Two

For The Road

Looking for a guidebook to marriage? Dont Panic --as Two for the Road is The Lovers Guide to Marriage. It is not for the faint of heart.

by

Pamela Olson

Pamela Olson's For The Road

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Copyright 2001 - 2012 by Pamela Olson

All rights reserved. All wrongs revenged. Its a story. Semblance to anyone is not intended --nor should be inferred. Savvy, mate?
Doc Severinsen's There Is A Girl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjG0S6dc-sY

A graduate of College of Marin then Sonoma State University, in the middle of The American Wine Country, California USA, Pamela Olson is A Marin County Volunteer of the Year, founding board member North Bay Multimedia Association, Home Designer, Raconteur, Gardener, Time Traveler, Swimmer, Veteran, Mama, Friend, Real Estate Authority, Ballroom Dancer, Wife, Color Junkie, Bon vivant, Professor, Author and, Landlord Extraordinaire aka opinionated.

May all your storms be weathered, and all that is good get better.

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Two for the Road @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgI85YLZhzM

Looking for a guidebook to marriage? Dont Panic as Two for the Road is The Lovers Guide to Marriage. It is not for the faint of heart. There is poignancy in totally mad love. Amour fou, when love is not madness it is not love, saudade, a kind of happiness and sadness at the same time, its all the same feelings. In fall 1967, with Henry Mancinis Two for the Road playing in the background, Joanna had just burst again another of Marks bloated bubbles of fury. With a classic figure of speech, Mark casually says, bitch. Joanna replies equally casually, bastard. Regardless of their familiar difference, pettiness and misunderstandings, these two adults have developed and accepted a deep need in their love for each other. That is what Two for the Road is about. Mark and Joanna are two people that meet, fall in love, marry, mature as individuals and as a couple, and stay together. Looking for a guidebook to marriage? Do Not Panic as Two for the Road is The Lovers Guide to Marriage. Two for the Road is a rare film in many ways. First, its about marriage. Something that is complicated. Complicated is not what Hollywood is known for. Second, it is an honest look at marriage. It is naturalistic of human feelings without ever losing the enchanting and transformative qualities of True Love. Theres just starting out unworldly and idealistic awkward children in adult bodies. Then to varying degrees their marriage is perfect, bleak, ambitious, comic, egocentric, heartbreaking, rife with insecurities, affirmative, in constant need of reassurance, romantic, understandably hurt and angry, eager to push own agenda, tragic, gimlet-eyed, sympathetic, sweet, punishing, and finally totally rewarding. Two lives that initially seemed completely separate are and remain irrevocably connected.

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Two for the Road neither complains nor explains marriage. It simply puts on display this husband and wife and their various and on-going attempts to make their marriage work. Then it dares any mature viewer to be indifferent to it. For a mature adult, it is an intense cinematic experience. Third, its all framed in ample romance. Two for the Road has a charming direct refusal to shortchange passion and emotion. That is the strength of the structure of this film. Two for the Roads an empathetic vehicle at its heart. The romance adds to the moral stature of the film by making the usual Hollywood husband and wife caricature increasingly human. Lovers that marry find themselves in wildly unlikely, yet completely believable drama. Drama ridiculous enough to define the word. Lovers that marry uncover mania where others wouldnt even dare to look. Fourth, its about an interesting and good couple familiar to all of us. Their life-changing journey is sometimes painful as they move from naivet into experience. Fifth, the writer tells us a great deal about himself while expressing through his characters. The cosmopolitan keen screenplay by Frederic Raphael makes Two for the Road a writers movie. Two for the Road is a compelling accomplished work that knows exactly what it wants to do and then does it. In emotionally moving detail. Producer- Director Stanley Donen then skillfully added his romantic aura touch. By doing that, Stanley Donen showed us that marital in fighting can be romantic, should be romantic and is romantic more often then not, even in its what might be perceived as darkest moments. The film Mr. & Mrs. Smith later echoed Mark and Joanna with their courtship. Once John & Jane Smith knew who the other really was, only then did each completely open them self up to the other. As with Mark and Joannas world, in John & Jane Smiths world, their second courtship begins appropriately enough, via a fight. A fight that only the two such top of their game incorrectly thinking theyre on opposite sides can have. Vicious, dirty, traitorous, and deeply hurtful tactics were used by both.
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Fittingly, both really know the only side they were on was on top of each other. In spite of logic, reason and expectation, they are overwhelmed with their magnificent obsession with each other. Like Mark and Joanna, John & Jane Smith remember they are in love with the goal to stay in love together. Sixth, the emotions Two for the Road evokes are linked directly to the viewers secret life. It forces one to acknowledge not only how complicated our own lives are, but also how easy it is to be self-centered and miss to our detriment those complications in everyone elses lives. Seventh, its Henry Mancini music. Mancinis lavish orchestral sound only amplifies the mood of growing maturity so important here. His piano and French horn duet is lovely. Eight, the characters simply live their lives albeit increasingly intimately and irrevocably intertwined with each other. The characters are charming, disarming, thoughtful, adroit in structure, melancholic, and insightful to the lawlessness of their heart. Nine, Two for the Road is Dont Panic, The Lovers Guide to Marriage. The exploration of this film is a revelation. It shows how one does eventually get to forgiveness in marriage, how to handle the unexpected detours, let go of grudges, and examine never finished emotional business. Ten, the adult passion. Moreover, what people will do and risk for an ideal, or passion for another. Eleven, Two for the Road is pure sophisticated adult cinema. Its an adult classic. There is no excess. Its an honest mature look at two people in love, and what it takes for them to stay together. Its accurate about peoples need for meaningful emotional connections with each other. Two for the Road
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manages the impressive feat of believing wholeheartedly in love and marriage without checking its mind at the door. Adult romantics will revel in their good fortune when they see Two for the Road. Twelve, its not a surprise that gestures get as much attention in Two for the Road as dialog. Gestures and dialog that are unfairly and too often misinterpreted by the two lovers. Thirteen, given all this, more of the many surprises with this film was the impressive indeed excellence of the casting and acting. Big-boned Albert Finney as Mark, brought his male charm, earthy sensuality, raw, primal and down-to-earth passion to Audrey Hepburn as Joanna. Audrey Hepburn, the formally only seen high on a pedestal actress, had never been seen this way as she was as Joanna, finally etching her marriage with compassion, maturity, humor, and strength. Joanna is very human, very fallible, a mature woman holding her own in what she wants, how she wants it and how she gets it. Audrey Hepburn nicely pulls it off. Moreover, I think its due solely to the casting of Albert Finney as Mark against Hepburns Joanna. That gave a special primal grace and raw tension to the exquisite nuances in the performances of Finney and Hepburn. Their characters underlying trust, love and control expose the texture, complexity and risks when you leave yourself open to intimacy, and how unsettling that can be. Yet, youre in a marriage so delicious you never want it to end. Fourteen, Two for the Road is an affirmation for marriage. It shows our weaknesses in the roadblocks and problems we bring in to marriage. It shows our common shortcomings in our self-indulgence, bias, vanity, misguided values, impetuosity, betrayal, thoughtlessness, and disloyalty. The result was Mark and Joanna, two good people with lawlessness in their hearts were growing over twelve years in maturity and mutual acceptance of their desire for each other. They end up liking themselves and each other more enough to maintain their determination to keep their relationship together. They have a funny and charming emotional heft they never lose for dealing with painful situations. And it all works. With rueful sensitivity to
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how quietly and not so quietly ridiculous love can be, their relationship survives and works in spite of everything. Who can resist all that in one film? Lovers that marry suddenly speak the same language only in theory. This likeable lovelorn couples struggles just to communicate enough to stay together are as powerful as their love is wanton sensuality. Their story is potent, engrossing and thrilling to experience. Getting to the finale, the realization in both is that just because someone doesnt always love us the way we wish them to doesnt mean they dont love us the best they can and with all they have. And that provides cover for a multitude of sins. Inevitably, given their determination to stay together through the emotional torment of having to deal with bemused wackiness and troublesome actions against them by their beloved lover, everything simmered down to a coming of age teasing: He to her: Bitch She to him: Bastard That is not for the faint of heart. It is a pleasing polished combination of mature tension and adult bittersweet humor which is sophisticated and bitingly funny. Marriage is the journey, not the destination. What becomes most a marriage so delicious you never want it to end is quite simply determination. The point is to stay together, married, during marriages inevitable changes. Two for the Road is not about to argue that point.
Two for the Road @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgI85YLZhzM

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