Published: Friday, April 3, 2009
Affair in 'Moscow, Belgium' borders on the unbelievable
Nobody goes near Russia in "Moscow, Belgium" -- the title refers to a neighborhood in the Belgian city of Ghent, where the extremely laid-back action of the movie takes place.
One afternoon in a shopping mall parking lot, Matty (Barbara Sarafian) backs her car into a large truck driven by Johnny (Jur-gen Delnaet). Let us consider the ways these two are not meant for each other.
Matty is 41, cynical, careworn. She's taking care of her two kids while her husband (Johan Heldenbergh) decides whether he's going to stay with the 22-year-old student he's run off with.
Johnny is 29, romantic, red-bearded. He's nursing a grudge against the female sex, but it turns out his reasons reflect more on him than they do on womankind.
Diehard romantics in the audience may find it easier to believe that these two are really meant for each other than I did. The course of true love being rocky, and all that.
But the more I found out about Johnny's past, the more I wanted Matty to just go it alone for a while. Neither of the men in her life seems like a significant catch.
This feeling is intensified by the performance of Barbara Sarafian in the lead role, a wonderful turn full of humor and humanity. Decidedly unglamorous in her old T-shirts and frizzed hair, her face a road map of disappointments, Sarafian lets it go in a way similar to Melissa Leo's wonderful Oscar-nominated performance in "Frozen River."
All Matty really wants to do is take a bath and drink a glass of wine at the end of the day. But even that's not possible now.
I give director Christophe Van Rompaey credit for creating such a believable character, and for devising some memorable scenes -- including a dinner encounter at Matty's home that brings together her estranged jerk (er, husband) and new boyfriend to the same table at the same time.
The portrait of people who aren't international spies or Wall Street traders is also refreshing. In fact, everything rings true about the movie except for the one thing that keeps reminding you it's a movie: that this love story is likely, or supposed to work. When you're rooting against the central relationship, something's not quite right.
One afternoon in a shopping mall parking lot, Matty (Barbara Sarafian) backs her car into a large truck driven by Johnny (Jur-gen Delnaet). Let us consider the ways these two are not meant for each other.
Matty is 41, cynical, careworn. She's taking care of her two kids while her husband (Johan Heldenbergh) decides whether he's going to stay with the 22-year-old student he's run off with.
Johnny is 29, romantic, red-bearded. He's nursing a grudge against the female sex, but it turns out his reasons reflect more on him than they do on womankind.
Diehard romantics in the audience may find it easier to believe that these two are really meant for each other than I did. The course of true love being rocky, and all that.
But the more I found out about Johnny's past, the more I wanted Matty to just go it alone for a while. Neither of the men in her life seems like a significant catch.
This feeling is intensified by the performance of Barbara Sarafian in the lead role, a wonderful turn full of humor and humanity. Decidedly unglamorous in her old T-shirts and frizzed hair, her face a road map of disappointments, Sarafian lets it go in a way similar to Melissa Leo's wonderful Oscar-nominated performance in "Frozen River."
All Matty really wants to do is take a bath and drink a glass of wine at the end of the day. But even that's not possible now.
I give director Christophe Van Rompaey credit for creating such a believable character, and for devising some memorable scenes -- including a dinner encounter at Matty's home that brings together her estranged jerk (er, husband) and new boyfriend to the same table at the same time.
The portrait of people who aren't international spies or Wall Street traders is also refreshing. In fact, everything rings true about the movie except for the one thing that keeps reminding you it's a movie: that this love story is likely, or supposed to work. When you're rooting against the central relationship, something's not quite right.
Comments
(
