Movie: Love is Strange

While this should have been on in the multiplexes, failing that I expected this to be shown at Birmingham’s new Everyman cinema, but alas, it’s not. Was anyone else excited that we were getting an Everyman? I expected the boutique independent cinema chain to be showing a few independent films, or at least an alternative to the block busters, seeing as we already have four cinemas (totalling at least 30 screens) within the city centre perimeter showing those. But no, £12.50 just gets you a chance to buy a piece of pizza from a comfy sofa, washed down with a glass of wine to watch another slice of Hollywood.So I’m glad the Electric were showing this at a much more usual price of £8.40 and it seemed sold out to an appreciative audience who watch the story of Ben and George unfold.They have been a couple for 39 years and decide to get married. Once news of the gay wedding reaches George’s emloyer, he is fired from his music teaching job at a catholic school and with Ben already a retired painter, finances are temporarily stretched.While George looks for another role, they are able to sell the apartment* quickly and turn to their friends and family for help but no one in the city can take them both (They would have had to go to Poughkeepsie for that – a place I like but it was deemed too far away from Manhattan in upstate New York). Ben is close to his nephew who takes him in although he has to uncomfortably share bunk beds with a teenage son. Here I’m delighted that the nephew’s writer wife is played by one of my favourites, Marissa Tomei. Everyone in New York knows a (successful) writer it seems. A (modern) love story, the film follows the heartache of the couple having to sleep in different houses, George sharing with a party loving young gay couple within their former building while battling the New York real estate red tape that makes it almost impossible for anyone but the extremely wealthy to buy a home.I did spend a chunk of the film spotting New York landmarks that I knew well and it was all backed up with a delightful classical soundtrack, none of that silly quirky music that films depicting young people seem to carry these days.8/10Smile factor 7/10*I did pick a hole immediately what with all the other options rather than having to be separated, why didn’t they hold out or rent it out while renting something smaller? They had lived in it for 20 years but only bought it five years ago and the profit was minimal £17K – for NYC standards. And I’d have gone to Poughkeepsie to stay together as I can’t imagine being separated from my beloved for more than a night!But that’s just the natural problem solver in me and the real estate shenanigans didn’t spoil the film one cent.