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At the beginning of Private life, Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti) have been trying to conceive a child for some time. They tried in vitro. They also considered adopting, going as far as spending a month chatting on Skype every day with a pregnant teenage mother who, without saying too much, was disappointing. Their marriage is, at least according to their in-laws, about to be. Their finances are even worse: a procedure suffered in the first minutes of the film costs them $ 10,000 on the spot. At this stage of their pregnancy, they must of course borrow these funds; the procedure fails.
What is the problem? It may be Richard's testicle – or even male menopause. Maybe it's Rachel's eggs. Frankly, it may be the stress of constantly having to deal with disappointed expectations and disproportionate disappointment. But the fundamental cause of couples' inability to conceive is not really what the author-director Tamara Jenkins wants to question. It's what his film explores, generously, honestly, with touches of wisdom and humor – the ways in which he pushes this man and this woman against each other, tearing each other apart. new seams in their marriage while repairing the old ones.
It is a film about, among other things, the average age, and the less and less promising offer it arouses. It's also a question of asking a couple to ask themselves if the way they made these dreams come true was worth it – a problem that arises early, when a scene showing Rachel getting a hard hormone shot at the back ends with a visual punch. it'll make you wince: a bottle full of discarded needles. Other signs are also accumulating there: the bruises on the belly of Rachel, the dark circles under the eyes of the couples, the amount of conversation or relatively small interaction devoted to something other than trying to conceive. (Hence their sister-in-law, played by Molly Shannon, stubbornly calling them "pregnancy junkies.")
It looks dark! And from the beginning Private life often look at the part: snowy, solitary, abrupt. But there is heat here and humor too – I promise. It's not quite obvious at first, because Jenkins makes you work for it. Of course, she will make you laugh at once, like a glimpse of Richard and Rachel holding ice packs on their genitals, or beautiful moments of misunderstanding, such as when Rachel's confession to a friend that she "rides" is met. , "Oh my God, soul cycle?" At their best, these moments only seem to push the couple farther inland. They are strangely alienating, perhaps because even though we in the audience can afford to laugh, Richard and Rachel can not.
Things change a little when the couple realizes they have an option with their niece, Sadie (Kayli Carter). She is a frank and intelligent under-performer who thinks that Richard and Rachel – despite all that we know about it so far – are his aunt and his cool uncle. When Sadie volunteers to give an egg, the film changes and a new chasm opens, often producing an extraordinary effect. She sits at home; she begins to take the shots; she realizes that this is probably the first thing she has done as an adult. The irony is clear and discouraging. There is something called youth – and Richard and Rachel no longer have it.
The film – available on Netflix from Friday – is Jenkins' first film in 10 years (the last one, The Savages, earned him an Oscar nomination). It's been too long. And in many ways, Private life does its part to make up for lost time. Jenkins' talent for daily doses of acid and irony is at the rendezvous. His films are not comedies, and because I hate this term, I will not call them dramatic. I think that's what happens naturally when people are forced to be realistic about their situation. Things work or not. you cross them or you do not have them. You laugh, or. . .
Hahn and Giamatti are, it must be said, a central couple: tired but not haggard, full of hope but not naive, conflicted and complicated without being too bright or soapy. Support Shannon players and John Carroll Lynch are also sharp and, frankly, underutilized. Yet they are more than secondary characters; their own marriage and the resulting natural dissatisfaction constitute a deceptively simple contrast with that of the main pair. Their main purpose is perhaps to prove that no marriage is perfect, and that no middle-aged country is entirely happy, but Jenkins, too clever for the leave there, use it to give all the movie an unexpected color.
I saw the movie at the New York Film Festival, with an older New York crowd who worshiped every humble comic humor and hub of nervous intrigue. Outside of this context, the movie remains a fun watch, even though it often tends to be devastating. Jenkins can find humor and irony gone in something as barren as the walls of an oppressive white, that 's a real talent. Let's not wait another decade to get more.
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