Saturday, May 09, 2009

5/6/09: Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

AFCA WEEK
I daresay most people associate Alan Rickman exclusively with his role as the evil Snape in the Harry Potter fantasy series. A fantasy of a much different sort—but a fantasy all the same—Truly Madly Deeply is a reminder of that Rickman can play virtually any role. In this movie, he's Jamie, the ghost of a cellist who returns to the flat of his grieving girlfriend Nina (Juliet Stevenson), who is having an extremely difficult time accepting his death. Nina is delighted and overwhelmed by their reunion, but gradually comes learn that moving forward with life may ultimately be more emotionally healthy for her than living in the past. It's a very touching picture, sort of a companion piece to Ghost from the same year, yet an altogether different kind of story. It's really a showcase for Stevenson, who shows off a full spectrum of emotions and talents. A somewhat less attractive version of Emma Thompson, Stevenson steals the show, the way Sally Hawkins did in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. This is also the first feature of the late Anthony Minghella, who of course would go on to make The English Patient several years after this. I very much enjoy these three-hankie movies, and this one has the added benefit of being both charming and very funny as well. The ending will have you positively blubbering. I actually watched the film a second time to enjoy Minghella's very informative and enlightening commentary. Thanks very much to David Skinner of AFCA for the recommendation! Rating: 5/5.

TYPOGRAPHICAL NOTE: It's interesting that the original poster (seen above) adds commas to the film's title, whereas commas are nowhere to be seen in the title during the movie itself. That's why I didn't use them. (The DVD box also omits the commas.) A small but delicious trivial tidbit of interest only to fellow grammarians.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Fyi, if the title punctuation in the artwork is different from the title punctuation used on screen, it's not necessarily a typo. Sometimes studios make a decision to use different punctuation in posters and print ads than they do on screen. For instance, as I recall (not being at work and not be able to check on this right now), for the movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" the colon was used in print ads and artwork. However in the on-screen credits, there was no colon. "Lara Croft" was in bigger font and on a separate line above "Tomb Raider." When there is a difference in punctuation for various uses, we consider the on-screen to be the official version of the title.