School tomorrow. Damn.

Did the annual New Year's Go See a Movie With Parents thing (normally there's a New Year's walk on the canal as well, but it was pouring down rain like nobody's business all day long. scratch that- no walking along canal when towpath is flooded, thank you muchly.) and unfortunately, we let dad pick the movie. Went to small theatre very far away to watch small independent-ish movie called...Far From Heaven. disturbed, I am. (Speaking like Yoda, am I as well. Grammar has eloped with coherency and last I checked they were in Barbados on the beach.) It's about a 50's housewife whose husband...well, that would almost spoil it for you. Not that anyone who isn't my dad or very like him will ever see it, mind, so...anyway.

50's housewife, silly hair and calf length skirts, black maid and 2.14 children, played by Julliane Moore. The words 'dear' and 'darling' are thrown about every which way, in reference to everything. Her husband is a sales exec for giant company. She's on the cover of the Hartford social. (Yes, only in Connecticut.) Life is perfect. Until housewife catches husband and his golfing partner in various states of undress in the office afterhours. *d'oi* This is the fifties, mind you- husband becomes determined to "cure" himself ("Some choose electroshock aversion therapy or hormonal treatments...") and wife goes all 'dear' and 'darling' and is oh, so proud. All is well, (aside from the growing infatuation wife has with African American gardener, and all the nasty rumors her socialite friends start spreading about her, and the fact that husband gets drunk on a regular basis and occasionally smacks her one, and the way the children keep getting ignored and-) so well, in fact, that husband and wife decide to go to Miami for a little r&r over New Year's. (This is Miami in the '50s, so it probably didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time...) Enter cute looking blond boy who does not say a word in any of the scenes he's in (though he isn't in many scenes- I'm still vaguely amused by this) but who keeps giving husband meaningful glances. Gardener's daughter gets hit by a rock, wife's last support is setting up to move outta town.

I think we can all see where this one's going.

It was a good movie, superbly acted and brilliantly set (costumes and makeup and scenery was all right out of 1958, including the cars. Funny how the only thing that hasn't changed over the past 45 years are the school buses...) but it was not particularly uplifting. The ending was inevitable, given the state of things, and the ending truly bothered me because of that. (Screw realism, give me happy fluff, damn it!)

Oh! I almost forgot- saw a preview for The Pianist, with Adrian Brody. After writing that Boffo New Year's bit, it seemed a little...coincidental? I suppose that's the word. Adrian Brody is very nearly who I'd choose to play Dei, and the whole piano thing just makes it a little more amusing. Or something. Gah. At this rate I'll have my dad's taste in movies, and I'll be forced to shoot myself. *_*