In this week’s FIELD OF STREAM, we feature a sensitive character study about the complex nature of finding home.
The handsome, mysterious guy virtually almost every girl wants to get is a film archetype which has always been known for the image he projects. He is the embodiment of danger and allure, giving off an animal magnetism which the opposite sex cannot help but find intoxicating. From the early likes of William Holden in Picnic, such a character has had the ability to shake up any story he enters and oftentimes turn the tables on the very audience watching the screen. He is also the subject of writer/director Chadd Harbold’s 2017 feature Long Nights Short Mornings, a deeply introspective character drama in which the mystery behind the smolder is removed and a true essence is revealed.
The protagonist of Long Nights Short Mornings is James, a man in his late twenties living in New York City. James has what most guys his age want; looks, charm, a good job and a steady supply of female attention. Yet the problem continuing to plague James is his inability to form a lasting relationship. Night after night, James frequents parties, concerts, coffee houses and nightclubs, learning more about himself as he ventures from one romantic encounter to another. Long Nights Short Mornings traces James’s seemingly endless journey through the city and the wildly diverse assortment of women he encounters as he searches for that one aspect of life which continues to elude him.
What makes Long Nights Short Mornings such a searing and dynamic piece of indie cinema is how it manages to take a figure so often written off in films (namely the player, the jerk) and actually dare to see if there’s something within him worth exploring. Harbold’s film takes its cues from the great character pieces of the 70s that were built around subtlety and offbeat structuring. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine a version like this from that decade starring Dustin Hoffman or Warren Beatty. Long Nights Short Mornings opens with a vignette which sees James breaking up with the current girl he’s been seeing (Ella Rae Peck) in a long monologue with the camera never even acknowledging Fernandez’s presence in the scene until after the deed has been done. What follows is one vignette after another in which James reconnects with old female pals, ex-flames and new paramours, each one radiating the illusion of something real for him. The problem for James when it comes to not knowing who he wants to be with is the fact that he doesn’t actually know (nor particularly like) who he is as a person; at times trying to be who each girl expects him to be. In many ways it’s the world James exists in (parties, dance halls, bars) which has stunted and forbidden the accidental hopeless romantic from truly discovering himself. While he’s berated and called “a little boy” by one girl (Cassandra Freeman), he’s labeled “an old perv” by another (Natalia Dyer), and seen only as a sex object by yet another (Addison Timlin) showing that his identity is as limited and fleeting as the city nights themselves. Harbold’s film wisely never asks us to excuse some of James’s less-than-admirable actions, but rather to understand him; a goal that’s acheived through both the character’s pensive reactions to situations and Fernandez’s stirring interpretation of them. Sarah Jessica Parker once remarked how for her, the iconic series Sex and the City was less about female empowerment and more about “finding home.” That’s exactly what James is doing- trying to find that true romantic connection with someone else as well as that emotional place he can feel safe and call home when the night ends.
From indie drama to classic Hollywood, quirky comedy and thrilling suspense, here are four other stories featuring a collection of dudes who brood.
JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME (Prime)
By far the most accessible and relatable Duplass brothers offering to date. The hilarious Jeff, Who Lives at Home stars Jason Segel as the title character; a man in his 30s who lives with his mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon) and is plagued with an aimlessness regarding what to do with his life until his brother Pat (Ed Helms) recruits him to find out whether his wife Linda (Judy Greer) is having an affair. Although seen as the story of a slacker from the start, the film eventually becomes a playful, earnest portrait of someone looking for purpose in his life within a number of meaningless occurrences which he believes to be signs. Eventually, all of the characters in Jeff, Who Lives at Home end up questioning their place in the world as they each learn to recognize and love that which was there all along in this wonderfully constructed dramedy.
REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (FilmStruck)
John Huston directed the only film to pair silver screen legends Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor in a steamy drama set on an Army base. Brando and Taylor play a married couple who enjoy little love in their union. She’s a trophy wife fooling around with one of her husband’s fellow officers, while he’s a military sergeant harboring a deep, dark secret; namely a passionate attraction for a young cadet (Robert Forrester). While some consider Reflections in a Golden Eye a classic today, it’s hard to ignore the movie’s more notorious elements, such as the scene where Taylor strikes Brando with a riding crop, the bizarre nature of Julie Harris’s character and Huston’s decision to shoot the entire movie in a gold tint. In spite of this, Reflections in a Golden Eye remains noteworthy for the honest way it looks at a man wrestling with his homosexual tendencies, while at the same time, reveling in them.
ULEE’S GOLD (Fandor)
Peter Fonda gives the performance of his career as Ulee Jackson; a beekeeper living a quiet life in rural Florida with his two granddaughters (Jessica Biel and Vanessa Zima). When trouble arrives as a result of his estranged incarcerated son’s (Tom Wood) past, he must pull himself together for the sake of his fractured family. Quiet and lovely, Ulee’s Gold has remained notable for Fonda’s brilliant work, but also as a document of pathos, redemption and the unconditional embracing of family. The silent way in which Fonda delicately lets Ulee’s torment and heartache from the past flow through him is continuously palpable. Watching as this man who worked so hard to shut himself off from the light of everyday life, face what he’s been avoiding, makes Ulee’s Gold one of the best independent titles of the late 90s.
GRAND PIANO (Shudder)
Mixing elements of Hitchcock and De Palma, Grand Piano was instantly given cult classic status upon it’s 2014 release. Elijah Wood stars as Tom Selznick, a once celebrated classical pianist whose crippling bout with stage fright cut his promising career short. On the night of his comeback performance, as he sits down to play in front of the packed auditorium, Tom discovers an armed assassin (John Cusack) ready to take him out should he call for help or play one wrong note. Although the premise has the ability to generate laughs, the film (from a script by Damien Chazelle) is ripe with the kind of nail-biting suspense which makes the genre such a treat. The manner in which Wood projects different levels of fear and tension while trying to keep his cool is matched by the unrelenting malice in Cusack’s voice. Besides the thrills, Grand Piano’s metaphor of the damaged artist regaining their creative instinct and feeling as if their life would end should they find fault within themselves is brilliantly illustrated.
