Choices: they torture us in their absence, and taunt us with their presence. You get past the point of feeling like it’s all ahead of you and start to wonder if you chose wisely at every opportunity. Two films call to mind this sensation: James Gray’s brilliant Two Lovers and Francis Ford Coppola’s wonderfully nostalgic Peggy Sue Got Married. Gray puts Joaquin Phoenix in the position to make a decision, to pursue a traditional path of marriage and companionship in Vinessa Shaw or go for the possibly dangerous charisma of Gwyneth Paltrow. Coppole’s mid-80s bauble has Kathleen Turner (in an incredible performance that earned her her only Oscar nomination, so far) fainting at her twenty-fifth high school reunion and waking up overwhelmed in the 1960 of her youth. Phoenix can’t decide between sense and sensibility, and Turner is simultaneously elated and terrified at the prospect of preventing a bad marriage—what will they do and, more importantly, can they live with the results? Peggy Sue is a film about memory, its emotions washing over you like tidal waves as .
you watch it: you pretty much have to scrape me off the floor every time I see the scene when Peggy Sue’s grandmother calls her. Two Lovers is more present, the tension that exists when one is on the fence and about to pounce. Both point out how much our choices are made for us by the trajectory of our lives, but neither are negative--fate doesn’t have to be doom, and compromise need not be misery. If we’ve survived, we’ve made the right choices, and we deserve to feel proud of whatever it was that got us there. Two Lovers is now playing in theatres, Peggy Sue Got Married is available on DVD from Columbia Pictures Home Video
you watch it: you pretty much have to scrape me off the floor every time I see the scene when Peggy Sue’s grandmother calls her. Two Lovers is more present, the tension that exists when one is on the fence and about to pounce. Both point out how much our choices are made for us by the trajectory of our lives, but neither are negative--fate doesn’t have to be doom, and compromise need not be misery. If we’ve survived, we’ve made the right choices, and we deserve to feel proud of whatever it was that got us there. Two Lovers is now playing in theatres, Peggy Sue Got Married is available on DVD from Columbia Pictures Home Video