Love Is Strange (15)

Directed by Ira Sachs
Picturehouse, Liverpool
From 13th February 2015

Review by Antonio Rubiosser

This is a romantic drama that touches the spectator’s heart with sincerity and a well-rounded story made with care.

One forgets very soon about the superficiality of the secondary characters during the first few minutes, and that’s because it is a slow-cooked story; as time goes by the smell of a good film starts to be perceived.

It is centred on an aged male couple that struggle to adapt to living in New York. George (Alfred Molina) and Ben (John Lithgow) are magnificent here. First you trust them (they have earned it throughout their careers), then they make you believe in their interpretations. Almost without noticing, you are immersed in a beautiful movie that says more than what you see and hear.

This is due to director Ira Sachs, who wisely takes advantage of the magisterial couple, and settles different everyday-life scenarios around them.

The practical value of an aged population can be very scarce in a capitalist society, but the empathy and love that the protagonists transmit is so strong that it seems that it is society that is the one that is clumsily trying to adapt to their lives, and not the other way round. In a similar way, the rest of the characters spin around them, but in this film there is also hope.

If not taken with care, all these elements could leave us some cheesy taste in our mouths, but every dramatic moment is carried out with subtlety and honesty. Mr Sachs knows when to stop embellishing.

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