Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

I Netflixed “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont” because of a review I spotted in the Boston Globe. I rarely agree with the Globe’s reviewers, but this four star review caught my attention. To paraphrase, the reviewer claimed the movie is charming, a throwback to the oldies where nothing ever really happens. Just my thing. I find it very peaceful to watch an old black and white movie on a wintry Sunday morning. Last week I watched “Going My Way” with Bing Crosby and the mood stuck with me all week. “Mrs. Palfrey” is in color, but if the mood fits…

The reviewer was dead on. I found myself smiling through most of the movie as Mrs. Palfrey, with such high expectations for an adventurous retirement, initially finds no magic in her new situation. Instead of an elegant hotel where she expects luxury and savory meals, she lands in a bland hotel that is more like a glorified retirement home, The Claremont. Instead of scintillating new acquaintances, she meets dour retirees who seem to be waiting to die.

And it is a movie where nothing happens but in that recording of daily trials and boredom, everything happens. In short, it’s reality television and thankfully not at all like anything that parades across our television screens dressed in so called “reality.”

Sarah Palfrey is a shining example of class, dignity, grace, and kindness. She’s intelligent, humorous, and an excellent conversationalist. She is also ignored. Her daughter and grandson see her as a duty. With the exception of one compassionate woman at the Clatremont, its other residents shy away from her, seeing noting but an abandoned woman at the end of her life.

And Luda is everything a mother could want in a son, yet his own mother is bitter and finds him to be disappointing.

So it’s perfect that these two – an old woman and a man at the start of adulthood – find each other either by fate or coincidence (fate, according to the movie). In life, which is almost always less than ideal, the relationship between Luda and Mrs. Palfrey is an example humanity at its finest.

The main message of the movie is to look beyond the obvious and if we must judge each other, do so with kindness and respect. When Luda comments that one of the Claremont’s denizens seems to have imbibed the soul of the tattered old place, Mrs. Palfrey gently reminds him that the old woman was the only person to acknowledge her upon her arrival, and when the two are amused that the Claremont residents were so easily fooled in regards to Luda’s identity, Mrs. Palfrey shrugs and says, “People see what they want to see.” It’s true. Before Luda, the other residents saw her as a lonely, abandoned shell. After Luda enters their circle, she is suddenly popular, seen as alive and wanted. Mrs. Palfrey never changes through the movie but the people around her change their opinions.

I’ve babbled enough. I’m off to order the book. Happy New Year!

Annie Wilkes Anyone?

You know you’re reading a great book when you fall in love with a dwarf.

My husband was right (curses!). Love, love, love A Song of Ice and Fire series. George A.A. Martin is my new favorite author. He has a good, clean writing style that doesn’t get in the way of the story, and no-one sows the seeds of conflict better than Martin. I am constantly on the edge of anticipation and that’s heady stuff.

Then there’s Jon Snow, a character who adds a good amount of lust to that anticipation. Of course, my take on Jon Snow’s physical attributes are probably heightened because I envision Tom Pelphrey (who plays Jon Randall) on “The Guiding Light.” (No tittering, please. My great-grandmother listened to it on the radio; it’s a family tradition.)

But the conflict! As a writer, I have a hard time intensifying conflict in my books. It just doesn’t come easily. It should. I create enough of it in my own life. Anyway, I read with glee the chapter where Jaime and his captor, Brienne, engage in a swordfight, a natural culmination of the aggression they feel toward each other. Jaime once broke his sacred vow as a knight and killed the king; Brienne holds this honor as her guiding principle in life. There you have it – textbook conflict. Yet Martin takes this conflict and deftly uses physical conflict to intensify the underlying emotions. If it were a romance novel, the scene would be a perfect example of how to build sexual tension. Alas, I fear Jaime’s she-devil of a sister has him forever whipped.

So…writing…have I written anything lately? No. I eat, sleep, and dream these damn books. The only base in reality I have these days is caring for my infant son whom I no longer call by his given name. Instead, he is Little Rickon and his lovey? Why, Shaggydog, of course.

Thankfully, I only have one more book left to read before the long winter of waiting for Mr. Martin to finish writing the rest of his series. The waiting is not nearly as bad as the all-consuming fear that the author will die before he finishes unless a crazed fan goes all Misery on him and forces him to write. Not me of course. He’s have to share my bed and I’m not positive Keith will appreciate that.

If the unthinkable happens and he goes before his time, I’m sure that same fan will pen the rest of the series, which would be a terrible fate. I’d swear not to read them but I would succumb eventually, much like I did with the sequel to Gone With the Wind. I did not enjoy that book. I felt dirty the whole time and it spoiled the purity of Mitchell’s work.

Gotta go. Tyrion the Dwarf just married S…well, I won’t spoil it for you newbies just coming down with the disease.