Hope Springs is a well-acted, tonally confused misfire. The film is largely a straight-faced drama and yet the marketing tells me I’m getting a “comedy from the director of The Devil Wears Prada.” Problem is, there’s nothing funny about this movie. There are moments I got the impression I was supposed to laugh, such as an awkward outing to the movie theater, but instead it all just seemed so sad. The story focuses on a married couple of 31 years and everything they built together is about to go up in flames and a last ditch effort appears as if it just won’t work. Yeah, 90 minutes of that isn’t exactly my idea of “comedy”, which is fine, but when it appears that may have been part of the goal it really doesn’t work.
Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have reached a point in their marriage where conversation is virtually non-existent. Cable subscriptions are considered anniversary gifts and they even sleep in separate bedrooms. Rocky isn’t even the word for their relationship, shattered is more like it.
In an attempt to get things back to the way they used to be — which I never got the impression was necessarily all that great — Kay uses her own money to sign them up for a week’s worth of marriage counseling in Hope Springs, Maine with Dr. Bernard Feld (Steve Carell) who takes a hands-on, no topic off limits approach in an attempt to get to the root of the problem. He assigns them tasks that range from simply holding one another at night to further sexual exploits leading up to the aforementioned movie theater scene.
Kay is miserable, lonely and yet optimistic. Arnold is a sour-faced, mean-spirited, stand-offish old man who’d rather watch the Golf Channel than attempt to work on his marriage and get in touch with his feelings. The point comes down to pride and fighting for the one you love and while it’s all easy to see, all the themes explored in this film would simply have worked better in a film determined to tackle these issues head on without the attempt to soften up the audience with forced, vague bits of “comedy”.
Alternatively, both Streep and Jones are excellent in portraying their misery and frustration, with Streep, yet again, delivering the film’s noteworthy performance. Streep embodies the epitome of lonely and dissatisfaction while Jones is a perfect curmudgeon set in his ways. They successfully convinced me they no longer shared the love they supposedly once had for each other and after 90 minutes with them all that was left was to sign the divorce papers.
Making matters worse, setting the film in Maine brings to the forefront all the typical set designs, you’d expect from the beachside locale. And yet, the worst offense are the musical choices as an endless string of formulaic songs do their best to tell you how you should be feeling at each and every moment. Once Annie Lennox’s “Why” was belting through the speakers I’d just about had enough.
Yes, Hope Springs tackles a tough subject head on with a pair of actors bringing nuance and substance to their characters. Yes, Steve Carell is a solid addition and it takes some nerve to stick to such material for so long, but for as much nuance and subtlety that Streep, Jones and Carell bring to the feature, director David Frankel shows some miserable timing. His comedic beats are a wreck, his song selections show little confidence in the story and the ending is enough to prove the film was never working in the first place.
