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Jonathon, Andrew, Richard, and myself, were trying to go out for dinner and a movie. The dinner was easy, Blue Water Grill, one of our favorite sea food restaurants in St. Louis. Nice atmosphere, good food, and lots of healthy choices. If you put the sauces to the side, you can eat wonderful food and still be eating healthy. Though sometime you should go in and simply get coffee and desert, because they have some of the best deserts in town. The caramel apple pie a la mode is to die for. We’ve split it between three adults if that gives you any indication. Yes, Jonathon and I are eating healthy but healthy doesn’t mean you give up everything sweet, it just means you don’t eat it often, and you eat less when you do. That way you don’t feel deprived. Feeling deprived means you don’t stick to whatever healthy resolve you have.
But the movie was harder. We simply couldn’t agree. We finally picked THE INTERPRETER with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn not because we were all dying to see it, but because no one had any strong objections to it, and some of us had actually wanted to see it. We ordered tickets ahead of time. Everyone met at our house and we drove together to the restaurant, then to the movie. We’d debated so many movies that I actually couldn’t remember what we’d decided to see when the lights went down. But from the moment the movie started, it was great. Sean Penn was not a favorite of any of ours when he was younger, but damn, he is an amazing actor. Yes, I know the Hollywood community has been saying that for years, but we don’t go see movies just because people win awards. We go see movies to enjoy ourselves, to be entertained, and, or, enlightened. Mr. Penn was perfect in the role, subtle, understated, so that when he did show emotion the impact was, well, perfect. I’ve known and liked Nicole Kidman’s work for years now, though some of us in our group were not fans. Everyone in our group left the theatre impressed with her acting. She, too, played an understated performance so that she managed to get out of a look what some actors can’t manage in pages of dialogue. That’s acting.
The story is exciting, and edge of the seat riveting, without resorting to any Hollywood cliches. Just when you’re sure the movie will go down some old familiar roads, it doesn’t. It surprised us all several times in pleasant and enjoyable ways. It’s emotionally intense, politically thought provoking, and not in a way that should make either a conservative or a liberal uncomfortable. The movie just makes you think not about any precise real happening, but about the process of such happenings in the world. I’m trying very hard not to give plot away, and still convey the meat of the movie. It’s hard, but let’s say there’s a lot of meat there, good tasty, tender, well-balanced, and well-thought-out meat.
One of the most touching scenes between an actor and an actress that I’ve seen in years in any movie is in this movie. Whoever made the choice not to do the cliche in that scene, director, script writer, or the actors, damn, someone has good instincts. Again I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s say that holding someone in the right way can be more emotionally charged, and more important than tons of sweat and saliva.
Hats off also to all the supporting cast. There wasn’t anyone in this film that didn’t work, and work well, in their part. An especial hats off to another understated, believable, and enjoyable job done by Catherine Keener who played Mr. Penn’s partner. Loved not only her lines in the strip club scene, but the delivery that went with them. And like almost everything else in this movie, the strip club scene is not what you think.