This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Sizzling Senior Sex
Plot Overview
Successful playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton),
divorced and in her fifties, is as productive as ever. Her ex is
her publisher, her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand) is her
confidante, and her writer's retreat in the Hamptoms is handy
dandy. Her daughter Marin (Amanda Peet) in her twenties has picked
up a loaded, 63-year-old Lothario, Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson,)
at Christie's Auction House where she's the auctioneer. She's
invited him to join her at "the perfect beach house." The
foursome stumbling upon each other decide they're
"sophisticated" enough to share the place for the weekend; Erica
will write, Zoe will grade papers, and daughter &
boyfriend will do what they do. Now, the Muslims with their
multiple wives have worked out a formula for how old a woman has to
be to meet the needs of a man. They divide the man's age in half
and add ten years to it. 63 ÷ 2 + 10 = 41½. This couple is
severely mismatched and when they get frisky in bed,
Harry—who's on Viagra—suffers a heart attack. The
36-year-old ER physician
Dr. Julian Mercer (Keanu Reeves)
takes a liking to the sophisticated older woman bringing
in the casualty and checks in on her when he visits his patient
whom he advises to remain nearby. Women reach their sexual peak in
their fifties, but she's been out of circulation for years.
Her sister encourages her to reciprocate the handsome
doctor's interest. Meanwhile, the forced intimacy of sharing
the same dwelling ignites sparks between the two old fogies. The
story progresses like a Russian drama from there.
Ideology
This movie opens by panning pretty
women perambulating down the street, all of them in their
twenties and looking good. Then it focuses on Marin inviting Harry
for a swim and shedding her clothes along the way. She continues in
her auction mode extolling the virtues of her product as if to say,
“If you got it, flaunt it.”
Of course
once a woman has got religion, her attire should reflect it. The
apostle Paul enjoins (1Tim. 2:9)
“that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with
shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or
gold, or pearls, or costly array.”
Shamefacedness has to do with being easily
embarrassed. The relevant note in my Franklin Electronic Bible
reads, “Early printer's error for
‘shamefastness’, which means modesty of
character.” The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible
restores the original ‘shamefastness’, and
the ASV
retains it, too. Peter the apostle enjoins that we (2Peter 1:5) “giving all
diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue
knowledge.” It's not too much to ask a lovely to add one
word, shamefastness, to her vocabulary and to
be aware of local customs regarding attire.
In our movie Erica on a dinner date with the doc wears an elegant but modest dress and sports a string necklace. She would qualify for “modest apparel.” In a later scene her ex is eating dinner with his new squeeze, age 33, while Erica is there giving her tips on what she knows the guy likes. The younger woman acknowledges that she has to start from scratch. This bespeaks modesty of character. In a bedroom scene Harry complains, “I can't get past your damn turtleneck.” Erica tells him, “Cut it off!” This is embarrassment in attire as in a Heidi Pitlor novel: “Joe had leaned his face almost inside the car, asked, ‘You all right in there?’ and looked down at her, and she'd been at once taken aback and exhilarated and ashamed of her unkempt state” (346). They also get embarrassed wearing each other's glasses by mistake after a heated tryst.
Since we—or at least the protagonists—are “sophisticated,” we can up their literature with an updated Bible. The NKJV reads, (1 Tim. 2:9) “with propriety and moderation” instead of “with shamefastness” (modesty of character.) Propriety is amply demonstrated when Harry seeking closure visits Marin and her recently hitched hubby at their apartment. Moderation in modesty is shown when after she “strips in the front yard,” Marin puts on a skimpy bikini. These are different ideas than what the old Bibles had.
According to Porter G. Perrin, Index to English:
The Meaning of Words 3b. Synonyms. A synonym is a word
of nearly the same meaning as another. … There are very
few pairs of interchangeable words.
(192) And
according to Fowler, “Synonyms, in the narrowest
sense, are separate words whose meaning, both denotation &
connotation, is so fully identical that one can always be
substituted for the other without change in the effect of the
sentence in which it is done. Whether any such perfect synonyms
exist is doubtful.” According to Professor George P. Marsh in
an 1859 postgraduate lecture on the English Bible of 1611:
“Words and ideas are so inseparably connected, they become in
a sense connatural, that we cannot change the one without
modifying the other. … A new translation of the Bible,
therefore, or an essential modification of the existing [KJV] version,
is substantially a new book, a new Bible, another revelation.”
(454)
Seeking closure Harry goes through umpteen address books to track down all the women he's been with; it takes him six months. Most slam the door on him but two or three help him find himself. It's sort of that way with Bibles. Publishers to turn a profit have to update Bibles now and then, and to get the needed copyright, they have to change the wording to differentiate theirs from what's already been published. In any given church there are maybe three or four favored versions. If the girls got together, they might come up with an amalgamation using their particular wordings, resulting in a church fashion, ultimately profitable to the publishers. Sticking with “modesty of character” would be simpler but less sophisticated.
Production Values
“” (2003) was written and directed by Nancy Meyers. It stars Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves. The two leads show good chemistry together, but their characters are not in themselves likeable. The doctors steal the show.
MPA rated it PG–13 for sexual content, brief nudity and strong language. One needs a refined sense of humor to chuckle at all the foibles. There isn't much scenery apart from a sizable house. Runtime is 2 hours 8 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
A lot of talent gets wasted in this one, but it should appeal to New Yorkers and other sophisticates. The plot is mundane but it has some twists and turns. There might even be a lesson in it.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the Authorized King James Version (KJV.) Pub. 1611. Rev. 1769, 1873. Software, print.
Scripture quotation marked NKJV is from the New King James Version, Copyright © 1979 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Print.
Franklin note is from “The Bible Word Book,” R. Bridges and L. Weigle, Thomas Nelson 1960.
Fowler, H.W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. USA: Oxford UP. 1946. Print.
Marsh, George P.
“Disturbance of Formulas.”
Lectures on the English
Language. London: John Murray, 1863. Print.
——available to
read or download at www.bibles.n7nz.org.
Perrin, Porter G. Index to English. Chicago: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1939. Print.
Pitlor, Heidi. The Birthdays. Copyright © 2006 by Heidi Pitlor. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1st ed. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org