowing people to make choices, since really, they're going to anyway, so it is better to "set the drag" really loose than "snap the line".
Highly recommended as a must-see for training mentors, tutors, and other paraprofessionals in education. I know that tutors around us often ask, "So, what did we actually do with the kids today, anyway?" and we're left saying, "We were there." Point is, isn't it, that the people we help may be "better people" than we are--I liked the touch in the film about Mrs. Ritchie's not-so-perfect past. We just happen to be needed.
I do wish that most families still had the underlying connectedness that both the families in the film demonstrate...it's like these families were first-generation dysfunctional while by the fifth generation hearts are so lost in the complexities that these sort of happy endings aren't so easily come by.
But action films usually end well, mysteries usually get solved, so there's nothing wrong with a social work film ending a little overly tied up, is there?
Snapshots (2002)
Clever, flawed, sentimental...very human traits
Snapshots is a New World meets Old World, young meets old, past meets present love story with a fine use of coincidence, a great flavor of Amsterdam, and some terrific moments by Reynolds and Chaplin.
The flashback scenes of younger love (apparently done by a second crew) are nearly unwatchable...editors might have saved them as quick, patchy dream-like sequences, but let them run in all of their silliness. Without a fast-forward button, they ruin the film. USA scenes are almost as bad with a corny TV flair and evidently no budget for cinema-like setups--the only good thing to say is that they show how much better an actress Chaplin is than the production around her.
Watch it for the Amsterdam parts, which are lovely, well-acted, and even funny.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
If Sentinals are that ineffective, I'll use Daleks...
I just now saw Revolutions--May of 2005. I was in no hurry after seeing Reloaded.
Of course, we all should have known by the very titles that the movies were going to be what they were--we held out, though, thinking "Maybe this is just the advertising side, the depth will be there." Matrix Squared and Cubed would have sent a different message. Or, my favorite names would have been The Determinant and The Jacobian.
One IMDb reviewer's idea of an alien super-ruse was great. I was thinking more visually, though...I kept wondering why in the rainy dual with Neo & Smith, Inc., we got Rain Drop Time rather than Lightning Time. How cool would it have been if when Smith pulled out some supersonic Kung Fu, Neo had countered by going into Lightning Time. We could have had tunnelized redshifting, maybe even some backward causality rather than two bullies seeing just how deep in the mud they could push one another.
And what about the Great Buddha Oz at the end made out of Sentinals? What machine logic to that? And hmmm...Okay, (says the machine) since you say I need you, I'll bind myself to a promise not to do the one thing I seem to have been trying to do for a century--and keep the promise.
And just why is a human culture that can build The Forbidden Planet in less than a century incapable of creating smart weapons to seek and destroy swarming Sentinals? Oh, the big advance in RPGs, I see, is that the launchers are double-barreled. And while the security team runs the place on holographic imaging screens, the shells are made by mixing gun powder with a mortar and pestle. And is there a reason that there wouldn't be EMF impulse weapons in Zion apart from the ships? Anyone think of trying to direct that blue bubble and create a usable device? And as a commander, do you typically leave a suspected psychotic trying to destroy humanity unguarded? And when your only resource is down to human lives, stop to debate whether a 16-year-old should be on the battlefield? And where are the women among the mega-botic gun platform operators? Did I just miss them, or is Zion traditionalist after all?
And why was it that the Smith-Zombie traitor cut himself, again? Why was it that the fire-seeing Neo couldn't save Trinity this time? Why didn't Smith #1 let his millions help him out when things looked bad in the rain storm? Why did the Sentinals in the launch bay fly around in circles together rather than doing the one thing they were there to do--destroy? If that's how a Sentinal works, I'll use Daleks when I take over the world--powered by Linux, of course.
Let's face it, the business built around the Matrix was not cinema, it was video game. And sadly, even for a video game market, high-schoolers would have exercised much more imagination.
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)
Opening the can...
Personal Velocity opens the can--that unlabeled can that has some real female thinking in it, not the processed thought product Hollywood usually gives its Holly's.
Because it opens it so wide, it even scares me--long a fan of the comment by Ghandi that in order to better love women, in his heart he had become one.
Particularly powerful was the second portrait, Parker Posey playing Greta. Gosh! Could I be that husband some day? Someday could I be just a great guy who ...(you'll see with the film)... love of my life in an inevitable tide change? Discussing Personal Velocity is discussing literature...and Posey's fine acting makes that literature come through. In fact, all three actors let themselves be vehicles while still delivering noticeable performances. Kyra Sedgwick breaks down in despair in one scene that put a knot in my stomach only sleep could remove.
I haven't read any of Rebecca Miller's works, but a film-lover at heart, now I'm spoiled and want more on screen. The small plot "lilts" (for lack of a better word) at the end of each story, full of accumulated emotions, reminding me of Somerset Maugham, and working better in film than I would have thought.
This film is highly recommended. Unfortunately, most of the men who need to understand it never will. But that's statistics talking--it's always worth a try: men or women who know guys who don't get IT at all, invite them over to see this.
Just make sure the kids are really asleep, first.
All the Queen's Men (2001)
Wizard of Oz, in drag, during WWII
All the Queen's Men is a comedy with some spots of meaningful drama. Taken as a whole, it isn't great cinema, but it tries some things seldom seen anywhere else, and it's great for the German/English speaker--nice, clean German without annoying subtitles! In the film four men are banded together as a comic "Dirty Dozen" divided by three. Each has a need: true love, meaning/valor in life, fitting in with a group, and being recognized in the limelight. Like Dorothy and friends, they get whisked into a mission with a singular purpose (ultimately, getting home) that leads them on a journey of self-discovery or self-repair.
The drag theme is part of the journey for all but Matt LeBlanc's character ("O'Rourke")...who should have had a more believable drag and gotten to know Krebitz (as "Romy") the same way the guys got to know Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot, as a woman. (ATQM has about the same comedic approach to the drag as the Billy Wilder classic.) However, while not as funny as Some Like it Hot, ATQM offers a more serious exploration of the other three men's sexuality than would have come out in Marilyn's day. Izzard plays his part ("Tony") as a drag queen without apology or guffaw. Cosmo (as "Archie") is motherly and never forced to play a stereotyped old woman. Finally, Birkin ("Johnno") switches from shy yet Apollonic boyishness into such a wonderful femininity that even if the script didn't ask about this loner character's sexuality, Birkin commands the question, and brings a little haunt into the film as a result. In fact, if there is a literary epiphany in this film, it is Birkin's moment with the women at the factory, although the Mutterkreuz and sing-along serve the same purpose for the others, just far more mechanically.
Beyond the characters themselves, a before-and-after bombing scene in Berlin is especially impactful--no pun intended, as is a confrontation with a particular German soldier and "Johnno". The balance of serious notes to comedy is about right: too bad the comedy just isn't higher caliber.
Interestingly, the viewer won't soon forget the wonderful cubist title graphics, which would have been fantastic on a retro fifties or sixties film, but are pretty fishes out of water stuck to the two ends of this period forties piece.
All the Queen's Men is not great, and not great comedy, but it comes with memorable pieces making it worth the watch.
Cellular (2004)
Yes, you can do some of this stuff...but what would you do?
You CAN in fact: 1) Dial an old phone by clicking the right wires 2) Just call someone up and start a conversation via cell phones. A friend tried and before my eyes he had about a 3-minute polite, interesting conversation with a woman 1,000 miles away. 3) Make a movie with about only these two points of reality, and still create something an audience will enjoy.
After all, it's all about entertainment, right? But in Cellular, there is the deeper question. We can laugh at the stock characters, cheer for the heroes (both leads), and at moments get down-right thrilled. But we still have to ask just the question the movie wants us to: How far would we go based on what we THINK is really happening.
Some people at the Columbus performance where Dimebag Darrell and four others were shot and killed thought at first that the gunman was part of the act. A policeman entered the club and shot the killer--a club with something like 600 people in it. One bouncer was shot responding. How far would I go?
The Boot (1998)
What we call British humor...
In a style not unlike that of John Cleese (Fawlty Towers, Life of Brian) and his ilk, this short film is made with the up-most quality in acting, directing, and clever humor.
If you're looking for surprises, don't. What makes you laugh hardest is that you KNOW what's going to happen next--and how absurd the whole thing is to begin with.
Don't watch it with one of those types who keeps saying "Why don't they just..." Oh no, this is for those who are practiced in the fine art of suspended disbelief.
Kim Thomson (also credited in Princess Diaries 2) plays a perfect straight role as the lead--then again, the entire cast plays this one pretty straight, and very well. Having managed a retail store myself, I especially appreciate the frustrated boss, even if he's totally out-of-line. I'm sure you'll find a favourite among the three cast members, as well, and enjoy every bit of this production.
Dishonored Lady (1947)
A post-modern timecapsule to post-post-modern times
As a film, Dishonored Lady has enough to keep it going, even over the ravages of streaming video compression. Cinematography and direction include lots of tricks we take for granted now, half a century later. I especially noticed a nice three-step scene-setting sequence: cityscape to window to interior. At the same time, the director didn't forget to give us lots of portraits of Hedy.
These days we seem what, too impatient? Can't stand to rest the camera on a beautiful face, got to race to the bedroom? Or why wait for the bedroom? And these days a theme of real love triumphs over promiscuity?? BUT, this isn't a film about conservative sexual propriety. It's a time capsule, really. At the end of an age where it was honorable to at least want to be fooled into that "illusion" of innocence this film predicts a future where those around us will too much enjoy our less honorable moments (...loves company) to ever let us engage our best selves. An age of candid camera in the face of ridicule, an age of honor meaning you use protection.
This is a film that isn't foolish, or fooled. It isn't innocent, even if the word "excitement" is used for "sex." But it's about innocence in transition. Transition between innocence solidly existing, even if buttressed since time by illusion, to the illusion we now have that there is no such a thing as innocence at all--the latter illusion being the tool of those who would take our childhood abuses and adolescent mistakes and rule us with them (or roll us with them in the dirt) until our better selves seem too far away or too hard to reach.
This isn't so much a film for the woman Jesus stopped from being stoned as it is a sadly correct socio-psychological analysis of how little it will mean to be holding a rock in years to come--rocks made mostly of dried past that itself was full of peltings. The villains of this film are just the everyday us, foiled in the last flickers of that bright illusion of innocence.
"Who cares if you killed him?"