Love is Strange

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ira Sachs/Starring: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina and Marisa Tomei

Love is Strange isn't a love story as Hollywood narrowly defines the genre but it is a love story nevertheless.

From an original script by director Ira Sachs and screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias, Love is Strange tells the story of Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), a couple of 39 years who decide the time has come to tie the knot. Following their nuptials, the couple find themselves in financial, occupational, and residential binds when Ben loses his music teaching job at a Catholic School. The two also find they have to vacate their apartment, which necessitates being separately re-located while they work out job and housing problems.

While George takes up lodging with his gay neighbors, Ben is forced to live with his nephew in an apartment with minimal spare space.

One might think of George's living situation with gay neighbors as an ideal, short-term arrangement but he soon finds the couple's mania for entertaining irksome, particularly when he arrives home in the evenings weary and in need of quiet.

Ben's situation presents a greater difficulty, for the retired artist finds himself sharing his nephew's teenage son's room, which leads to inevitable conflict. It also doesn't help that his nephew's wife Kate (Marisa Tomei), is a moderately successful writer who is home during the day and whose forbearance is worn thin by Ben's need for conversation. Ben is also a little clueless about how his chatter intrudes upon Kate's need for meditative, writerly silence. But he also finds his presence presents another kind of inconvenience, for he becomes both an active and passive participant in Kate and her husband's troubles with their teenage son Joey (Charlie Tahan). As Joey's behavior becomes increasingly rebellious and hostile, his parents are at a loss to fashion a solution. Ben becomes the target of more than one of Joey's venomous verbal attacks but he is perceptive enough to recognize the problem and the solution, while Kate and her husband remain baffled.

And while the two men suffer the inconveniences of being interlopers, their problems are compounded by the difficulties of finding a new home, which proves exceedingly difficult. With only Ben's social security as income, they find the search for low-rent apartments a protracted battle against the red-tape of city government. Another issue is the discrimination George faces after being fired from the Catholic school, which betrays the church's intolerant attitude toward gays.

The film's mode of propulsion lay in the performances. Filmed mostly in snug interiors that incarcerate the characters; it's the acting that rivets our attention. Crack actors like Lithgow and Molina make us believe they are a couple who have shared a life of nearly 40 years. A terrific scene where George instructs a young student on the finer points of playing Chopin, shows him distracted and pensive as he considers his and Ben's situation, which is more than just finances and itinerancy. As the little girl plays for George, we can almost hear him contemplating his and Ben's mortality and the imminent parting both must face.

Marisa Tomei is quite good as the put-upon wife, mother and relative whose patience begins to fray everyday Ben inhabits her sanctum, while young Charlie Tahan is affective as a troubled teen who eventually recognizes Ben's small but powerful impact on his life.

I imagine the budget was miniscule but what did the actors need but a few locations and a few interiors to give us something to hold our attention?

It goes without saying that Love is Strange won't enjoy a wide release, which is too bad. But given its limited release and its probable low-life expectancy in theaters, most viewers will have to enjoy it on DVD--hardly consolation but better than oblivion.