Enough Said

Carol and I saw "Enough Said" last night. James Gandolfini, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Achingly beautiful. All about being human in the complex way we have created for ourselves in the 21st century. Love, honesty, trust, pettiness, friendship, human kindness and human coldness.

We saw it at The Red River Theatre. This is an independent movie theater and a non-profit organization that we have been digging since the ribbon cutting in 2007.

Two movie screens. That's it. Unless you count the small screen they have in the small room where documentary style films are shown.

This is one funky, cool place with exactly the right vibe for serious movie buffs. You can even grab a beer or a glass of wine to enjoy with the movie. I ain't talking about beer pong here, I am talking about availability of alcohol to make the experience that much more mature.

You want Vin Diesel - go to a 300 screen megaplex. You want an intimate experience - go to The Red River Theatre.

It was the perfect setting for Enough Said. I won't get into the plot, but I will tell you that James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are the perfectly unlikely couple to play a couple that eventually makes perfect sense. The sensitivity and humanness they both brought to the screen will bring tears to your eyes.

When the credits rolled, the first two words were "For Jim." That was a little rough.

It occurred to me as I was engrossed by the movie that maybe we should all approach our lives as if it was a movie. Focus on our lives the way we do with a movie.

This is a "small movie", all about human beings. No blow 'em up action here. Conversations happen, humor happens, sadness happens, heartbreak happens, redemption happens. I zeroed in with rapt attention in a way I do not do with my own life.

You crawl through your life day after day numbed by the mundane repetitiveness of it. You watch life evolving day to day in a movie and it can be riveting.

You are looking for diversion at the movies. The characters' emotions become your emotions, their problems, your problems, their triumphs, your triumphs.

But in a small movie, very often what they are experiencing is no different than what you are experiencing in your own life.

Yet it seems more real.

How bizarre, how bizarre.

That is the beauty of entertainment. It wakes you up. It zaps you with life.

That is also the paradox.

You walk out feeling jazzed but eventually settle back into numbness, not recognizing that your very own life is a movie.

I see the "viewing life as a movie" approach as one more way to try to live in the moment, to live in the now.

I utterly believe in the concept of living in the moment; I am utterly incapable of achieving it.

I spend 99% of my time re-living the past or projecting into the future.

This is why my socks never match.

Our lives are an endless series of scenes. Some quiet, some riotous, some fulfilling, some frustrating, some loving, some hateful, some .....you get the picture.

You wake up, go downstairs, settle into your recliner with a cup of a coffee, a book and a cat - that's a scene. Your wife comes down later, you enjoy gentle conversation, she begins her day in her own way - that's a scene.

I enjoyed "Enough Said" last night. We both did. We laughed, we shed a few tears, we reacted during the movie and talked about it afterwards. It enhanced our lives.

Maybe it also gave me a new perspective.

That's pretty heady payback for an investment of an hour and a half.