Review: Mars & Venus (2007)
- From: "Steve Rhodes" <steve.rhodes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:07:51 -0400
MARS & VENUS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
MARS & VENUS is a wonderful love story about a married couple -- not a very popular subject for the movies. It's also about a couple separated by a boat -- but it's really not about the boat per se. It's about the communication between the sexes, hence the title, which is from the famous book "Men Are From Mars. Women Are From Venus."
Ida (Pia Tjelta, who looks a bit like Sarah Shahi from the TV series "Life") and Mathias (Thorbjørn Harr) are a young professional couple in perhaps their early thirties. They both have successful careers -- she as an architect and he as a manager at a large printing company. While there is some resentment because she makes more than he does, it doesn't appear particularly important to them. They are too busy raising their two young kids, Emil (Jon Øigarden) and Emil's baby sister, to compete with each other.
Emil, who will soon be turning six, provides the story's rich voice-over as he keeps reading short passages from the aforementioned book. Sure, it's not likely a six-year-old could read the book, much less be so articulate, but that is a minor quibble. The book perfectly illustrates why his parent's pretty ideal marriage is needlessly headed south.
Ida and Mathias are both attractive and likeable people, which can be a downfall, as their friends and acquaintances become attracted to them. (The kids are as good-looking as their parents and very, but not excessively, cute.)
The downfall in Ida and Mathias's relationship comes in the form of a boat. Mathias sees and falls in love with a sailboat. It's expensive but not ridiculously so. Still, he needs and wants to get Ida's approval before buying it. But Ida is extremely busy at work on her big project, which is just about to be released, so she keeps putting Mathias off on his insistence on seeing the boat. A little egging on from a pushy salesman causes Mathias to go ahead and purchase it anyway, without waiting any more for Ida's approval.
Bad idea.
Mathias soon finds himself with a boat but without a wife. But, before and after their divorce, the story avoids one predictable path after another. Both characters are enormously sympathetic, and you'll find yourself rooting as hard as you can for them to get back together, even as the increasingly sad story makes this seem less and less likely.
Here is a couple made for each other. We can sure see it, so we're hoping that they'll eventually realize it too. This is a marriage well worth saving. It's also a sweet and very touching movie, well worth seeing.
MARS & VENUS runs 1:32. The film is in Norwegian with English subtitles.
The film was shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival (www.Cinequest.org), which ran February 27-March 9, 2008.
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