Last night I stumbled for the first time on the movie Two For the Road on tcm. Not entirely sure how I missed it until now, except that I was eleven when it first came out. It would scarcely have been 'appropriate' for me, if I even had a clue at that age what it was about. And since then it simply never came up again.
I wasn't sure I wanted to stick with it when I first channelsurfed across it. Albert Finney has never been one of my favorite actors: Unlike some women of my acquaintance, I wasn't taken by his portrayal of Tom Jones, what with all the smirking and mugging. I guess his turn as the lawyer/boss in Erin Brockovich was somewhat redeeming in my estimation.
But the opportunity to watch Audrey Hepburn in a role unfamiliar to me: ah, there's reason enough. I don't know when it was I first saw her Charade -- I doubt it was first-run, since I would have been even younger -- and when I did I was probably struck more by the clever plot twists than Hepburn's role in it. But I think even the first time I was unwittingly captured by her. Or maybe it was Breakfast at Tiffany's? Who can remember? I don't know how many men (and evidently women, too) have harbored a crush on her screen persona -- fewer still those who'd admit to it. Not sure I'm admitting it even yet. It's hard to fathom that she was thirty-seven when she filmed this and seven years Finney's senior at that. Neither her absolute age nor her seniority seems credible. But for the purposes of passing a pleasant Sunday evening, it was reason enough.
I wouldn't want to say the movie 'spoke to me', in part for the admittedly literal reason that some of the plot elements are distinctly unlike my own life. (Wanting/not wanting and having a child play a minor role in the dissonances in their marriage.) And the character Finney plays can be just as despicable here as in any other movie of his -- scarcely a role model. (Sorry.) Yet even though the movie is nearly thirty years old, the screenplay was still vividly contemporary: any 'dated' references read merely as 'period'. (And there's a frisson of nostalgia for that twisted era that was my childhood.) The dialogue was equally contemporary, if frequently painfully so, whether it was made of sweet nothings or vicious sarcasm. The quick changes between the saccharine and the bilious can make your head spin.
This effect is due in part to the clever jumbling of the time elements that mark three discrete episodes in the couple's lives, and by the transitions between them: a real cinematic tour-de-force. The concept seems well ahead of its time, even if the execution is more Sixties than twenty-first century.
At her most extreme Hepburn's expressions of unhappiness are usually no stronger than pouty; this seems edgier, and therefore to me more realistic. So, too, the romantic passages. I'd have to agree with the IMDB reviewer who thought that there must have been off-camera chemistry to generate such on-camera chemistry.
Oh yes, and for the classic car enthusiast there are those frequent scenes set in and around automobiles, from a balky MG TD to a sleek Mercedes 280SL, as well as nightmarish 'family' scenes set in a dowdy Ford Country Squire.
The closing credits provided me with several 'a-ha!' moments: The haunting theme song was doubly haunting for me, until I realized I had been hearing the very theme shuffling on my iPod as performed by Charlie Haden and Pat Matheny, from their Beyond the Missouri Sky. After that it was no surprise to discover that it was written by Henry Mancini, the pop soundtrack of my childhood. I also wasn't surprised to see it was directed by Stanley Donen, he of, OMG! you name it, in any event too many to list here.
Is this a Top Ten movie? Not likely. There's far too much better competition. But is this the sort of movie that can permanently rejigger your Weltanschauung? You betcha.
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