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Artists have more fun than the
rest of us. They take more interesting drugs than we do, dress
better, and know exactly what kind of music to play when seducing
women. While the majority of us in our plastic fantastic world
imbibe scotch, artists drink champagne and smoke weed. Artists
are capable of making the raggediest old rock t-shirt the
sexiest garment in the world, while we make do with nasty-ass
loose-fitting tan khaki pants. Most importantly, artists have
better sex than the rest of us. They can orgasm for days,
pleasing and endless sting of partners without worrying about
STD’s or chafing. This essentially is the thesis of both
of Lisa Cholodenko’s films: 1998’s lesbian drug
fest “High Art”, and her latest opus “Laurel
Canyon”.
“Laurel Canyon” opens with Sam (Christian Bale)
and Alex (Kate Beckinsale), two engaged medical students having
perfunctory, passionless sex with their shirts on. Why do
they insist on having sex with half of their clothes on? Because
they’re not artists, silly. They’re too uptight,
too intellectual, that they’re just not comfortable with
seeing their naked lover’s body. Or Beckinsale has a
no nudity clause in her contract. “Did you come?”
asks Alex, after barely one minute of academic thrusting.
“No. I’m okay, though,” responds Sam. It is
obvious from this initial scene that both these characters
are aching for a sexual awakening.
It’s a good thing that Sam and Alex are moving to Southern
California. Sam, the up-and-coming psychiatrist, is to join
the staff of a renowned hospital. Alex, still pursuing her
doctorate, plans to work on her dissertation. They both take
their avocations very seriously, and neither of them planned
on being distracted by, oh, I don’t know, a sexual awakening.
But, don’t worry. The ache is still there. On the plane
ride to California, the two of them play travel scrabble.
Sam puts “Creamy” as his word. Alex responds with
“Sweaty”. Neither of them seems to notice the subtext
here. Aching, I say. Aching.
They arrive in Laurel Canyon, California, and the ache finally
has the chance to be satiated by Sam’s mother, Jane,
a 40-ish free-spirited record producer. Jane, played by the
amazing Frances McDormand is an artist. And, according to
the beliefs of director Cholodenko, she lives a happier, more
fulfilling life than her not-creative offspring. When we first
see Jane, she’s doing bong hits with an English rock
band and sucking face with their charismatic, if sleazy, lead
singer, Ian (Alessandro Nivola). Ian is 16 years younger than
Jane (“That’s a lifetime of fucking,” says
Jane) and the two of them are supposedly in love. Ian, however,
immediately takes a shine to Alex, and hopes to turn her into
his latest groupie.
It doesn’t matter that Ian and Jane are together. It
doesn’t matter that Alex is actually engaged to Sam.
It doesn’t even matter that Alex is the fiancé
of his girlfriend’s son (an arrangement that still makes
my brain ache). None of this matters because Ian is an artist!
And artists can do whatever they want. It doesn’t matter
if we don’t get it. We’re just not creative enough.
Jane is also an artist. And despite the fact that her job
as a record producer seems to entail her nodding her head
to the music and flashing her tits at the drummer, she still
is artistic enough for Cholodenko to allow Jane her own moral
code. Jane has lived her entire live with almost no regrets,
and her reward has been an amazing house in Southern California,
plenty of beautiful friends, and a young boy toy to satisfy
her in bed.
This is something else that I learned from watching “Laurel
Canyon”: middle-aged women are sexier than I previously
thought. Yes, I’ve seen “Sex in the City”.
I’ve even watched Renee Russo dance the tango during
the remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair”, but this
was the first all-natural non-botoxed woman ever to reach
for the crotch of a younger man and not get arrested for it.
I think we have only McDormand to thank for this characterization.
She takes what could have been a cliché of Lifetime
proportions (the man-eating “woman of a certain age”)
and turns her into one of the sexiest creations I’ve
seen on screen this year. And this woman is old enough to
be, well, let’s say my aunt. Or a former babysitter.
Yeah, that’s not too weird. A former babysitter.
What follows in this film is a garden-variety ensemble piece
about sexual awakening. Alex quickly becomes bored with her
dissertation (the sex lives of the common fruit fly) and discovers
that smoking pot with the band and flirting with lead singer
Ian is much more fun. Sam becomes infatuated with Sara, a
fellow medical resident, most recently seen as George Clooney’s
not-quite-dead wife in “Solaris”. Between them passes
the most erotic case of car talk imaginable. But the relationship
that dominates this film is the one between Sam and his mother,
Jane.
Christian Bale plays Sam as a humorless twerp with a stick
up his ass, who spends almost the entire film being embarrassed
by his mother’s behavior. This just might be Bale’s
most unsympathetic performance ever since he charmed America
as Patrick Bateman. “I think she might be developmentally
disabled,” he explains to his fiancée at the beginning
of the film, an analysis that betrays his supposed expertise
as a psychiatrist. This assessment, of course, couldn’t
be farther from the truth. Sam really just can’t handle
the fact that his mother is a real live sexual woman who has
men (and women) chasing after her. And while I hesitate to
say anything bad about the amazing Frances McDormand and her
character of Jane, I can understand they way Sam acts around
her. And this brings me to my final point; the last thing
I learned from “Laurel Canyon”.
I learned that I don’t appreciate my own mother enough.
My mother is a wonderful woman, and I don’t take the
time out of the day as often as I should to thank her for
raising me and taking care of me. So, let me say right now:
Mom, Thank You. Thank you, Mom, for raising me from a child
into the adult that I am. Thank you for instilling in me the
morals and values that you feel are important for me to have
in this world. Thank you for not being a rock n’ roll
groupie. Thank you for not sleeping around with rock stars
during the 1970’s. Thank you for not marrying Gregg Allman
for one week in 1973. Thank you for not being passed around
between Eric Clapton and George Harrison during a marijuana-filled
haze in India. Thank you for not being a slut. Thank you for
not sleeping with guys younger than I am. Thank you for not
hitting on my girlfriend. Thank you for not swimming naked
with my girlfriend and your current boyfriend in your backyard
pool while drunk on Whiskey Sours. Since I’m the youngest
in my family, I’ve been able to hold on to the illusion
that the last time my parents have had sex was 27-odd years
ago. Mom, thank you for letting me stay deluded.
I love you, Mom.
My name is Michael Niederman, and I’ll be taking my issues
to the movies.
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Photo:
Francis McDormand in "Laurel Canyon."
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