Hope Springs

Directed by David Frankel. Written by Vanessa Taylor. Starring Meryl Streep (Kay), Tommy Lee Jones (Arnold) and Steve Carell (Dr. Feld).

Bottom line: Hope Springs is full of great acting, great dialogue, pleasant costumes and settings and story. The humor was great but I wish there was more of it.

3/4

Hope Springs is a story about a marriage 32 years which has lost its spark. The monotonous routine is, for the most part, accepted by Arnold (Jones) but rejected by his wife, Kay (Streep). Determined to find hope in their future, Kay goes to a bookstore and picks up a guide by Dr. Feld (Carell) on how to have the marriage she wants. Dr. Feld is a world class marriage counselor who lives and works in Hope Springs, Maine. He offers an intensive week of sessions to help bring a couple closer together by mending or fixing marriages. Upon learning of his sessions, using her savings, Kay books a trip for two to the small town. I liked Carell's role in this movie. He is pleasant, sharp dresser who works with the couple from a distanced position. Other than learning he is a well-known expert on the subject of marriage, we don't ever get to know him that much but that's ok because we want to watch more of Kay and Arnold.

I loved Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. The pair makes a wonderfully natural feeling couple. They are what make the movie so enjoyable. I can picture, and I'm sure I've heard somewhere, a grumpy old man complaining that the price of a tuna salad sandwich. Granted, this in and of itself, isn't to most enjoyable image but Jones pulls it off. Streep's tears of frustration and confusion are perfectly timed and executed with a delicacy which only she is capable of producing.

I really liked the humor sprinkled throughout the movie but there isn't that much. At the same time, I am glad that it didn't try to be a zany comedic fun fest.

I hate to say it but I found the love making scenes a little awkward. I feel like that makes me a bad person. They are just people after all...but they are old people. I wanted to be into it emotionally and I really tried to make the heart-felted-ness of the scene felt but I couldn't quite do it.

I know a thing or two about computers so whenever I see something like the portrayal of hackers in Live Free or Die Hard I cringe. Let's enchance! I can't help it. It kills me. Yes, it is a movie but it is another example of pop culture's (often negative) preconceived notions of a subject. That said, I am not a psychiatrist but I wonder what one would say after watching Hope Springs. I'm not saying Carell was objectionable but, rather, it makes me think about my preconceived notions about a profession. I don't particularly consider a movie psychiatrist in any other way than as a construct to move the plot forward. If Dr. Feld is as offensive to a psychiatrist as movie-computing is to me, I wonder how he could be changed to be a more realistic character. After all, one of the things I like most about this movie is that it is a very natural feeling and realistic interaction between two people.

Overall, I would recommend Hope Springs for a rental some weekend. It wouldn't be the end of the world if you missed it but it does have some solid qualities making it an enjoyable experience.