I blame the low cost of DVD players.
Back when I used to watch movies, I’d throw in a video, and let the film run. But now, I’ve got a clock on the DVD player, and if I know how long a movie is, I can watch the clock count it down for me.
“Okay, this movie has been running for sixty-two minutes. The box listed it at eighty-four. Knock off four minutes for credits… and they’ve only got eighteen minutes to wrap this up.”
Or:
“Hmmm… I’m supposed to be across town at three. It’s two-thirty. If I knock off the credits, I’ve got eighteen minutes to go. I can make it.”
Or, in this case:
“Wait, it’s over? But there’re two minutes left!”
I mean that as a compliment.
“think again” details a small life-slice of two people who soon will be going through a divorce. She doesn’t want to go through with it, and he wants to go through it even less.
Why they can’t make it work is something of a mystery, and my only major quibble with the film. I also mean that as a compliment. I felt as though I’d been dropped into the middle of a story – perhaps twenty minutes from the beginning, perhaps twenty minutes from the end – and that there was more to know, more to tell, and that the characters existed beyond the frame.
From what I was able to gather, the problems had a fairly deep root. The guy never quite grew up, it seems. He makes jokes about her appearance in his “think-spot” in the woods. He seems incapable of realizing that she’s reaching out, or at least wants to reach out, and to make their marriage work. Or at least not fall apart badly.
On the other end of the equation, she seems unable to deal with his perceived lack of growth. Maybe the things that seemed endearing when they met now irritate. Maybe she’s not allowing the humor that once carried them through life to carry them anymore. Early in the film, she repeats one of his jokes – and later accuses him of making another.
The direction is overly simplistic, consisting mostly of a rotation of three shots, but perhaps that’s all to the good. What carries the film along are two elements – sharp writing and sharp acting. By letting those two elements do the work, the film really sings. The script is solid, and with perhaps only six minutes of screen time together, the actors truly seemed to have a lifetime together behind them.
Frankly, it’s not a movie. It’s a really good scene, from, perhaps, a forthcoming movie. So here’s to the DVD that ticks past minute nine.
