Permission, or: Just Get a Cat Instead

We’re kicking off April with a tried and true Blog Free month as part of our precisely planned and impressively elaborate themes.  Okay, mostly out of laziness and an unwillingness to commit to a specific theme long-term.  Which, given this week’s pick, is perhaps surprisingly on the nose?

The Film:

Permission

The Premise:

Childhood sweethearts spice up their relationship by pursuing sexual affairs on the side with…permission.

The Ramble:

Brooklyn hipsters, young and in love, seem ready to settle down.  Anna and Will have known each other since childhood and have been in love ever since.  While Will owns an incredibly hipster-y carpentry business with his bff Reece, Anna is a grad student focusing on music performance.  On a side note:  Reece is also the serious boyfriend of Hale, Anna’s brother.

Just before Will decides to propose at dinner with the four assembled, Reece decides to be a complete tool.  Before settling down with Hale, Reece made quite a few notches in his belt and adopts a bit of a condescending know-it-all attitude to Anna and Will’s commitment to each other.  In reality, Reece is merely shifting the subject from his own relationship issues with Hale, unknowingly setting all four on an incredibly stupid journey of narcissism and poor decisions.

“I have really nice hair and some cool hipster clothes but am an absolute dipshit at decisions.”

Though Anna and Will initially laugh off Reece’s suggestion that they sleep with other people, Anna keeps coming back to the idea and is rather keen on it.  They both believe the idea of monogamy is BS and question the idea that a relationship could be so fragile that it would be ruined by a sexual affair.  After some consideration, they decide to give this whole idiotic idea a try, reasoning that it isn’t really an affair if they give each other permission to pursue other sexual relationships.

Predictably, this is much more difficult than anticipated.  Almost immediately, Anna feels an emotional connection to the guy she hooks up with, Dane.  Like Anna, Dane is a musician, plus he also makes her breakfast at night because he knows she won’t stay until morning.  Initially, Anna and Will decided against seeing any of their hook ups again, but the two quickly scratch that rule.

Meanwhile, Will finds a romantic partner in the form of Lydia, played perfectly by Gina Gershon.  Lydia buys a table from Will, who delivers it to her late at night, which is a euphemism but also a real thing that happens in this film.

Prob one of the more unique affairs on film.

I have neglected Hale and Reece’s relationship drama, which centers around Hale’s wish to start a family and Reece’s reluctance to do so.  Though I find all of the leads insufferable in their own ways, Reece is an exceptionally horrible douchebag who refuses to even talk to Hale about this.  As the two seem to grow farther apart, Hale meets a father with a young child at the park and grows more attached to the idea of having a child.

Also featuring a rather pointless appearance by Jason Sudeikis?

At a certain point, Will wants to stop with the arrangement he and Anna have made and get back to their life as it was before they forgot how to be adults.  But can they ever go back to the way things were?

The Rating:

2/5 Pink Panther Heads

Those PPHs are mostly for Rebecca Hall’s hair in this, which is gorgeous.  I don’t think there’s any room to complain about the acting either, but the supporting characters far outshine the leads.  We get much too close for comfort with our main four, who treat each other horrendously and all seem to be quite removed from reality.

I’m annoyed because I completely support the ideas Anna and Will discuss dealing with sexual liberation, monogamy, and non-traditional relationships.  However, up to this point they have been the most fucking monogamous couple ever–as much as they may think of themselves as free spirits in this context, they have very much internalized societal norms surrounding relationships.

With both sets of relationships, the film seems to explore what happens when partners no longer want the same thing–if indeed, it’s possible for both to truly want the same thing from their relationship.  That’s another element here too–expectations for relationships and what they will (or will not) fulfill.  Better bet?  Just get a fucking cat/dog/literally anything besides a pointlessly stupid human.

My main problem with this film really boils down to how often I sympathized with men throughout.  I hate how bad I felt for both Will and Dane, who of course don’t inherently deserve Anna’s (or any woman’s) love.  However, it’s difficult to see her completely disregard their feelings and deny any wrongdoing.  Though I don’t think she’s initially aware of her interest in exploring other possibilities outside of the relationship, Anna nevertheless comes across as incredibly manipulative almost to the point of being a sociopath.  Admittedly I’m also a sucker for anyone who makes breakfast at any and all hours.

Would Christa…deliver a table to this one or ditch it for a day out at the dog park?  Read her review here to find out!

Sorry If That’s Too Complicated for You

If I’ve ever expressed an opinion about ranting on the internet, I’ve most likely advised you against it.  Even if you just had to get something off your chest.  So feel free to say I told you so because I have to.  Have to.   I have at least calmed down so I’m flipping the bird in my neighbor’s general direction approximately every 5-10 minutes (previous rate:  every 30 seconds).  I refuse to comment on the aspersions that I have been marching rather aggressively up and down the stairs every now and then.

Allow me to use a visual aid.  THIS is what I found when I returned home from work today:

I was inwardly seething already because a member of our board of trustees and our asshole neighbor had started doing whatever the fuck they’re doing to repair a connection about a week ago, and had dug up some of the garden and just left the wires exposed.  (Idiots.)  No prior warning whatsoever.

Anyway, I kept my shit together enough to ask “Um, what exactly is going on here?” in a tone that was my best attempt at neutral.  If anything I must have sounded extremely uncomfortable because I hate this kind of confrontational shit.  Honestly, guys, this is perhaps the number one reason I stay inside with my books and Netflix when I don’t have to work.

So, this is how it goes:  the trustee continues to work on trashing our yard, not answering any of my questions.  Just totally insane, unreasonable questions like “How long is this going to be here blocking the path?” and “After you’re done, is the yard going to look the way it did before?”  Asshole neighbor, about whom I had previously felt neutral (but just wait), starts to “answer” my questions.  And the trustee, if he answers at all, gives one-word answers, saying all this shit will only be here today, and that he’ll talk to my mom about it, just completely blowing me off.  My mom is out of town for a few weeks, so actually it is important for him to tell me what the actual fuck is going on.  Oh, and maybe for it not to be an obstacle course to get to my fucking front door.

According to my asshole neighbor, his wife told my mom what was going on, and that my mom knew they were going to dig up half of the yard (she didn’t).  And I’m sorry, but it should really have been someone on the board who told us what they planned to do.  Apparently my saying “I think it would have been considerate for us to have gotten some notice about this” just absolutely crossed the fucking line.  What did my neighbor have to say about this?  “What difference would it have made?  We would’ve had to do it anyway.”  And here we go, you guys.  Male chauvinist asshole gold:  “Sorry if that’s too complicated for you.”

At this point, I suppose I have to thank working with the public for my remarkable ability not to scream at people.  I did say “Seriously?  That’s a really condescending thing to say.”  To which he offered an extremely half-assed apology.

Keep in mind that the guy playing in the fucking dirt was a member of the board of trustees in the homeowner’s association which my mom is required to join.  As far as I know he was getting paid to do this really unprofessional repair, which just seems ridiculously unethical to me.  Instead of paying a contractor, he is in on the decision to pocket the money himself for fucking around in the dirt.  Apparently THAT is worth his time, but serving the members of the association is not. And guess how willing he was to talk to my mom when she was on the phone?  Yeah, not at all.

What the entire thing smacked of was asshole dudes getting pissed when I called them out that they didn’t have a plan and couldn’t answer a fucking question.  So instead of admitting they messed up, whose fault is it?  That feeble-minded, irrational female.  She dared question our already tenuous grasp on authority.  Welcome to being a woman in our society.  Fucking asshole pricks think it’s okay to call you stupid to your face when they’re the ones digging around in the dirt pretending to know what the fuck they’re doing.  AND straight-up refusing to answer your questions.

As a librarian, this was especially bitter since answering people’s questions is my fucking job.  Even when I think they’re awful questions, like one lady who calls asking for businesses that are “American” (read:  owned by white people.  Really).  As a member of the board of trustees, I would think answering the questions of the people you serve would be part of your job.

Though I’m still enraged, look at what happened a few hours later:

You’d better believe I’m going to complain about that ugly dirt patch they left where there used to be living plants.

All I’m saying is that bitches get shit done.  It’s that simple.

EDIT:  Since tomorrow’s film features Julia Stiles, I have to: