Laurel Canyon

We went to see this with some friends at the weekend. The reviews I saw beforehand suggested that the film was an excellent vehicle for Frances Mcdormand, one of my favourite actresses and veteran of several Coen brothers films. The film does give Mcdormand - who plays Jane, a Hollywood music producer - plentiful opportunities to flex her considerable acting muscles (and she has been working out in real life as well, judging by her toned physique in the film), but it is much more than just a showcase for her. It is also a thoughtful exploration by Lisa Cholodenko of some murky areas of interpersonal relationships to do with fidelity, temptation and self-knowledge, although the patchy character development weakens it in places.

Sam (Christian Bale) has – against his better judgement – taken his straight-laced, bookish fiancée, Alex (Kate Beckinsale) to live with his mother, Jane (Mcdormand) in her house-cum-recording studio in Hollywood. Jane lives an ‘artistic’ lifestyle involving drink, drugs and transitory sexual relationships and is in the middle of finishing an album when Sam and Alex move in. Of course she is also sleeping (noisily) with Ian (Alessandro Nivola), the lead singer of the British band she is working with. Sam and Alex are both MDs: Sam is training as a psychiatrist and Alex is finishing her PhD on the sexual habits of fruit flies. Sam’s relationship with his mother is difficult, and he has rebelled against her unconventional lifestyle by entering a respected profession and becoming engaged to Alex, who was top of her class at Harvard and is from a wealthy New England family.

The film centres around three developing relationships: Sam’s increasing attraction to Sara, one of his fellow interns at the hospital (played by the toothsome Natascha McElhone); Alex’s attraction to Jane and Ian; and the beginnings of a proper adult relationship between Sam and Jane. The first two relationships are taboo because their primary motivator is sexual. But that is not the whole story: Sara encourages Sam to question his motivations for training as a doctor, and Jane takes Alex’s rather undeveloped views on ‘popular music’ seriously. So Jane’s house, which is beautifully captured in the film, and in which much of he action takes place, acts as a crucible for the development of Sam and Alex individually. Inevitably this leads both characters to question their reasons for being in the relationship and they are both tempted to stray. After some serious sexual temptation, including Alex, Jane and Ian swimming naked in the pool together, Sam and Alex both resist temptation and reaffirm their relationship in an emotional scene. Crucially, it is Jane who eventually pulls back from the brink and stops Alex from throwing herself at both her and Ian. She has realised that her love for her son is more important than immediate sexual gratification, and this realisation enables her to hold a meaningful conversation with Sam for the first time, and to apologise for being a bad parent. The film ends ambiguously. Sara has become attached to Sam and, from a brief telephone conversation, we realise that she is not just a sexual object but that she, too, has a heart, and would like to have a relationship with Sam (initially she just wanted to sleep with him). Alex also continues her relationship with Ian, although at a rather safer level. I think the strong hint from Cholodenko is that although the immediate storm has passed, Sam and Alex will have to continuously strive for fidelity if they want their future marriage to be a success. As will we all…

The script was beautifully written (also Cholodenko) and all the actors were blessed with some gem-like lines. There was a recurring theme of mis-hearings and misunderstandings, and some perfectly pitched strained conversations between Sam and Alex on the phone: “Do you want me to come to the party?” “Do you want to come?” My favourite moment was a much needed blast of bitter comedy at the end of the big party scene where Sam discovers Alex in bed with his mother and her boyfriend. Alex immediately takes responsibility for her actions – flirting with Ian – by saying “It was my fault”. Jane feels that as the older woman, and Sam’s mother, she should have stopped Alex earlier, and contradicts her: “No, it was my fault”. Ian, in true cocky British male style, cheerfully says, “Well, it wasn’t my fault!” This is a wonderfully wry comment by Cholodenko on the tendency of women to take the blame and of men to exonerate themselves (although to be fair to Ian, he does later admit some responsibility).

The script was rather rocky for the first ten minutes and the story took a while to settle down. By the end of the film, I had almost forgotten this, but I was left slightly puzzled by Alex’s actions, because there is no real explanation of her quick change of direction. One minute she is casting disapproving glances at Sam for having smoked pot with his mother, the next, she is smoking it herself with Jane and the band, abandoning her thesis for days in the studio, and snogging Jane. This did not ring true, as there had been no suggestion that Alex was repressed in any way: unless we are meant to infer that brainy, geeky girls are always repressed in some way and are just waiting for the opportunity to let themselves go.

I haven’t seen Cholodenko’s first film, High Art, but I would like to. She seems interested in some important issues around the difficulties of intimacy. I hope she continues to explore them.