WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
"We Don't Live Here Anymore," the sophomore effort by director
John Curran ("Praise"), is sad, depressing stuff, an incredibly honest
depiction of two unhappily married couples who seek comfort in each
others spouses and wind up tearing each other apart. It's sort of like
a Neil LaBute slugfest in which both genders wind up in the Vegematic.
Jake (Mark Ruffalo) and Hank (Peter Krause) are best buds, professors
at a New England college where Jack teaches literature and Hank
creative writing. They like to run together and they like to sleep
with each other's wives. Jack's wife Terry (Laura Dern) is a mess, as
is their house. Their two kids often hear the two of them going at it
late at night (fighting, or "adult foolishness"). Terry drinks too
much and perhaps because of it Jack loves Hank's wife Edith (Naomi
Watts), or at least has sex with her, because she's everything Terry
isn't. And Edith in turn loves, or at least has sex with, Jack because
he's everything her husband, a blocked writer who's openly flirtatious
with his female students, isn't. Strange as it may seem Terry and
Edith are also close friends. What's different about the film is that
all this information is kept very close to the surface, with each
character openly suspicious of the others, all feeling the urge, the
need, to tell all. These are real, imperfect people: the men who
believe extramarital sex to mean everything (escape; redemption) and
the women who are uniquely able to forgive these indiscretions
(retention; strength). The film is based on the short stories "We
Don't Live Here Anymore" and "Adultery" by Andre Dubus.
--
David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf"
online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
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