For an extended period throughout the 80s and early 90s, Debra Winger was one of the most successful female actors in the industry, scoring three Oscar nominations and appearing in films, such as An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment, and Shadowlands. But in 1995, after co-starring with Billy Crystal in Forget Paris, she took a hiatus. While she claimed it was a decision based on a simple desire for time off, many saw it as an indication of how Hollywood treats women over the age of 40, her choice of roles clearly drying up.
It even led to a documentary called Searching for Debra Winger, exploring the similar difficulties of older women within the industry. She returned in 2001 but has been largely underused ever since, cropping up in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married and Ashton Kutcher’s Netflix comedy The Ranch.
Finally, at the age of 61, she’s been gifted with a lead role once again, a character that we rarely see: an older woman with regrets, dreams, flaws and sexual desires. She stars as Mary, married but having an affair with tortured writer Robert (Aidan Gillen), and planning to leave her husband Michael (Tracy Letts) within the month. Michael is also having an affair, with fiery dancer Lucy (Melora Walters) and has similar plans to ask for a divorce. But as they both edge closer to supposed freedom, something strange happens: they start falling back in love with each other.
There’s a well-mined sub-genre of films about marital fatigue from Journey to Italy through to Blue Valentine, but writer/director Azazel Jacobs (also behind HBO’s underrated meta-comedy Doll & Em) offers up a fresh dynamic that shakes off gimmicky sitcom humor for something far more nuanced. Mary and Michael have reached a stage where intimacy has been replaced with unease, they’ve become strangers that know each other too well, forgetful of the uniquely written language that once breathed life into their interactions. It’s led them to look elsewhere for the thrill they no longer receive at home but, to crib a quote from Sarah Polley’s devastating relationship drama Take This Waltz, new things get old too.
Their younger lovers are clear representations of everything that’s absent within their marriage. Aside from their ages, they’re both in creative jobs and they’re both intense (often a little too much), and it’s easy to see the woozy appeal of each tryst. This is also compared with the lived-in awkwardness between the pair at home, shown quite beautifully in a scene where the couple share an unexpected bottle of wine on the sofa. This indefinable distance between them also helps to explain why they might then find themselves gravitating back towards each other. Their bodies have become so foreign that there’s an almost delicious discovery to be made and one that manages to be both safe yet also risky as they’re essentially cheating again.
Jacobs asks some uncomfortable questions throughout: who are we when we meet someone and who do we then become? How much of that is related to performance and how much is authentic? Is it possible to ever truly be sexually fulfilled by one person? It’s a thoughtful, engaging study of an easily recognizable relationship, and we’re often taken down unexpected paths, the characters never really sure of exactly what they want or how to achieve it.
It’s a hell of a role for Winger, her first lead for more than 20 years, and it acts as not only a showcase for her considerable talents but a reminder why women of her age deserve more screen time and respect. Her chemistry with Letts managing to convince through the difficulties and the joys.
While the script and performances embrace subtlety for the most part, there’s a rather ill-advised score that aims for an old-fashioned lushness but ends up being horribly intrusive. It’s distractingly at odds with the events taking place and annoys rather then excites through the various moments of romance. There’s also a disappointing swerve from nuance to histrionics in the final stretch, one particular scene involving the pair’s son landing with a thud. But it’s met with an intriguing final note. It’s one that can be perceived as sweet or sour, depending on your own relationship status, although its debatable as to whether Jacobs intended it to have such ambiguity. Rather like its central relationship, the film is messy and flawed yet painfully familiar.
