It’s easy enough to
take shots at Blake Edwards’ The Man who Loved Women, starting with that
not-quite-fitting title, for which possible replacements range from The Man
who Had Sex on the Brain to (more intriguingly) The Man who Wasn’t that
Comfortable Around Other Men. Certainly the stated premise that women
obtained something rare and cherishable from their interactions with the recently
deceased sculptor David Fowler (Burt Reynolds) doesn’t seem borne out by
anything in the flashback-structured film, although that leads to one of its
many points of low-key interest - David’s soft-spoken recessiveness, how he’s the
least wolfish of compulsive predators. As the narrative begins he's stifled by
indecision and uncertainty, a state visualized in his staring impotently at a
block of granite, unable to get to work; Fowler’s home is almost stiflingly
opulent, as are many of the movie’s settings, suggesting a stultifying cocoon
of privilege and separation. And Edwards’ recurring interest in psychoanalysis
runs wild here: his own analyst Milton Wexler is one of the credited
scriptwriters; the film is narrated (adding a further layer of distance) by
Fowler’s analyst, played by Julie Andrews, with many scenes taking place in her
office, and the breakthrough that allows him to get back to work arriving when he
suddenly starts to think of her in sexual terms. As always though, Andrews’
vibe is far more motherly than seductive, another aspect of the film’s
recurring sense of displacement (whatever woman this man loves, it never quite
seems to be the one he’s with): the most extended sequence has him relentlessly
pursued by a reckless woman he barely seems even to like (Kim Basinger), her
machinations causing him to tangle disastrously with a tube of Krazy Glue, ending
up with one hand stuck to his lips and the other to her little dog, strangified
to the point of barely being viable as a functioning human, let alone a lover.
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