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Weekend Watch is here for you. Every Friday we’re going to recommend the best of what’s new to rent on VOD or stream for free. It’s your weekend; allow us to make it better.
What to Stream This Weekend
Movie: The Lovers
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Starring: Tracy Letts, Debra Winger, Aiden Gillen, Melora Walters, Tyler Ross
Available on: Amazon Video and iTunes
Movies about infidelity have carved out a familiar groove in the wood of cinematic storytelling. Unhappy marriages lead to impulsive affairs, lead to crisis points where the married couple must decide whether to stay together or not. The concept of director Azazel Jacobs’s The Lovers turns this whole progression on its ear. By the time we meet longtime married couple Michael (Tracy Letts) and Mary (Debra Winger), their marriage has long been left for the vultures. They’re both engaged in longtime affairs — she with Robert, played by Games of Thrones‘ Aidan Gillen; he with Lucy, played by Magnolia‘s Melora Walters — and both making fairly imminent plans to leave each other.
The thing is, neither Michael nor Mary seem all that particularly thrilled with their extramarital paramours, either. They’ve just sort of moves into a second stage of ennui. And then one morning, Michael and Mary wake up unusually close to each other, and it’s like an old switch flips. They end up having quite unexpected sex, and suddenly, we’ve got an inside-out setup where Michael and Mary are cheating on their lovers with their spouses. Jacobs gives the affair a whimsical air, which totally works, because Letts and Winger are two actors who will keep a story grounded. There are so many angles to the affair: surprise, guilt, pleasure, and a kind of giddy audaciousness that keeps the story from becoming too simple. They, after all, can’t just stop seeing Robert and Lucy, who they’ve made commitments to. And there’s also the matter of their son, Joel, who is coming home for a visit soon with his new girlfriend.
Joel’s visit ends up being fraught, and it’s fascinating to see how the family dynamic begins idyllic and then ends up settling into some old and unwelcome rhythms. Joel is played by Tyler Ross, an incredibly talented young actor who made his mark in the criminally underseen The Wise Kids. He and Jessica Sula as Erin bring a lot to the table when they enter the story, complicating things and really deepening the family emotions. Joel is a kind of simmering volcano, hot with the frustration of years spent with unhappily married parents and well aware of his father’s cheating (though seemingly not his mother’s). Erin show’s up as the classic newcomer who gets to take in this family vibe with fresh eyes, and the movie smartly uses her to open up the characters without making her some manic pixie marriage counselor.
But this is really the Tracy Letts and Debra Winger show, and what a show they put on. It’s become a depressing truism in Hollywood that there’s no place for good characters over 50, and thus a dearth of good roles for the dozens upon dozens of talented actors in that age bracket. Which is why a film like The Lovers, which takes these characters seriously, which allows Winger and Letts the space to create a complicated and layered marriage between them. Sometimes it’s worth it to let two wonderful actors just do their thing, and on that level The Lovers truly delivers.
