Many, many years ago, as a young single woman, I saw a counselor, who helped me, and who I thought of as a friend. When I married my husband, I invited her to the wedding. She declined, telling me our relationship was professional only. So when, at the end of this movie, the therapist Gerri tells the disturbed Mary, who thought she was a friend of 20 years duration, to see a therapist, I had a different reaction to this movie than many others.
This movie, about the happy middle-class couple Tom and Gerri, is more a cautionary tale that "friends" are not the same as family, and that therapy and friendship evidently cannot mix. The therapist Gerri's "friend" Mary is a middle-aged, lonely, depressed co-worker who has been a frequent visitor to Tom and Gerri's home for 20 years. There are jokes that she was an "auntie" to the 30-year-old son, who, in an excruciating episode, she drunkenly hits on. When she encounters the truth that the son has a girlfriend, Mary is "inappropriate" and rude. Even worse, she is revealed as of a lower professional caste from the girlfriend, who rather irritatingly fits in beautifully with the middle-class professions of Tom and Gerri.
So Mary is a family "auntie" no longer and we learn in the final segment that she has not seen Gerri for some time outside work since the episode with the girlfriend. When she shows up at the house uninvited, Gerri and Tom are surprised to see her. We see them staring at her through the sitting room door, and I thought the expressions on their faces was so cold and even chilling. These were not the faces of friends who would normally be concerned for a friend who has come to them because of some trouble. This is when I first realized that the friendship of Tom and Gerri for Mary was only an illusion; that to them, Mary was just a person who had drifted into their orbit but who was welcome only when invited. Gerri tells Mary that Mary has "let her down" and that Gerri has had to put family first. She tells Mary that Mary should seek professional therapy for her problems. This speech is delivered in a professional voice. Gerri, who is supposed to be warm and nurturing, is cold to Mary, as cold as she was in her counseling session with Imelda Staunton which starts the movie.
At the same time, Tom's brother, Ronnie, who has been widowed, has not been seen at all during the prior year and has not even been mentioned. But he was invited to stay; he is family. In the end, at the final dinner, the camera works its way slowly around the table. The talk among Tom, Gerry, their son Joe and his girlfriend Katie is jovial and cheerful, and, I would think, unbearable for someone who has just days earlier lost his spouse. The camera hits Ronnie, who is still nearly catatonic. And finally the camera focuses on Mary. You see on her face that she has realized that she is not part of the family, she is not the "auntie" nor even really welcome.
This movie, I think, is remarkable for eliciting so many responses.
This movie, about the happy middle-class couple Tom and Gerri, is more a cautionary tale that "friends" are not the same as family, and that therapy and friendship evidently cannot mix. The therapist Gerri's "friend" Mary is a middle-aged, lonely, depressed co-worker who has been a frequent visitor to Tom and Gerri's home for 20 years. There are jokes that she was an "auntie" to the 30-year-old son, who, in an excruciating episode, she drunkenly hits on. When she encounters the truth that the son has a girlfriend, Mary is "inappropriate" and rude. Even worse, she is revealed as of a lower professional caste from the girlfriend, who rather irritatingly fits in beautifully with the middle-class professions of Tom and Gerri.
So Mary is a family "auntie" no longer and we learn in the final segment that she has not seen Gerri for some time outside work since the episode with the girlfriend. When she shows up at the house uninvited, Gerri and Tom are surprised to see her. We see them staring at her through the sitting room door, and I thought the expressions on their faces was so cold and even chilling. These were not the faces of friends who would normally be concerned for a friend who has come to them because of some trouble. This is when I first realized that the friendship of Tom and Gerri for Mary was only an illusion; that to them, Mary was just a person who had drifted into their orbit but who was welcome only when invited. Gerri tells Mary that Mary has "let her down" and that Gerri has had to put family first. She tells Mary that Mary should seek professional therapy for her problems. This speech is delivered in a professional voice. Gerri, who is supposed to be warm and nurturing, is cold to Mary, as cold as she was in her counseling session with Imelda Staunton which starts the movie.
At the same time, Tom's brother, Ronnie, who has been widowed, has not been seen at all during the prior year and has not even been mentioned. But he was invited to stay; he is family. In the end, at the final dinner, the camera works its way slowly around the table. The talk among Tom, Gerry, their son Joe and his girlfriend Katie is jovial and cheerful, and, I would think, unbearable for someone who has just days earlier lost his spouse. The camera hits Ronnie, who is still nearly catatonic. And finally the camera focuses on Mary. You see on her face that she has realized that she is not part of the family, she is not the "auntie" nor even really welcome.
This movie, I think, is remarkable for eliciting so many responses.