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Good Mother Raises Tough Questions
The advance notices for Leonard Nimoy's The Good Mother may
have inadvertently heightened this film's effectiveness. Unaware of
the Sue Miller novel on which the movie was based, I first heard the
film was about a divorcee (Anna, played by Diane Keaton) whose
child is taken away from her by the
courts because she's having sex with
a man to whom she is not married.
That seemed absurd to me. Then I
learned that Anna's lover (Leo,
played by Liam Neeson) allows the
child to touch his genitals, and
immediately the 98% open mind I'm
so proud of slammed shut. Sex play
with a child? That was going a bit
too far, and I concluded that perhaps
this good mother was pretty bad.
Thus, I saw the film in a state of
mind approximating that which the
average judge or jury might have
upon hearing these, the bare bones of the case. And this is pretty
much what the judge in the film does hear The bald statements that
Anna's unmarried lover, at the child's request, allowed her to touch
(or, as it is put by Anna's ex-husband's attorney, "fondle") his
genitals, and that Anna and Leo had sex while the child, Molly, was
in bed with them. The judge does not get to see, as we do, the
accidental and innocent way the three end up in bed together, does
not see their relationship develop into a loving family, simply does
not know what he needs to know to make an intelligent decision.
My own initial judgment against Anna and Leo and the subsequent
proof of how wrong I was makes Anna's dilemma-how to live her
own life as she wants in spite of society's opposition-that much
more moving.
The price for passion and independence is high, and Anna is not
at all certain she wants to pay it Keaton's hesitant, halting, slightly
kooky manner, a hallmark of her characterizations in her Woody
Allen comedies, is perfect for the adult Anna, the careful woman
who would still like to be passionate. Having divorced her husband
of seven years because she finally admitted that sex with him was no
good, she is nevertheless tremendously tentative in beginning her
affair with Leo, as though she can't believe she’ll be allowed to get
away with getting something she wants, something really wonderful.
Sure enough, she doesn't have it for long, just long enough for
her to know that the love she'd been resigned to not having is in fact
attainable. But when her ex-husband Brian sues for custody, she
has to decide between forthrightly defending her open way of life as
good for both Molly and herself (which it is; the film beautifully
depicts them, with Leo, forming a
loving family), or scapegoating
Leo by condemning his actions
with Molly as a mistake, possibly
having to agree to sever relations
with the man she loves in order to
keep her own child. (Parallels
with lesbian and gay parents and
the choice to risk coming out
versus the compromise of
remaining forever closeted to
retain custody are apparent.)
Anna may be the best vehicle
Keaton has ever had. She gets to
cry, scream, laugh, mourn, and
experience sexual ecstacy in scene after powerful scene, and she
makes the most of every opportunity. Neeson is a good match for
her, playing an irresistibly sexy, dynamic, caring man.
One mildly symbolic stroke in The Good Mother is particularly
worth noting. Anna lives in one half of a duplex whose address
numbers are conspicuously displayed as "69 and 69A." Director
Nimoy didn't have to show us any address at all, and he could have
picked any one of hundreds of other numbers, all of them perfectly
innocuous-why choose virtually the only one with obvious sexual
connotations?
Perhaps the number's simple existence was the point. It's there,
and in and of itself it may mean nothing, but anyone who sees it can
make anything of it he or she wants. No matter how we live our
lives, someone will always be there to judge, to approve to
disapprove, to point a finger. As Anna finds out, the only way to
live is to go ahead, grit your teeth if you have to, and be yourself.
Anna's address is a clever comment on the action of the film, and
perhaps a word of advice to its audience.
- Ray Hesse
The Good Mother is currently playing at Midtown 8 Cinema.
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