Love is Strange isn’t your typical summer movie. It is a very slow-moving, thought-provoking film, and features subtle acting, made brilliant by the context of the movie.
Love is Strange is the story of an aging couple, played by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina. Partners for nearly 40 years, they are just recently able to marry due to changing laws in New York. However, doing so causes Molina to lose his job as music teacher at a local Catholic school. Though the school, kids, parents, etc., all knew he was gay and was living with his partner for years, the act of getting married angers the higher ups who invoke the “Christian lifestyle” clause in his contract and terminate his job. Lithgow is (and always has been) a struggling artist, and Molina’s private lessons aren’t enough to pay for their apartment. With all of their nearby friends and family also living in tight, small New York apartments, no one has an extra room to take them both in, so they split into different places.
Lithgow ends up with his nephew and his family, in the bottom bunk bed of the family member’s 16 year old son. He is a bit of a burden to the family, as the mom (played by Marisa Tomei) is a work-at-home author trying to complete her new book, while Lithgow is a bit of a conversationalist. Molina has the opposite problem, staying on the couch of another gay couple they are friends with. The couple is much younger, throwing regular parties and loud get-togethers, to the ire of the normally quiet-loving Molina.
There are spots to chuckle at, but for the most part the movie is a sad look at the plight homosexuals can face for doing nothing more than what others do every day. Amazingly this same scenario happened in my area this past summer, where teachers were fired from a Catholic all-girl school for getting married and trying to buy a house together. Our society has come a long way but obviously it isn’t there yet, if it ever will be. In Love is Strange, you sharply feel what our protagonists are going through, yet they don’t complain and plod on just trying to live out their remaining time together. A very poignant film.
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