Love is Strange

Fans of Leo McCarey’s 1937 classic Make Way for Tomorrow, will feel at ease with Ira Sachs’s latest romantic comedy-drama. Inspired by McCarey’s story of a long-married couple who lose their home and are forced to split up, Love Is Strange focuses on long time partners Ben, played by John Lithgow (Rise of the Planet of The Apes, 30 Rock), and George, played by Alfred Molina (Chocolat, Spiderman 2), who must likewise cope with losing their house after decades of cohabiting.
Sachs’s redrawing of McCarey’s married couple, now as long time gay partners, is an interesting development. Having been lovers for decades, Ben and George finally decide to tie the knot but in so doing George loses his job at the Catholic school in which he works. Thus the film’s plot takes on an almost anti-romcom narrative. Rather than ending with the resolution of a blissful marriage, Love Is Strange opens with a marriage and it is this marriage that prompts all sorts of hardships and ordeals to unravel. Unable to pay the bills, George must move in with the next-door neighbours whilst Ben pitches tent in Brooklyn with his nephew, his wife and their children. The pair must soon learn to cope with the pain of separation and confront the tensions nascent within their extended family.
Sachs is adept at bringing out observant, warm and knowing humour (and proved this robustly in 2012’s Keep the Lights On) and Love Is Strange is no exception. With gentle meandering shots of New York tying the interwoven narratives together, it is unlikely this is a film that will leave many feeling detached from its story. But perhaps most striking about Love Is Strange is Molina and Lithgow’s performances, both of which are said to be beautifully real, subtle and nuanced. Although it may be far fetched given the scale of the movie, the duo’s performances have even courted some Oscar buzz.

Available to watch on iTunes.