海角大神

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have been married for 31 years, and the juice has long gone out of their marriage. Stolid and oblivious Arnold, an Omaha accountant, doesn鈥檛 seem to mind much.

Kay, on the other hand, is so desperate to have a real marriage again that she does the near-unthinkable: Using her own savings, she enrolls in a week-long couples-therapy program in Great Hope Springs, Maine, conducted by bestselling psychiatrist Dr. Feld (Steve Carell). Mulishly resistant, Arnold at the last minute agrees to go along.

This is the setup for the rather annoyingly titled drama-comedy 鈥淗ope Springs,鈥� and without Streep and Jones, the film might have devolved into a glorified self-help gabfest. Dr. Feld鈥檚 sessions are not played for laughs, despite Carell鈥檚 participation, and his therapyese can sound awfully glib at times. But Streep and Jones work hard to extricate themselves from the film鈥檚 middlebrow trappings. That they almost succeed is a tribute to sheer talent.

Streep last worked for director David Frankel in 鈥�The Devil Wears Prada,鈥� where she played a viperish, whispery fashion magazine editor who was about as far removed from Kay as you can get. Kay is a woman who, even while miserable, which is most of the time, sticks to the niceties. There are no scenes in 鈥淗ope Springs鈥� where she shrieks at Arnold or threatens to leave him. More than anything else, she is bewildered by what has happened to her marriage, and it鈥檚 not entirely clear from Vanessa Taylor鈥檚 screenplay (her first) if the marriage was ever all that great.

What Kay is hoping to get from the therapy sessions is more than just sexual renewal with her husband, who has slept apart from her for years. She wants to know she is, in the deepest sense, needed. It鈥檚 to Streep鈥檚 immense credit that she doesn鈥檛 wring every last drop of pathos from her scenes. The sadness comes through without special pleading.

Because Kay is such a recessive personality, Streep鈥檚 performance may be almost too much of a good thing. She doesn鈥檛 play full-out and that can seem like a diminution of her talent. But her acting here is inseparable from Jones鈥檚, and his bullying orneriness counterbalances her civility.

Each performance needs the other to work.

Jones, nevertheless, is the film鈥檚 fulcrum. It is Arnold, and not Kay, who undergoes the greatest emotional transformation, and, even though the screenplay is often too pat, Jones gets inside the innards of this man who is both deeply content and deeply unhappy. There is a heartbreaking scene where Arnold gets up the gumption to romance Kay in high style (which, for him, means actually spending some money on her), and we can see the iceberg looming in the near distance. Despite the relatively skimpy material, Jones and Streep are so good together, they plumb so many emotional levels, that I often found myself wishing that the Ingmar Bergman of 鈥淪cenes From a Marriage鈥� had stepped in to shake things up.

These two deserve the best, and 鈥淗ope Springs,鈥� which is saddled with one of those infernal scores telling you just how to feel, isn鈥檛 it.

But if the film doesn鈥檛 really explore the pain and bitterness of this marriage, it鈥檚 still leagues ahead of most such attempts. Not that there have been very many. Most Hollywood relationship movies feature protagonists who haven鈥檛 yet seen 30. In the geezer sweepstakes, it may be that 鈥淗ope Springs鈥� is the best we can hope for these days from Hollywood. Or maybe, if it鈥檚 a hit, it will open the way for more daring movies about boomer intimacy. There鈥檚 certainly a ready audience for them. Grade: B (Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content involving sexuality.)