The Awful Truth: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne

In this post, I write about Carey Grant and Irene Dunne's performance in the movie The Awful Truth.

With "the holiday in his eye," Stanley Cavell quotes Emerson on Carey Grant's performance in The Awful Truth: "he is fit to stand the gaze of millions."

Carey Grant in the Hollywood
film "The Awful Truth"

A high class married couple (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne) break up after a dispute on marital fidelity. After each tries their luck with a different lover the two come to terms with the "awful truth."

The comedy carries the basic plot structure of the romantic comedy. Boy meets Girl. Breakup. Hijinks. Come back together. Transformed. The End. But in certain movies from the 1930s, just after the advent of talkies, several films made during or just after the Great Depression dealt with a slight twist on the romantic comedy: the remarriage plot. The difference is both stars are already married and through a break-up and coming back together (after they realize they're "just the same, but different") both boy and girl learn to grow up together, as Cavell has pointed out in his deft review of 1930s comedies of remarriage, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage.

The Awful Truth (1937) Directed by Leo McCarey. Written by Viña Delmar, Arthur Richman. Starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne,  Ralph Bellamy, Cecil Cunnigham, Esther Dale.

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Movie Review: Why I Liked the Film "Julie and Julia"

Meryl Streep portrays TV chef Julia Child

Tonight I went with my friend Glenn to see Julie and Julia.

Afterward, I was imitating Julia Child's voice on the way home. "Ooooh, I loved the movie so much!"

Julie and Julia (2009) directed by Nora Ephron stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell. The story is about how Julia's Child cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking inspires a New Yorker to cook each recipe in one year.

I loved the film.

No, I have never read Child's cookbook or even glanced at her TV show. I had not read Julie Powell's book either.

The film's narrative goes back and forth between 1950s France and 2002 Queens, New York. The viewer watches as Child in 1949 goes from barely able to boil an egg, to developing, collaborating and eventually writing a French cookbook for Americans to Julie Powell, a beleaguered government employee fielding calls from relatives of 9/11 victims who one day decides to cook her way through Child's masterpiece and blog about it.

I thought Streep captured the playfulness and persistence of Child. In one scene, learning her sister has had a child, Streep captures the joy of a woman learning her sister is pregnant, but also the stabbing reality that she herself has not had children. The humor of Child's dogged determination to "do something" is married with her love of food. "It's good isn't it?" she asks her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, offering him a taste of her latest creation. I never followed Child, being too young to be interested in her on TV, but I was struck by her equal parts of childlikeness and almost cold-hearted aspiration. As her husband coyly notes, she was able to make the most snooty Parisian smile.

Adams can certainly not top Streep's performance. Streep evoked a benign Child completely enamored by her craft, giving "no apologies." Adams is a more difficult character to like. She is woefully insecure and feels overshadowed by her more successful friends. Her "sainted husband," played by the super handsome Chris Messina, carries the relationship and endears himself to the audience. I liked him the best.

So, go watch Julie and Julia. You will be motivated to write a blog (which is why I am writing this entry).

Jon: I was hoping you could be with me. :-)

N.B. The image of Merly Streep is taken from Buzznet.

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Poetry: "For Tammy"

        with a sock puppet, dear, she carved out a few queers
        to love her —
            the most kind of women,
            to love us deviants

        she wiped away our tears with her touché kleenex —
           
            on television everyone is a performance
            the difference being only in the self-awareness

        appendix:
        this hero of a guy chris cries on a streaming video
        that the media needs to leave Chutney Shears alone! —
        or you’re going to have to deal with me —
        she’s not well right now —
       
            and we rouse up our spirits with equal fags
        who stand up for the underdogs, yup

        even pee-wee fucking herman,
        a champion of gay rights —
       
            his onanism in a girly porno theatre
    warmed the cockles of our leftist fag hearts

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