The good news, I saw my cousin-in-law Karen last night.
The bad news, we saw "Prime."
Thirty-five-year old Uma Thurman, outfitted from the slutty side of a college dorm closet, wore only light make up in one early scene to convince us she was a miserable, recently divorced 37-year-old cursed with infinite resources, a glamourous job, great friends, the ultimate apartment with the right address, perfect bone structure and two perfectly poised breasts which ran away with best supporting actress honors in nearly every scene.
Oh the pain.
As if that isn't already too much to carry on alabaster shoulders, she has a wise, wonderful, empathetic, every-stereotype Jewish therapist who looks like an amateur drag queen playing Meryl Streep.
The pathos becomes complete when she meets a "23-"year-old (wink, wink - Ryan Greenberg is 26 -- but casting a couple with this actual age disparity would frighten small children -- like Demi and Ashton do).
The burdens mount - spectacular sex and plenty of it and touch-the-soul conversation.
Sure, he doesn't tell her his "roommates" are his grandparents, he is insecure about his work as an artist and has an abrupt personality change in one scene for the public service reminder that perfect young men can still choose Nintendo over sex, but otherwise he worships her.
And this is where the plot fell off the cliff (at least to certain women of a certain age, a demographic with which I have a certain understanding.)
He's funny and wise-beyond-his-years. He likes puppies. The sex is setting off seismographs on foreign shores. And ( drum roll for emphasis here) he adores her.
But she realizes she needs more.
And isn't being fair to him.
Yeah , right.
Adoration is a basic food group (with chocolate and certain carb-free proteins) for middle-aged women. And most of us are starving.
Screw the doe-eyed, righteous-artist, flat-tummy stuff.. the guy could have played the Elephant Man without make-up if he was as ardent and interested as Greenberg's character.
The final scene shows has him returning to retrieve his hat from a restaurant, one year after their last bedroom scene
(we know this because the director has subtley executed the transition from hot bed to cold winter street with the "One Year Later" subtitle).
He spots her in the restaurant, in age-approporate clothing with age-appropriate friends and begins to slink away.
But he must stop on the outside to perfectly frame his perfectly lit face of regret and longing in a frost-cleared pane of glass looking in.
She spots him.
They exchange a knowing glance.
She returns to the age-appropriate banality of her table.
It's no wonder even Disney passed on this fairy tale.



Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs