Guest Film Review: "Hope Springs"

Check out this guest post from my fellow sister site Medium Rare for the film Hope Springs...

Hope Springs is a fun but forgettable romantic comedy about a couple whose relationship has lost its spark. Kay (Meryl Streep) would like to get back the magic in her thirty-one year marriage with Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) and has enrolled the two in couples counseling with Dr. Feld (Steve Carrel) in the tiny remote city of Hope Springs, Maine. Though enjoyable as a whole, the film is divided into two distinct parts: the first and the second half. The distinction being that the first half drags and the second half is actually enjoyable.

The overarching problem in the first half is the film’s one dimensionality: Kay wants a change and Arnold doesn’t. This seems to be the only thing going on. Arnold makes no attempt to change his ways and spends his time badgering Kay: “How could you bring me here?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “How can you call 31 years ‘not a real marriage.’” Kay, on the other hand, spends this portion of the film looking longingly at the man she loves wishing he would change. Clearly the film makers wish to drive home just how dysfunctional the relationship is but they do so in excess. The point is clear early on, so each new scene illustrating it feels a bit excessive. At some point the viewer has to wonder how these two are together at all.

This one noted-ness also, unfortunately, applies to the comedy of the film. Although it gets slightly better in the second half, the movie is never really that funny. All of the jokes seem to be about the same thing: Arnold and Kay’s awkwardness around each other. Look at these old people trying to be sexy with one another, the film seem to suggest. They can’t even say the words “oral sex!” Isn’t that funny? Yes, at first, but the novelty of adults behaving like cootie-phobic children gets old fast.

Hope Springs finally picks up in the second half after an emotional therapy session between Kay and Arnold. When you learn that Arnold feels that Kay also had a part in the breaking of their marriage a new dimensionality is added to the film. Finally the movie is not just about one character wanting something and the other being reluctant to give it, but about two characters trying to figure out what went wrong and how to change it together. The film is at its best in this second half as we get to watch the characters, in some very touching scenes, remember exactly how it was that they loved one another and what it felt like to do so.

As you could imagine from the cast list for Hope Springs – Streep, Jones, and Carrel – the acting is great. The script occasionally forces the stars into the melodramatic but the cast is always able to tone it back before things get too ridiculous. Streep and Jones show great chemistry and are able to realistically convey how two people could be in love but still so very unhappy. All three of the stars are masters of on screen subtlety, quickly conveying things to the audience with a shift in posture or a sideways glance. Unfortunately, these talents are used a bit too frequently and what should have been subtle often becomes rather blunt. Seemingly afraid the audience will not get it, director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) always uses two strokes when one would do.

At the end of it all the audience is left with a very sweet though not very funny film. Writer Vanessa Taylor clearly has a lot to say about the subject and is able to convey her message in a heartwarming enjoyable way. The actors, always welcome on screen, do a good job and the chemistry between them feels real. Though Hope Springs flounders in its opening, the second half finds its legs and the audience is left with a tender and enjoyable experience highlighting the trials and tribulations of marriage. It’s a shame, though, that it isn’t a bitt funnier.

Rating: 6 out of 10