Hi Elena

How great to hear from you!! Geena Davis was brilliant in the Accidental Tourist- just so touching. My post was off-kilter but I will quote this little bit which seems spot on:

"The scene where [Geena Davis' character, Murile] first makes love with the by now emotionally shattered and completely confused Macon is a wonderful expression of her character’s true femininity and deep intuition for the right thing to do at a given moment. I use the expression “making love” advisedly rather than as a euphemism for having sex, as Geena Davis makes Muriel’s love seem almost transcendent in its simplicity."

I hope you are having a really good day with less pain. Perhaps, like giving birth, it feels like good pain.

Much love

Fiona x

darn no edit comments, that's MURIEL

I watched it but a long time ago...I kind of forget the theme and plot.

And whaddya mean, you yanked a post down? You can jab William Hurt a bit! He can handle it. Wait. I'll call him and ask him.

(Long pause.)

He's totally fine with it. No more post pulling, Princess.

Thanks, Beth, I really appreciated that .... Actually the whole thing didn't work, much too complicated. But if you are talking to William again you can tell him he had great legs.

Hi Elena

Thanks for that . I did not realise that people did not like the ending- the whole film, including the ending, was completely faithful to Anne Tyler's original novel.

My thoughts in the original piece about the two female leads were these . (Sorry, there is some repetition of the bit I already quoted about Geena Davis):

"Secondly, it is a film about the redeeming power of love. Geena Davis’ performance as Muriel, the deeply needy, eccentric and high maintenance woman who decides on meeting Macon that he is the man for her and doesn’t give up until he finally gets it too, is a beautiful reminder that it is not necessary for someone to be perfectly evolved in order to love perfectly (or at least perfectly for the person and situation in question). The scene where she first makes love with the by now emotionally shattered and completely confused Macon is a wonderful expression of her character’s true femininity and deep intuition for the right thing to do at a given moment. I use the expression “making love” advisedly rather than as a euphemism for having sex, as Geena Davis makes Muriel’s love seem almost transcendent in its simplicity. She won an Oscar for her performance and quite rightly so.

"Thirdly, it is a film about grace, as expressed by Kathleen Turner, playing the wife who leaves Macon at the start of the film, then decides she wants him back, only to accept finally that he needs to leave her for Muriel. Kathleen Turner’s performance is remarkable for its humility and understatement. She reins back her mega-watt sexual charisma to play a woman who is trying to piece together a life for herself after the death of her child, without becoming lost in bitterness or regret. Her restraint is a generous gift to the balance of the film. "

In fact, of the three leads, I think top acting kudos went to William Hurt as Macon, as his character was so repressed that conveying what was really going on required an incredibly subly nuanced performance. I said:

"William Hurt plays Macon Leary, the emotionally repressed, control freak author of a series of travel books called “The Accidental Tourist.” The books are aimed at business travellers who would really rather not leave home, so the whole premise of his character's writing is to try to allow his readers to travel without actually interfacing with the places they are visiting. However, Macon’s ordered life is unravelling. This happens initially in entirely awful ways, then gradually matters take a turn for the better.

About a quarter of the film is William Hurt’s face in tight close up, reflecting his character’s suppressed feelings as he reacts to dialogue spoken by other actors off camera or to his own thoughts in voice-over. It is a remarkable performance and an astonishing film".

I hope that D-Day is going well for you and look forward to hearing more over on your blog!

love F x

Hi Elena

Thanks so much for that. You are too kind ! For my money, William Hurt was one of the top five screen actors ever- but so very subtle that you didn't notice he was acting. I also feel Kathleen Turner was sadly under-rated as an actor because of her astonishing good looks.

I don't think I will be pushing Andrew O'Hehir out of a job anytime soon but I do adore movies in a completely childlike way.

love F

Your kindness, Elena, encourages me to re-post one more section of the review. I said that I thought that Muriel (Geena Davis) expressed the redeeming power of love and Sarah (Kathleen Turner) represented Grace. This is what I originally said about the themes expressed by Macon (William Hurt's character)

".... it is a film about letting go of the delusion of control. However much Macon tries to control his environment, from ensuring that his readers are untroubled by the horrors of foreign food by tracking down the best hamburger joints in Paris(!) to always carrying a book to read in public places in order to ward off the possibility of strangers trying to start a conversation, he has not been able to avert the wholly random central tragedy of his life. His twelve year old son has been murdered because the boy happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a crazed gunman opened fire.

By the same token, he is unable to avoid the chapter of accidents unleashed by the deeply subversive presence of his late son’s neurotic pet corgi, Edward. These result in his both meeting and being forced to spend time with Muriel, the free spirited woman whose love ultimately saves him from his self imposed hell.

(As I get older, the central lesson of my life seems to be that my attempts to control outcomes are insane and all that is left is to surrender and to trust that “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well”).