Slow-burner's worth the wait
- Published: 31 Aug 2012 at 00.00
- Newspaper section: Life
Sometimes movies don't engage by retailing a fascinating plot, but concentrate instead on other things, which is exactly what Hope Springs does. The focus in this case is all-encompassing characterisation, with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones so crazy-good in their parts that you really start to believe everything, as if Hollywood just happened to point some covert cameras at a real-life estranged couple as they try to relight the fire in their marriage.
What at first seems like a tedious movie about a middle-aged couple trying to reboot their romantic life slowly morphs into a heart-wrenching tale that eats your heart out. Streep plays Kay, a woman who yearns for love but is extremely meek, slow to speak up for herself in the marriage and sometimes too much of a pushover. Streep embodies the role so well that it's hard to believe the same actress once played a fierce, heartless editor in The Devil Wears Prada. Jones' character, Arnold, is a whining grump who accounts for all the douche-baggery, but also all the laughs. At the outset...
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