Film #053 - Love Affair (1939)
Viewed February 22, 2006
Love Affair is the kind of movie that can cut right through my hard, acerbic, wise-cracking exterior and expose my soft, romantic underbelly.
The story (later remade as An Affair To Remember (1957) and again as Love Affair (1994)) is somewhat melodramatic, but the humor brought to it by the leads more than compensates.
Particularly good is Irene Dunne as Terry. There is an ease about the way she plays the part that makes it clear why she would be so attractive to a seasoned loverboy like Michel (played by Charles Boyer). The chemistry they share on screen is palpable and seems the most natural thing in the world. There’s nothing contrived about it at all and nothing that doesn’t ring true.
What makes Love Affair stand so far above other romantic films is it’s almost complete lack of sentimentality. It’s become a bit of a theme with the romantic films I have enjoyed this year that they have been marked by very little in the way of young, desperate love. Like in Love Affair, the ones that have stood out and been the most believeable have been adult, experienced people whose love is therefore more honest. More mature lovers still do stupid things, but there is a kind of honesty to it that is missing in younger lovers.
The script also crackles. Terry and Michel play off each other so beautifully when they are together and their interactions with others while apart are so stilted and almost uncomfortable that it all supports their need to be together. Again it is Terry who gets the best of the dialogue. Her wise-cracks are often laugh-out-loud funny, but never sound like intentional jokes. Just like Terry and Michel’s relationship, the dialogue seems to flow naturally from the characters, without artifice.
I keep coming back to the realness of the whole thing. In the big climactic scene at the end, Michel’s reactions to the way Terry treats him show a full range of emotion, but none of the histrionics that romances tend towards. Her single-minded dedication to her ill-conceived plan is just the kind of thing people do: stand in the way of their own happiness for the sake of some foolish ideal. If the resolution seems just the smallest bit contrived, it’s not enough to even put a dent in one of the great romantic films of all time.
I really enjoyed Love Affair. (Did you pick up on that?) So much so that I am going to try and see all the remakes before the year is out (even the Bollywood remake Mann (1999)). I know that An Affair To Remember has the somewhat better reputation, but it and the others are going to have their work cut out for them in trying to match the original.