Blind date
by Doug Hodgkinson
Directed and written by StanleyTucci, Starring: Stanley Tucci (Don ), Patricia Clarkson (Janna ), Thijs Romer (waiter), 80 minutes, 2009
Do not confuse this movie with the 1987 comedy flic of the same name, starring Bruce Willis and Kim Basinger! This is a remake of a film by Theo Van Gogh. Following Van Gogh's murder on the streets of Amsterdam in November 2004, a group of film makers decided to remake a trilogy of his films. This is the second in the series. Originally, Tucci cast Stanley Shalhoub but when production was delayed and he was unable to play the part, due to a conflict, Tucci stepped in to the lead as well as directing.
Warning! If you don't already have a marriage counselor under contract, you might want to give this movie a miss. It is by turns amusing, dark and insightful, with a right-between-the-eyes-delivery on the perils of love, relationships and marriage.
Don and Janna have suffered the loss of their 5-year-old daughter in a family auto accident. They are estranged in their pain and remorse but in their desperate love they hit upon the idea of staging a series of blind dates with each other. They put ads in the newspaper as if to seek different kinds of relationships.("Reporter seeks aggressive woman"; "Fifty-ish woman seeks amusing man for conversation"). All the action takes place in one large bar room. The movie was filmed in seven days in Ghent, Belgium! Don works in the bar and Janna meets him there. They introduce themselves as if they were strangers and begin conversation to get to know each other. They are often very declarative of personal secrets, quirks and preferences that were not known to each other when they were a couple. Often these innocent beginnings and flirtatious ploys end in disaster and someone, usually Janna, storms out-until the next ad appears and they try a new role. Gradually we come to see Janna’s deep anger and Don’s bewilderment. He's a professional conjurer and both metaphorically and actually, his charming tricks don't work. Janna's injury is deep from the car accident since she was driving but distracted and laughing at something Don had said. Beyond that she is also disappointed in the relationship but obviously hasn’t given up entirely, for she keeps turning up for the "dates." But clearly, love alone is not enough to bridge the deep chasm that lies between them.
Reconciliation is a deep theme in Christian theology and practice. Jesus’ birth, ministry, death and resurrection work to bring about reconciliation between God and us. One understanding of sin is that it is about the profound separation we experience between each other, between ourselves and God and finally with the deep levels of our own being. We often find that we cannot do much about this except for the striking of Grace, which catches us by surprise and brings "at-one-ment" even when we had given up. But, the Christian understanding of reconciliation is that it is not primarily about good feelings for "the other" but about Truth being spoken and heard. In such graceful moments are we caught by surprise and know reconciliation. "The truth shall make you free, but first it will make you nuts!" Don and Janna will make you laugh, smile ruefully and ache in recognition of the myriad ways in which we can fail as grownups in relationships and be surprised by Grace.
