The Object of My Affection (1998)
Director: Nicholas Hytner Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd, John Pankow, Alan Alda, Tim Daly, Nigel Hawthorne Screenplay: Wendy Wasserstein Producers: Laurence Mark Runtime: 110 min. US Distribution: 20th Centry Fox Rated R: strong language, sexuality
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
There are good things to be said about The Object of My Affection, and I almost chose to focus on those rather than the negatives. But, it's a romantic comedy, and behind the girl-falls-in-love-with-gay-guy gimmick, it's an often shallow film with bursts of greatness. I knew there was a problem when the ending became predictable after the first ten minutes; it didn't help that nearly every scene left me emotionally unmoved. Add to this some truly shameless and trite moments, and you have yet another well-acted romantic comedy that could have been much better with a sharper script.
Jennifer Anniston leads the cast as Nina Borowski, a New York social worker. Early in the film, she meets George Hanson (Paul Rudd) a gay elementary school teacher. Because he's gay, he's not a threat, and therefore it's okay for him to move in with her when he breaks up with his long-time partner, Joley (Tim Daly). Nina's boyfriend, Vince (John Pankow), is an obnoxious "male" character, and apparently has no problem with George's homosexuality, or the fact that he lives with Nina.
Well, Nina gets pregnant. I thought this was going to be a minor plot disrupter, but it wasn't: nearly two thirds of this film has something to do with Nina's pregnancy. This is not good, really, because, like so many scenes and devices in this film, it takes our attention away from the characters and needlessly forces us think about what the characters may or may not do. Nina, by this point, is falling in love with George, and she asks him to father the child with her.
We get the feeling that he kind of wants to do it, but he seems unsure. It's about this time when George meets Rodney Fraser (Nigel Hawthorne), a theater critic who is also gay. Rodney lives with a young actor named Paul; George and Paul immediately find interest in one another, and Rodney is left somewhat behind. There are many subplots in this film (one of them involving Nina's step-sister Constance, and her husband, played by Alan Alda), but this is the only one of significant potency. Rodney is a fascinating character, and he gives Nina some insights that are both moving and thought-provoking. The revelations that arise from this scene provide the film with its conclusion.
The one element of The Object of My Affection that is uniformly impressive is the acting: Jennifer Anniston is luminous and talented, and proves versatility with this role. Paul Rudd also has several shining moments here, and manages to keep up with his character, who switches personalities so frequently that it's difficult to tell who he is by the final scene. Tim Daly is convincing as George's ex-lover, and Pankow does the obligatory macho-stuff as I'm sure he was instructed. Hawthorne, as I said, overpowers all of these performers in his few scenes, though; this isn't necessarily a compliment, for I would have liked to see much more of his character.
What displeases me about this film is the way in which writer Wendy Wasserstein seems to have tried to keep the homosexuality from being a gimmick; in doing this, there are plenty of "realistic" scenes of men kissing men (you won't be complaining about In & Out after seeing this film) and the only time anyone speaks lowly of homosexuals is when we're supposed to dislike the character. My least favorite scene in the film is when Nina tells Vince that she wants George to father the child.
Now, I have moral problems with this scene: this is Vince's child we're talking about. He has the right to be its father. Nina's response to Vince in this scene is cold and heartless. On a less-obvious level, I dislike this scene because Vince starts rambling off anti-homosexual remarks. Wasserstein clearly does this so the audience will dislike him even more, but in a film where all the characters accept homosexuality without even the slightest flinch, this device is false and intrusive.
So many scenes have this quality: they're here to serve the story, and not the characters. The big plot-hook here is that Nina asks George to be the father of her child, and that he falls in love with another man without telling her. This kind of plotting might have worked, if I had felt that director Nicholas Hytner was as interested in the characters as in the plot. Alas, I do not, because characters here often have to do things that don't fit their personalities just so other things can eventually happen.
This is one of those films hell-bent on getting to the happy, "unpredictable" conclusion, regardless of how it must contort the characters in the process. And, ironically, the final scenes of The Object of My Affection are of the least satisfying in the film. Everything works out so well for all the characters that I wondered why I was concerned to begin with. This isn't a bad film, mind you--there are good scenes here (everything with Hawthorne, for instance), and the acting makes the picture worth enduring. But it's a staged and predictable film, and just isn't what I was hoping to see.
**1/2 out of **** (6/10, C+)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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