reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (05/19/85)
The films we normally think of as horror movies are, almost
to a one of them, fantasies. The images which frighten us in
these films have no substance in our life. The chances that any
of us will ever encounter a homicidal maniac, the latest trend in
horror, are tiny. Vampires, werewolves, slimy aliens, ghosts, are
even more remote from our lives. This base of fantasy accounts
for the popularity of horror films. They offer a cheap thrill
which we can dismiss, since, after all, our rational minds tell
us that we are safe, these monsters will not touch us. The best
of them are the films which can fool us into believing, for a mo-
ment, that maybe we do have to worry about the boogeyman.
"My First Wife" is nothing close to a horror movie of this
kind, but it is a film of frightening images, because it tells of
tragedy personal and possible, a tragedy which may strike anyone,
making it more deeply frightening than these other flights of fancy.
What would you do if the person you loved most deeply, someone
you had every intention of spending the rest of your life with,
someone in whose love you felt secure, the cornerstone of your
life, suddenly told you that they do not love you any more, can-
not even bear your touch? It's not a matter of your not paying
enough attention, or anything you did, or anything your loved one
did, for that matter. It's not a question of fascination with
someone else. Love has died and nothing seems more certain than
that it will not be reborn. How do you go one living?
Paul Cox's film is an extraordinary picture of a person
whose world suddenly and unexpectedly explodes. John Hargreaves
plays a man who has just reached the point he has been striving
for all his life. He is hosting a classical music radio program
and his own compositions are being rehearsed for performance. He
deeply loves his wife and has a lovely little daughter who adores
him. Then his wife reveals that she does not love him, hasn't
loved him for years, and can stand it no longer. She leaves,
taking their daughter. And Hargreaves' life begins to crumble,
slowly at first, but faster and faster until it collapses com-
pletely.
"My First Wife" makes TV films about divorce look almost
criminally vapid and is superior to even the best of Hollywood
divorce films, like "Kramer vs. Kramer". It's excellence is
based on honesty, fairness, and reality. Hargreaves isn't an
icon and Wendy Hughes, who plays his wife, isn't a villain. Har-
greaves' grief, anger, and despair have the bitter feel of truth.
Nor does the film succumb to easy answers for hard questions.
Cox's script is apparently autobiographical in the best sense.
Without sparing himself or others, Cox has stripped off the false
padding usually surrounding stories of divorce and revealed the
inner core of tragedy.
Paul Cox is an Australian director with several impressive
credits behind him, notably "Lonely Hearts" and "Man of Flowers".
Here he cuts close to the bone, too close for some people's com-
fort. He offers a film largely but not entirely from his
protagonist's point of view. Hargreaves isn't having anything
close to a good time, and Cox ensures that we won't, either. "My
First Wife" is not a fun movie. Cox's near obsessive interest in
the material makes it an extremely powerful experience, but not
an entirely pleasant one. Considering his subject, I'd prefer it
that way. I'm not especially interested in seeing a "fun" ver-
sion of "King Lear", either. Some subjects demand a serious ap-
proach.
Hargreaves and Hughes are excellent in the central roles.
Hargreaves shows us every blow that strikes his character. His
pain reaches down from the screen. His character behaves with
the embarrassing desperation of real life despair, making you al-
most want to turn away, as you do from a couple having a nasty
argument in a public place. Hargreaves' greatest challenge is to
make us care for his character despite his excesses, and in this
Hargreaves succeeds.
Hughes' part is even more difficult. Cox, as both screen-
writer and director, has made a good faith effort to be fair to
her, but his own anger has not completely subsided. We too want
Hughes to forswear her rejection of Hargreaves, and her in-
sistence that she will not return to him cannot help but color
the character. It is instructive to remember all of the books
you've read and films you've seen in which the male hero gives up
wife, and sometimes children, for his true love, frequently with
the filmmakers' moral approval. Here, the case is little dif-
ferent, merely seen from the other side. I suspect that there
would have been an equally good, but very different movie, if Cox
had been the one who had fallen out of love, rather than his
wife. Hughes, faced with swimming upstream against audience
desires, does extremely well.
Cox provides an operatic score, mostly music from his main
character's program. A large portion of it is from Orff's "Car-
mina Burana", though we also hear bits of several other composi-
tions, mostly dark in tone. The score forms a suitable back-
ground for the hero's turbullent emotions.
"My First Wife" is the sort of film many people complain
never gets made. It is intelligent, deeply felt, and emotional
in the best sense of the word. It deserves to be seen. I highly
recommend "My First Wife".
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDA
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher