Hope Springs
Meryl Streep has become the queen of summer counter-programming since her last collaboration with director David Frankel, 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada.” “Mamma Mia!,” “Julie & Julia,” and now, “Hope Springs.” If the Academy is smart, they’ll nominate her and co-stars Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carrell for her latest, even though she finally won her third Oscar this past year for “The Iron Lady.”
Columbia Pictures was rather shrewd with their marketing campaign for this film. They played up the comedy in the trailers, but didn’t give audiences much idea of the pathos and emotion that really drives this story of a long-married couple (Streep and Jones) who go to an exclusive couples therapy retreat in Maine when Streep’s Kay feels like something is missing from everyday life with Jones’s Arnold. When they get into the sessions with Dr. Feld (Carrell), the real nuts-and-bolts of what’s wrong with their marriage of 31 years. Do they still love each other? Can they rekindle the passion?
For much of the film, we aren’t sure of whether they will be able to answer either question with a “yes,” which is a great credit to writer Vanessa Taylor’s sharply incisive screenplay. Taylor isn’t as interested in the awkward senior sexual pratfalls that we were sold in the trailers as much as she is the underlying psychology of these characters. Despite the casting of Carrell as the therapist, this isn’t a comedic tour de force for the actor, who is on a roll this summer after his equally intriguing turn in “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.” He plays Dr. Feld straight, and it’s a thoughtful performance for an actor who is proving himself equally at home in serious roles as he is in broad comedy. That said, it’s Streep and Jones– in his best role in forever –that bring this film home with warmth and irresistible chemistry. For some, the subject matter might get uncomfortable because of the emotions that get brought up, but the actors at the center of the film do the story justice by keeping their characters honest, which is something you can’t say about a lot of big-studio comedy-dramas these days.
