The Lovers

A middle age couple are in the throes of an affair. Both of them.

The subtleties of a middle age relationship will be wasted on the young. Having read the negative reviews here, there's no doubting the reviewer's age. They've completely missed the point. That's fine. It's not for them. I may have felt the same way, once.

For everyone else, this is subtle, poignant, witty, truthful and very funny. It takes you to places you expect, in a natural but charming way and then surprises you. It's a very delicate balance, pulled off beautifully by writer and director.

And what a superb cast. All four of the main parts are played to perfection. These are no hacks. A top notch class act. The Lovers is a wonderfully fresh film for a mature audience. About time.

"Writers are always writing about infidelity. It's so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you're also this other person." Alice Munro

Rare it is to see a romantic comedy about middle-aged couples whose marriage breakup is so realistically painful that I found myself fidgeting out of discomfort at the very-human acts. The Lovers, written and directed with a sure, quiet hand by Azazel Jacobs, is about those who love and those who discard love at the same time.

I hope I didn't mislead you into thinking this is a comedy in the laughs motif. Married Mary (Debra Winger) and husband Michael (Tracy Letts) shift between their lovers and their spouses like different courses at the same meal. The film is sometimes farcical, however, as when his emotionally-unstable lover, Lucy (Melora Walters), hisses like a witch at Mary but more tragic than comedic.

Unlike the traditional comedy, The Lovers is neither light nor humorous and has neither a cheery nor happy ending. That ending is perhaps too ambiguous for its own good but nonetheless true to the uncertainty of love. It does have a jaundiced eye about the sincerity of humans in their attempt to be faithful and caring.

What The Lovers has is a wickedly critical take on the state of true love, or on the ability of lovers to remain faithful. Although it took me a while to adjust to the realism cum farce, after a bit I saw that Jacobs had caught the restless heart of humanity, its ever-searching for love.

Jacobs leads us to a surprising ending in which the restless heart is not down for the count. Regardless of how you like the ending, it is sure to spark conversation; a line from The Crying Game and other places is in order: "Who knows the secrets of the human heart?"

The premise of this film surely does it no favors. It sounds very much like a standard type of narrative when it's actually not. The way the film progresses in unexpected ways and it never feels forced or contrived. The performances are a testament to how natural it feels, but the screenplay is quite strong as well. Tracy Letts and Debra Winger are both very resonant and vulnerable when they need to be and they hit the various notes of the film in a pitch perfect way throughout. Someone else might have made this a complete melodrama and overblown but the film is anything but. This is highly recommended.

Being of the older generation, I thought I would like this film more than I did.

Debra Winger and Tracy Letts are a married couple with each having an affair and continually postponing telling the other that they're leaving. Thus, they're also stringing along their lovers being unable to fully commit one way or the other. Somehow, this rekindles Winger and Letts' passion for each other sexually.

The movie is very slow-paced, has many awkward moments, but it does contain some deadpan humor that works at times. The film's characters are mostly unlikable and thus I was never really able to invest emotionally in them or really care what happened to them in the end.

Overall, a disappointment to me.

This light, breezy comedy starring Debra Winger and Tracy Letts follows a husband and wife--both of which are having an extramarital affair. As the film progresses, they begin to discover clues and eventually find out that they are both seeing someone else. Through a clever incorporation of dramatic and situational irony throughout the narrative, viewers will learn what will happen to their marriage. The acting in the film is generally very good, as Winger and Letts play their roles with charisma and a solid amount of passion and effort. The script is generally well-written and very down-to-earth. At a relatively fleeting 94 minutes, the plot moves along swiftly and is generally paced quite well. The aesthetic technique of the film is very simple in nature, with a violin-based score and relatively few set pieces. None of that, however, takes away from the viewer's experience watching the film. However, I do have a few criticisms of the film. My biggest complaint is that the use of parallelism in scenes that trade off between depicting Winger's character and Letts' character was often distracting. Additionally, the climax and ending feels a little rushed. That said, this is a solid and enjoyable independent film. Recommended. 7/10