52 Films by Women Vol 3. 50. I DO ... UNTIL I DON'T (Director: Lake Bell)
After her 2013 critically successful
debut, In A World… writer-director-star Lake Bell has
found a more conventional use for three full stops in the relationship comedy, I Do … Until I Don’t.
Essentially, it is several sit-com episodes strung together for a 106 minute
feature film. Some of the characters could use a little more rounding and there
is (spoiler alert) screenwriter 101 structure for an upbeat movie – begin with
a funeral and end with a birth. Personally, I have a lot of time for screenwriting
101; usually, I see screenwriting 911. (‘Hello, my inter-racial buddy comedy
isn’t working. What do you recommend? What do you mean, give up?’) I admire
Bell for putting her character, Alice, in uncomfortable situations. Like having
sex in a toilet cubicle where she noticed that the previous user – Alice’s
husband, Noah (Ed Helms in a rare foray into a film that grossed under $1
million, if you discount The
Clapper) - hasn’t flushed. Then there’s the movie-stopping ‘ball
cupping’ scene. I imagine Bell had the idea, asked her cast (Dolly Wells, Mary
Steenburgen and Amber Heard) who was going to do it, received no takers and
then said ‘fine, I’ll go for it’. It isn’t the sort of set piece that will get
her acting offers; then again, she’s made her action movie with Owen Wilson (No Escape). Career
peaked.
The standout performance of the
movie is given by Wells, a British actress who has worked with a significant
number of women directors - Marielle Heller, Laurie Collyer, Shana Feste and
Hallie Meyers Shyer - in the last 24 months. Hats off! She plays Vivian, a
British documentary maker who has money from the BBC to make an exploration
into the abject failure of marriage as an institution. She would be one of
those people who thinks that the purpose of wedlock is to keep divorce lawyers
in employment. This isn’t the first film to question ‘happy ever after’ – I
mean, the sequel to the Disney musical Enchanted is called Disenchanted for
goodness sake. But it is the first to do so with three dots in the title.
I spent some time wondering who
Vivian, the director of ‘Tween Jungle’, a documentary that compares human
teenagers to their animal counterparts, was based on. Had some British director
like Molly
Dineen or Penny
Woolcock really hacked her off? Alternatively was Bell simply reverting to
Hollywood type, casting the Brit as the villain? The difference between comedy
and satire is that comedy is based on stuff that we all do - I mean, who hasn’t
forgotten to flush? Satire is based on stuff that other people do. We’re not
like them – they succumb to their own ego trip. When it comes to ego trips, it
isn’t the journey that counts but the voice of the sat nav.
At any rate, Viv is just
rebounding from a separation from her husband, Richard. Viv, Richard – Bell
shows a surprising love of cricket, naming characters after the Antiguan
cricket all-rounder, Viv
Richards, known for his destructive right arm as both a medium break bowler
and batsman, with 32 wickets and 8,540 test runs to his name. Viv has a theory
that couples should contract to be together for seven years, with an option to
renew. But everyone knows that sit-coms barely last seven seasons; why would
one expect marriage to be different?
Viv has recruited three couples
to be her subjects: estate agent Cybil (Steenburgen) and her motorcycle
enthusiast husband, Harvey (Paul Reiser), somewhere in their late fifties; swingers
Fanny (Heard) and Zander (Wyatt Cenac) who are somewhere in Bell’s first draft;
and Alice and Noah who run a failing blind business – they sell blinds in an
area with a lot of sunlight, but that isn’t the problem.
The family business is a chance
for Bell to engage in some pun-ative damage. I think punning is like an
all-you-can-eat pizza bar that only has margarita pizzas – you can only stomach
so much. I’ve been to that bar. It’s in Brussels. I didn’t tip. I can’t
remember the exact puns that Bell used, any more than I counted those margarita
slices, but they are of the order of Slat’s Entertainment or Blindingly
Obvious. If Bell wants to write tabloid headlines, that’s fine.
Fanny and Zander are being paid
$10,000 to participate. They have an open relationship and are therefore rare.
Cybil has to promise divorce papers to get $4,000 – her husband won’t even take
off his motorcycle helmet during dinner and he hasn’t even seen Wonder. Alice adores
Vivian’s work. She practically has a girl crush. I’m not sure that documentary
filmmakers are figures of romantic adoration. They can have more than one
project on the go – just look at the work rate of Alex Gibney. They hide behind
their subject and when you see them being interviewed, they look exhausted. So
I had to accept Alice’s fandom through a leap of faith. Still, I’m sure Louis
Theroux gets fan mail; maybe he was the object of Bell’s satire. The point
though is that Alice and Noah aren’t being paid. They are cast on a trial
basis, which I think is a joke just for documentary filmmakers. I can see Nick
Broomfield splitting his sides.
The comedy comes from Vivian
wanting to spice up her documentary by introducing a stranger, Egon (Chace
Crawford) who comes on to Fanny. Heard has made an on-screen career as a latter
day femme fatale so it is refreshing to see her dialled down. Refreshing? Maybe
I just mean weird. Egon just makes Zander possessive. Then there is a staleness
in Cybil and Harvey’s enmity. Even couples on the verge of divorce are supposed
to have chemistry. Cybil calls her daughter, Milly (Hannah Friedman) during a
viewing, so she’s a little distracted. The couple viewing exclaim, ‘what about
the price? Did somebody die here?’ ‘As a matter of fact they did’, Cybil
explains flatly, ‘but it was through natural causes.’
That Alice and Noah aren’t being
paid becomes an issue. Noah’s blind business isn’t turning a profit. They file
for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which I think is as common in America as a student
loan. Alice is driven towards working in a massage parlour with an odd pricing
structure; you go in for erotic arousal, you come out with a Ponzi scheme. Then
Harvey walks in with a gift certificate that he wants to redeem. As car crash
comedy scenes go, this is strictly ‘nothing to see here’.
Viv’s saving grace is her loyal
assistant, Mel (Connie Shin), who can bail her out of the worst creative funk.
Interview footage is poor, don’t worry, I know of a meeting of sex addicts.
After Vivian comes on to Zander, the three couples plan revenge, otherwise
known as the big climactic set piece in lieu of anyone undergoing an epiphany.
The film has a fair degree of
laughs. That Noah is aroused by Alice’s breath is funny - well, random, at
least. I was utterly charmed by the scene in which Cybil joins Harvey on a
motorcycle ride, sitting in a reconditioned sidecar and Harvey pats her helmet.
We don’t find out whether Alice and Noah sort out their financial woes; they do
what you might expect, spend more money on advertising.
The serious part of the film
involves Alice struggling to get pregnant, even though financially it’s a bad
idea. This too is treated in a sit-com manner.
Films that position themselves as
critiquing institutions generally end up adoring them. The disappointment of I Do
… Until I Don’t is that we expect that. Even Viv gets her Hollywood
ending – it involves a boom mike, in a manner of speaking. Overall, Bell
displays second film syndrome. She offers us an experience that has no real
point. Nevertheless, I enjoyed spending time with her characters, even in a low
stakes concoction such as this.
Reviewed on Thursday 15 November 2018, watched on cable TV.
Distributor: The Film Arcade / Cold Iron Pictures
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