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Synopsis:
Nina Mitchell (Juliet Stevenson) describes to her psychiatrist (Jenny
Howe) her relationship with her partner, Jamie (Alan Rickman); how he is
always there, watching out for her, advising her, sometimes admonishing
her; the conversations they hold. The psychiatrist interrupts Nina’s
puzzled reflection on Jamie’s new habit of speaking in Spanish to ask
her gently how long it has been since he died…? When Nina arrives at the
language agency where she works as an interpreter, her boss, Sandy (Bill
Paterson), tries to find a tactful way of expressing his concern for
her, his fear that since Jamie’s death, she has “gone underground”. Nina
immediately withdraws into herself, and leaves in tears. That evening,
Nina’s disaster area of a flat is invaded by Polish immigrant Titus
(Christopher Rozycki), the well-meaning but overbearing builder who is
in charge of her renovations. Nina tries to talk to him about her
problem with rats, and with kitchen cupboards that won’t stay shut, but
Titus responds with a eulogy of Poland and a declaration of love. Nina
gently turns him out. The next morning, Sandy drops in with some work
for Nina, and also with a postcard from his son, who is being raised in
Spain by his mother, which he needs her to read to him. Later, as Nina
does laundry, Sandy holds a brief conclave with Titus, George (David
Ryall), the council exterminator, and Keith (Keith Bartlett), the
plumber, all of whom speak worriedly of Nina’s state of mind. Sandy
speaks bitterly of the tragedy and waste of Jamie’s death, which was due
to complications following a trivial illness. In her next session with
her psychiatrist, Nina reveals that she has been experiencing blackouts;
that she suddenly “comes to” to find that hours have passed, and that
she has been crying uncontrollably without even realising it. She also
confesses an overwhelming feeling of anger directed at almost everyone –
but most of all at Jamie, for having left her. Nina is visited by her
sister, Claire (Deborah Findlay), and her nephew, Harry (Ian Hawkes).
Claire reveals that Harry has been taking music lessons, and tentatively
asks whether he might borrow Jamie’s cello? Nina reacts with a mixture
of shock and anger, accusing Claire of an unforgivable insensitivity.
When her visitors have gone, Nina sits holding Jamie’s cello in her
arms, then moves to the piano, recalling the days when she and Jamie
would play duets together. The sound of a cello drifts softly through
the apartment, and Nina turns to find Jamie standing behind her….
Comments:
It is ironic, really, that writer-director Anthony Minghella is best
known for his big-budget, Oscar-bait productions like The English
Patient and Cold Mountain, because for all that those films
tend to be classified as “sweeping romances”, they do not, in my
opinion, display one-tenth of the understanding of, and compassion for,
the human condition and the human heart as may be found in the tiny,
intimate, shot-for-TV drama with which Minghella made his directorial
debut, Truly Madly Deeply. Re-watching this film again, and
touched by it as always, I was struck by what a singular little entity
it really is. Just how awkward a “sell” Truly Madly Deeply must
have been for its distributors is made abundantly clear by a quick
survey of the production’s poster art, the bulk of which is torn between
trying to pass the film off as your standard love triangle, and trying
to sell it as the British version of Ghost. (In this last
respect, the Japanese poster is quite laughably awful, simply swapping
Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman for Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, and
substituting a keyboard for a potter’s wheel. Even the poster that I
eventually chose as the least inappropriate has Stevenson tarted up in a
way that she never is in the film itself.) People tuning in to the film
on the basis of these advertising tactics are likely to be in for quite
a shock. While both funny and affecting, Truly Madly Deeply is
neither a romantic comedy nor a simple tear-jerker, but a heartfelt and
moving study of the grieving process. There are a number of ways in
which this film stands apart from much contemporary film-making, and
chief amongst them is its attitude towards death. Understandably, I
suppose, death – or rather, DEATH – is something that most people don’t
care to be confronted by when they go looking for entertainment. Still,
the number of films that treat the end of a human life as nothing more
than the opportunity for an alleged witticism is fairly disturbing;
while even those films that handle such issues seriously tend to skip
over certain parts of the process – like the devastation that an
unexpected death can leave in its wake. Far from shying away from these
realities, Truly Madly Deeply challenges the viewer with them
head-on – and does so, moreover, with an admirable lack of concern with
movie convention, the kind that dictates women going to bed in full
make-up, or waking up with perfect hair. Similarly, “grief”, that great
ravager, is usually conveyed by nothing more disfiguring than smudged
mascara. Not here, however; this is the real thing. I can think of few
other films, and film-makers, honest enough to depict sudden bereavement
as the agonising, bewildering, infuriating thing that it truly is – and
with nerve enough to show their heroine in the very extremity of her
suffering: unmade-up, tear-streaked, swollen-eyed, and uncaringly wiping
her snotty nose across the back of her hand – and in close-up, no less.
The role of Nina Mitchell was written by Anthony Minghella for Juliet
Stevenson, and Stevenson repaid the compliment by giving a performance
of such emotional nakedness that there are scenes in this film almost
too painful to watch.
After all this, you may be
more than a tad surprised to learn that Truly Madly Deeply is
ultimately a positive and even inspiring work. Despite ourselves, in the
midst of death we are in life, and so it is even for the grief-stricken
Nina, slowly and not particularly successfully trying to re-build her
life post-Jamie, encouraged and bolstered in her attempts by the fact
that she has tumbled into a safety-net consisting of the kind of
good-natured, charming eccentrics that, alas, surely never existed
anywhere outside of British cinema. And this is the other thing that
struck me most forcibly on this viewing of Truly Madly Deeply –
although perhaps this is more of a commentary upon film in general, and
the kinds of films I usually prefer to watch, than upon this specific
film. How many times have you heard me, and many other reviewers, for
that matter, complaining that that all the characters in a given film
are awful people? – selfish, mean-spirited, cruel, stupid, awful
people? If you’ve suffered through this kind of thing recently, I can
heartily recommend Truly Madly Deeply as an antidote: its
characters, with one important exception – and I shall get to that
person later on – are genuinely nice people. Kind people. Generous
people. Funny people. People you’d like to hang out with. People you’d
like as friends. Nina herself is one of those people; it is this that
has drawn to her the small support group that we meet at the beginning
of the film. In a pivotal scene, as Nina hangs out her washing, she is
watched by Sandy, her boss (the ever-welcome Bill Paterson), whose
blustery surface fails to hide a heart of pure marshmallow; Titus, the
Polish handyman who is supposed to be helping with Nina’s renovations,
but who instead divides his time between making her impassioned
declarations and coddling her with borscht; Keith, the plumber – “Well,
not really a plumber” – who emerges periodically from beneath
Nina’s floorboards to profess his devotion to her; and George, the
elderly gentleman-exterminator who at one point startles the
secret-hugging Nina with a cryptic comment about talking to his late
wife. (“‘And Death shall have no dominion’. We know that, you and me –
hey?”) Sadly aware that their efforts to help can do no more than
provide a vague sort comfort for the suffering woman, these well-wishers
spend much time agreeing amongst themselves that Nina is a lovely person
– and remarkably, none of this eulogising feels like an Informed
Attribute©: we like Nina as much as they do; we desire
her happiness in the same way. The issue is whether she will let
herself be happy. A crucial moment comes during Nina’s conversation with
her sister, when Claire asks whether her son can borrow Jamie’s cello.
Nina’s reaction, we realise, is an overreaction; for the first time it
becomes apparent that, no matter how sincere her emotions, Nina is, in a
sense, feeding her own grief. It is this that puts her future in so much
danger: if Nina is creating her own suffering, then no matter how her
friends try, only she can put an end to it. Or, perhaps, she and one
other person. It all depends on how you read the film. With the cello
incident, Nina hits rock-bottom – and immediately afterwards, Jamie
reappears. Just like that. Nina’s joy is as extreme as her grief, and
for a time, days in fact, she gives herself up to re-experiencing the
love of her life.
Like all of the best ghost
stories, Truly Madly Deeply is determinedly ambiguous, never
really tipping its hand as to whether Jamie (and his equally dead
friends, who show up in due course) is simply the product of Nina’s
disordered subconscious, or whether a swarm of musical, cinephile
phantoms really has taken up residence in her flat; there is evidence in
the film to support whichever theory you favour. However, before long it
becomes apparent that whatever the explanation for Jamie’s return, he is
there with a very specific purpose, namely, to force Nina out from the
shadows of the valley of death, and back into the land of the living.
For three full days after Jamie’s return, Nina remains within her flat,
ignoring the doorbell and the phone and living wholly in the past; but
then her commitments begin to call her, and she must pick up the threads
of her life in the present. Inevitably, her two lives begin to pull
against each other – and before long, Nina finds herself at the
crossroads. If there is a serious misstep in Truly Madly Deeply,
it is the rather heavy-handed way that a subplot about the treatment of
immigrants in Britain is thrust into the central narrative. However,
clumsily executed as this is, it does serve a couple of important
purposes. For one thing, it gives us our first real chance to see the
other side of Nina – Nina the fighter, Nina the social crusader – when
she unhesitatingly tackles the film’s single unpleasant person, a café
owner who has been exploiting immigrant labour. More importantly, it is
this clash that is the catalyst for the moment that will change Nina’s
life forever, her meeting with psychologist, art therapist, amateur
magician and all-around nice guy, Mark DeGrunwald, who intervenes in a
most unexpected way when Nina’s verbal altercation with the café owner
threatens to turn violent. The attraction between the two kindred
spirits is instantaneous, although Nina initially feels – or believes
she feels – nothing more than friendship. Mark, however, is deeply
smitten with Nina, although not surprisingly he finds her mood swings
and erratic behaviour rather bewildering; and soon the question is
whether Nina will sacrifice her chance for a future by clinging to her
past.
The scenes of Nina’s
reunion with Jamie are joyful and touching, as the two celebrate all
that was best in their relationship with an impromptu concert, Jamie
singing to his own playing as Nina executes an exuberant, free-form
dance around the flat. (Fittingly, the music in Truly Madly Deeply
is fabulous, with some glorious use of Bach. At the same time, it is the
rather less classical tunes that are likely to stay with you: if you can
get “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More” out of your head for a week
after you’ve watched this, you’ve got better control over your mental
faculties than I do.) The moment that Nina has encountered Mark,
however, there is a subtle but significant shift in her dealings with
Jamie: the less pleasant aspects of that former relationship begin to
surface. Of course, to an extent they were there all along – or so the
viewer might feel, if not Nina herself. The masterstroke of Truly
Madly Deeply was the casting of Alan Rickman as Jamie. Effortlessly
charming as always, Rickman makes Nina’s passionate love for Jamie
perfectly understandable, while at the same time making clear to the
viewer what Nina is only just beginning to realise – or perhaps, to
admit to herself: that Jamie was, in many ways, a selfish, self-absorbed
prat, intent upon having his own way in everything and who, possibly
unconsciously, forced the otherwise spirited Nina into an unnaturally
submissive role. No relationship is perfect, of course, and this one
certainly was not; we see how far Nina has succumbed to the temptation
of idealisation. Even before things go “wrong”, there are signs of
Jamie’s lack of consideration for his partner. The least intangible of
spirits, Jamie has no sooner reappeared than he is complaining about the
temperature in the flat and criticising Nina’s living arrangements. When
Nina prepares, at length, to return to work, she enters her sitting-room
to find that Jamie has rearranged her furniture; he follows this up with
a grouchy observation that certain presents that he gave to her are
nowhere in evidence. Later, still suffering from the cold (well – he
is dead), Jamie drapes his chilly frame over Nina’s warm body, and
then – ah, the joys of domesticity! – sneezes all over the back of her
neck.
As Nina’s relationship with
Mark deepens, albeit in fits and starts, the friction between herself
and Jamie increases – not least because of the continual presence in the
flat of Jamie’s incorporeal friends, who hold full-scale concerts with
him, take over the VCR (keeping Nina busy running back and forth to the
video store – “They didn’t have I Vitelloni, but I got you
Pinocchio and Forget Venice”), and move the furniture under
Jamie’s direction – this last a demonstration of Jamie’s automatic
imposition of his own taste upon Nina, something that she is no longer
prepared to tolerate from him. There is a painfully authentic moment in
the late stages of the film when Nina speaks haltingly of her own
cherished possessions, of all the things that she put away when Jamie
moved into her life and her home, “because you disapproved, or laughed
at them”. It is not only Nina’s taste that Jamie disapproves, but her
life in general. As the film progresses, the ramshackle flat into which
Nina has moved following Jamie’s death assumes an extraordinary
significance. In spite of the continual chorus of criticism that the
dilapidated establishment attracts – and in fairness, Jamie is hardly
alone in expressing such criticism – Nina clings to it stubbornly,
trying to pull it together and dreaming of what it could be. The flat
is, in fact, entirely symbolic of Nina’s own life, broken down,
disordered and chaotic at the outset, but full of promise, if only she
can make it happen. “It could be beautiful,” she says wistfully,
and she is speaking no less of her own future than she is of the place
in which she has chosen to live it. Events reach crisis point when Nina
is called to the bedside of a friend who has gone into labour. Returning
home after the birth, exhausted, overwrought, and full of an emotion
that she is not ready to deal with, Nina finds Jamie and his friends
disposing of her tattered but much-loved living-room rug, and finally
she explodes, throwing the band of spectral invaders out of her flat.
“I’d forgotten you could be like this,” Jamie remarks, deliberately
provocative, and the inevitable row follows. Later, aghast at how far
the two of them have travelled from their blissful reunion, and
recognising for the first time how rose-tinted are the glasses with
which she has been viewing the past, Nina exclaims, “Was it like this
before? Were we like this?” A rambling speech follows, in which
Nina speaks almost involuntarily of the things that she does not have
and, as things are, will never have: love; a relationship; children;
life. Even as she says these things, she comes to the realisation
that Jamie’s death has forced her, perhaps for the first time, to take
charge of her own life and to stand on her own two feet – and that she
likes it; she likes being independent. Free from the voluntary
subjugation of her personality that went with her love for Jamie, Nina
is ready to build a new future for herself – if she can bring herself to
do it.
Truly Madly Deeply
is, as I have said, a compassionate film, and never more so than in its
tender examination of the guilt that comes with survival. It can be
desperately difficult, of course, to go on after a bereavement, when
even simple happiness feels like a form of betrayal of the dead; when a
new relationship, a new love, is the ultimate disloyalty. Dealing with
these things is not easy, and this film acknowledges as much – while
also insisting upon the right of the living to be happy; and
that, while memory lives, there can be no betrayal. In one of the film’s
most touching scenes, Nina asks Jamie to describe to her their first
night together; a night spent even as their first reunion night was, in
music and song and dance – and love. “I longed for you,” Nina
tells Jamie in an aching voice, and while, as ever, there is no doubt of
her sincerity, we also note the use of the past tense. During the final
section of this film, “Do you want me to go?” becomes Jamie’s
litany. Although Nina knows that it is time to move on, she cannot make
herself speak the words that will send Jamie permanently from her life;
and so Jamie must fulfil his purpose by doing it for her, which he does
by quoting Pablo Neruda’s beautiful poem “Dead Woman” in Spanish and
asking her to translate it for him, thus literally putting the words of
his own dismissal into her mouth.
(If you, beloved/My
love/If you have died/All the leaves will fall on my breast/It will rain
on my soul night and day/The snow will burn my heart/My feet will want
to walk to where you are sleeping/But/I shall stay alive….)
The three central
performances in Truly Madly Deeply – those of Stevenson and
Rickman, and of Michael Maloney as Mark (yes, that’s right: she has to
choose between Alan Rickman and Michael Maloney – poor thing) –
are simply exemplary, while those of the supporting players are equally
fine. This is a film fated to stand or fall according to the audience’s
reaction to its central triangle, and thanks to its casting, the issue
was never in doubt. While taking care never to undermine the scenes of
Nina’s grief, which form the emotional basis of its story, the
screenplay of Truly Madly Deeply is full of humour, with each of
the three main characters given to delicious throwaway lines that you
just might find yourself quoting. Personally, I’ve adopted Nina’s
response to her sister’s reaction to the revelation that, amongst its
other delights, the flat has a rodent problem. “Nina! How can you
have rats?” demands the disgusted Claire. “It’s a personality
defect,” explains Nina with deceptive meekness. But there’s also Mark’s
description of a past relationship (“She left me for a Theology student.
I don’t believe in God.”), and of the daughter produced by that brief
liaison (“She calls me ‘Mark DeGrunwald’ and the vicar
‘Daddy’!”), as well as the hilariously anticlimactic conclusion to
Jamie’s earnest musing on the tragic tendency of human beings to waste
their capacity for love: “I blame the Government!” (Well, this
was made in the John Major era.) Truly Madly Deeply also
features an unusual and rather appealing picture of the afterlife,
conjuring up a vision of a place where everyone finally has time to do
all those things they somehow never got around to in life – for
instance, as in Jamie’s case, learning Spanish; or being able to watch
just as many films as you like. (Time enough at last, indeed. As
someone who has accumulated more films than she could plow her way
through in two lifetimes, this last suggestion is singularly
comforting.) Nevertheless, Truly Madly Deeply does finally shy
away from the deeper implications of its central situation: when Nina
asks Jamie whether there’s a heaven, he responds only with a doubtful,
“I don’t think so”; and similarly, her tentative inquiry as to
whether dying hurts provokes a semi-facetious, “Dying’s all right, it
was the general anaesthetic I didn’t like.” Still, this reticence
is understandable. For all that it deals with The Big Issues, not to
mention spectral visitations, Truly Madly Deeply is a film that
remains very much grounded in day to day reality, and enjoyably so. It
is full of moments that will make you either flinch or grin with simple
recognition, while at the same time being rich in quirky touches that
have an unexpected impact. (Who would have imagined, for example, that
the sight of a fair-sized brown rat scuttling across a counter-top could
carry such an emotional charge?) For a film so centred upon the fact of
death, and upon the process of grieving, Truly Madly Deeply is,
in the end, a marvellously life-affirming work; a comforting reminder of
the truth of Albert Camus’s famous dictum that happiness, too, is
inevitable.
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