John Lithgow and Alfred Molina are magnificent in Ira Sachs’ topical, moving and beautifully tender portrait of an ageing gay couple whose decision to marry after 39 years has complicated consequences.
Something rather marvelous and moving… It’s part romantic comedy, part ageing drama, part family portrait, part ode to a beloved city.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2014
Love is Strange 2014
John Lithgow and Alfred Molina are magnificent in this topical, moving and beautifully tender portrait of a marriage from director Ira Sachs (Forty Shades of Blue, Married Life). After 39 years together, Ben (Lithgow) and George (Molina) take advantage of the new laws and marry in New York. The happy celebrations are short-lived: George is fired from his job as a music teacher at a Catholic school, which is no longer prepared to turn a blind eye to his sexuality. Without the income to keep their comfortable apartment, they are forced to separate until something else comes up. George moves in with a much younger gay couple downstairs. Ben moves in with his nephew, who’s rarely home, obliging his novelist wife (Marisa Tomei) and their moody teenage son to keep the old man company. Along with the pain of separation, each must deal with the sometimes awkward, sometimes amusing complexities of their makeshift domestic arrangements.