"That's low," I heard a voice behind me say.
At first blush, no. To me, it didn't come across as low at all. Not low, just pointed. And well deserved.
I first saw Michael Douglas in
Falling Down. Guess I was 13 or 14. I remember wandering into the "office" room on the second floor at home where Mom and Dad sat at desks every evening while they shuffled through mounds of paperwork that never seemed to diminish in size.
There was a TV in the room, and as long as one of them was there, the TV was always on. Whenever they got some sort of a special deal from the cable company on some premium channels, they had to get their money's worth. So I walked in, it was HBO. Which meant more swearing than usual. Deal was, you can hear it, but you dare not repeat it.
So it's
Falling Down. As I walk in, the movie's ending. I'd missed the whole lead-up to Michael Douglas having the worst day of his life and snapping. All I see is the standoff with the cop and the guy takes a plunge. Oh, was I supposed to say "spoiler alert" first?
And his young daughter's standing nearby. She sees her dad in distress. She's too young to understand what's wrong. Her mother, on the other hand, is old enough, but doesn't realize why her ex-husband has gone so far off the handle. She never will.
Me, I never had to worry about my parents breaking up. They were basically joined at the hip my whole life. In that office, they had desks across the room from each other. They went to church together. They went on religious retreats together. They had separate jobs, but I can scarcely think of an evening spent apart except when my mom and uncle would go visit Grandpa for three days and come back home.
Man, I guess I always had that stable home life. Instability was the product of fiction, or something I'd hear about from my friends at school. And most of the rest of the world. I got older and found out most people's parents break up. Some people's parents go nuts. Most people do repeat the curse words they hear on HBO. Most people aren't my parents.
So, I just came from seeing Michael Douglas in another movie. He's now playing New York used car salesman Ben Kalmen in
Solitary Man. He starts off as this smooth-talking -- well, you know --
used car salesman who tarnishes every last shred of his good name. The viewer is taken headfirst into his current indiscretions. His past indiscretions? We learn about those in hindsight too.
Ben is one of those protagonists that's halfway between likable and despicable. Whether or not you pity him is your call.
That's the conversation starter. Do you pity him?
Take, for example, when he goes to visit the wife he up and left, who still inhabits the house they shared. Old Ben's there because even though the rest of the world has turned his back on him, he knows he can count on Nancy.
She pours him a drink without asking. Dewar's on the rocks. She knows. He sits down on the couch. He's there for sympathy, and he's there for a favor, and right off the bat he gets his favorite drink handed to him.
Now Nancy, she's no fool. He may have walked out on her, but she'll never let him walk all over her. Which is why she says what she says.
It starts off when Ben says to Nancy, and I'm paraphrasing, "You never moved. You never changed this place at all. Never rearranged the furniture, never even replaced this old couch. Look, even the cushions are the same. Are you just keeping this place the same for the day I'll come marching back home?"
She's too cool to say yes. And maybe the answer really
is yes, but Nancy has other plans for him. I admire her handling of the question, her steering of the conversation -- this conversation she's having with a used car salesman, mind you.
She deadpans, "Well, do you like the couch?"
"It's only the absolute most comfortable couch in the world," he spits out without hesitation.
"Then why would I get rid of something that's working? That's only something you would do."
Ben is left there, his mouth ajar, sitting on the most comfortable couch in the world, his Dewar's on the rocks in front of him on a familiar coffee table he used to kick his feet up onto, in that same position for years and years, back in the days their love for each other was never questioned, back in the days before he ever needed to borrow cash from his wife and daughter, back in the days when his love for his grandson was never questioned, back in the days when he was a known success and a respected celebrity in town, not a complete and utter known failure and embarrassment, now mulling over his immediate options, namely whether to take another sip of the drink his ex-wife has made for him or to attempt sending a rapid-fire remark back her way.
With no good decision apparent to him, Ben does nothing but sit and look straight ahead, Nancy's jab at him echoing in his mind.
"That's low," I heard a voice behind me say.
Low? Come on, Ben deserved it. In more ways than one. First, he set her up to make the comment. He should have known it was coming.
Second, when you walk out and do stupid things, you deserve to be told how stupid the things you're doing are. Hell, she was being nice. Nancy has been nothing but reliable. Dependable. She never did anything that would have split them apart. They would have been like my parents, together forever, if not for him.
Whether or not this guy deserved pity, he definitely deserved that jab. I say good for her!
