Funny how much difference a year makes.
That is a cliche, but by this time last year, I'd seen all of the Oscar finalists for best picture, and I knew my favorites. Most of those films I'd seen with my main companion of that time, someone I no longer feel I even know at all, actually. Someone who I now feel I never knew at all.
Friendship, you see, is conditional, unlike love. Friends come and go, and when somebody stops acting like your friend, they no longer are.
A friend is only a friend when she or he shows up when you need them most. Friends who disappear are no longer friends, but sadly, more like enemies. Especially, when the critical element of betrayal of trust is involved.
***
"The King's Speech" is an excellent movie. Finally, today, I saw one of the past year's best films. My companions were my two teenage sons, the youngest of whom truly loved and appreciated the film for its historical significance, its humor, its emotional depth, and for its ability to convey the essence of human friendship.
So you read it here first.
Colin Firth will win the Best Actor award this year, I can say with some confidence, even though I've not seen the other nominated performers yet. (I'll do my best to do so this coming week before next Sunday's awards ceremony, which my kids always come over to watch with me.)
It's one of our traditions.
The friendship that is so sensitively portrayed in the film we watched tonight, between a man who did not want to be King and his commoner speech therapist is perfect.
Friendship is intimacy. Friendship is staying connected. Friendship is being there when you really need to be there.
***
One of my senior citizen students last week read a story about online dating among people over 50. In it, she said that she has never met a man who really cries in movies, although apparently many claim to.
I do not have whatever personal quality it requires (courage? cruelty? selfishness?) to admit to her that I cry in movies all the time. I cried at tonight's movie, in fact, and tried to hide that from my boys, the youngest of which nevertheless noticed, I'm quite sure.
Tonight my tears were about friendships lost. And loves lost. The relationship between the Duke, then King, and his wife was something I wish I had in my life. Maybe I once had it, I'm not quite sure, but I most definitely do not have it now.
-30-
2 comments:
I absolutely loved this film!! My daughter and I went to see it together and found it exceptional. I definitely had to use my tissue paper at more than one point in the movie.
Friendships 'shift' as author Jan Yager notes in her book on the subject. Some of those shifts are into enemy territory- but not all shifts are.
You were right about Colin Firth. I am impressed! S.
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