Tuesday After Christmas

Saw Tuesday After Christmas, a Romanian drama about a man and a woman and another woman. The film opens with the man and the other woman rolling about in bed, adorably teasing each other and talking amiably about what to buy the man's wife. Ah, I thought at that point, this is one of those oh-so-sophisticated films where the man+wife+otherWife arrangement is made to seem easy and drama-free. Then we see the wife with the man. They are shopping and are reminding each other of various chores and duties in what seems like a perfunctory, businesslike manner. They have long conversations over banal details, of who got who what last year and when will their daughter outgrow her current obsession with the color pink.

This is the unexciting stuff that real life is made of. It's not exciting but its meaningful in its own way. We understand that the man is bored though. His wife seems severe and dowdy in her horn-rim glasses and tight bun. The mistress meanwhile is blond and young and has an apartment full of kitschy asian decoration (which is perhaps a cross-cultural joke. China has a long history of second wives, concubines, and so on. Maybe some subtle nod anyway.) She is sexually exciting but of course their home-life is completely predicated on her being the mistress. There's no talk of bills, only of perhaps thinking someday about introductions. So, this film is not about how polyamorous relationships can totally work, no really you guys! (as though this were news to anyone anymore) but rather it's about waiting for the wife to find out and seeing what she does.

The film has the beats and rhythms of a sort of mystery. An intricate web of names and personal and professional relationships is woven and it's quite hard to keep track of everyone. We don't know exactly what the wife knows or what will happen when she finds out. There are some great scenes and great speeches however and some tremendously realistic performances. The film is an acting showcase definitely. The plot is not terribly exciting but it's going for realism and humanization of everyone involved. There's no fireworks, just the tense, kitchen-sink silences that quietly change lives. As one character says near the climax: "so, everything changes." I feel if I had been in this situation before that this film would have been too real for me to handle. Also, notice how near the end of the film, the man has a long talk with the mistress about if he can throw out a coffee can. The mundane details are beginning to seep into their relationship as well. The film ends abruptly, but maybe it's just a matter of time before this all begins again.