I watched Anyone But You and Obvious Child recently. I had high expectations for Anyone But You, but ended up feeling rather disappointed by it– there’s something false about that movie, over and above the usual conventions of romantic comedy– and criminally, given that Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell have such chemistry. Some of it might be that the script gives them almost nothing to talk about beyond the machinations of the plot (and that Natasha Bedingfield song), but, despite a few delicious moments, the movie is almost entirely insubstantial.
Contrast this with Obvious Child. I had held off watching it, because I was dubious that a movie– and a romantic comedy(ish), no less– made in 2014 would do justice to the personal and ethical depths of deciding to have an abortion. I was totally won over, however, by how earnestly the movie treated those questions (and the rock solid chemistry between Jenny Slate and Jake Lacy and a bunch of funny/silly jokes didn’t hurt, either).
I’ve been thinking a bit about pornography recently. There are morally and ethically bad forms of pornography, I suspect, but I don’t necessarily see it as the besetting sin of our culture in the way some conservatives do. Rather, my concern is that it simplifies and flattens a deep and mysterious part of our being. There is a great mystery to sex and desire; and that mystery is spiritual as well as carnal. Having sex with someone is a leap of faith, and a leap into vulnerability: How will this person feel about my body? How will I compare with their other partners? What kind of relationship are we in, really? Do they know me in any deep way? Pornography seems like it should connect us in some deep way with our corporeality, but I think it usually tends to alienate us from our bodies.
There’s a point in Obvious Child where Jenny Slate and Jake Lacy’s characters have been drinking and head off to hook up. After we see them en route, there’s a sly fakeout: we think the movie will show them in the act of hooking up, but instead it shows them dancing– for a surprisingly long time– to Paul Simon’s “Obvious Child” before cutting to them waking up in bed. That’s the point where the movie really won me over. The captivating thing about film, as a medium, is the way it’s able to capture the magic and joy and mystery of human existence, and something numinous flickers in even flawed films. Pornography, as a genre of film, seems like it should be able to capture that mystery; but always seems to be more Anyone But You than Obvious Child.