A Stairway to Paradise (book review)

A book review from The Movie Snob.

A Stairway to Paradise, by Madeleine St John (1999). As far as I know, this was St John’s last novel before her death in 2006. It’s another short (185 pages) domestic drama, and like A Pure Clear Light, it is about adultery. Alex is a successful journalist whose marriage to Claire has gone cold, but they stay together for the sake of their two children. But then Claire goes away on a trip, and Alex meets Barbara, and they (Alex and Barbara) quickly fall in love. In a bit of a B-plot, Alex’s old friend Andrew returns to London from a ten-year hiatus in America. He’s divorced and separated from his daughter by an ocean and understandably sad—and then HE meets Barbara. She sounds like a force to be reckoned with. Anyway, it’s a decent read, although I wasn’t sure why Barbara fell so hard for Alex. And as in her other books, St John likes to mix just a bit of theological talk into the dialogue that makes up most of the story. Her characters are rarely religious and are generally too clever to believe in God, but they can’t seem to help speaking of God all the same.

Barbie (a second opinion)

The Movie Snob weighs in on a recent hit.

Barbie (C).  Well, as a grumpy, 50-something guy, I am clearly not in this movie’s target demographic.  But it’s a pretty weird movie, so I’m not sure who really is.  Not kids, since the characters are prone to spout off about feminism and patriarchy every few minutes.  But what are adults supposed to make of the bizarre story—there’s a magical place called Barbieland where every style of Barbie and Ken that ever existed have come to life. Their existence is mostly idyllic, but then generic Barbie (Margot Robbie, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) starts having strange thoughts about death and has to go on a quest to the real world.  She is surprised to discover that patriarchy is alive and well in America, given that Barbieland is ruled strictly by the female set, and she even more surprised to learn that lots of girls disdain Barbie dolls. And she’s even MORE surprised when generic Ken (Ryan Gosling, La La Land) tries to establish the patriarchy in Barbieland—and the Barbies go along with it until generic Barbie intervenes.  At the same time, the movie seems to show at least a little sympathy for the airheaded Kens, who in the original state of Barbieland seem to be unneeded and largely unwanted by the dominant Barbies.  Is the movie’s message really as simple as life is hard and we should all try to get along and not dominate each other?  I came away thinking that maybe it was . . . .

For a contrasting opinion, please click here for Mom Under Cover’s review!

Yes Day

New from The Movie Snob.

Yes Day (C). Few movies manage to keep my seven-year-old daughter’s attention for their whole running time, but this 86-minute Netflix release did better than most.  Jennifer Garner (Danny Collins) plays a married mother of three who has gotten a bad rep with her kids as being a fun-killer. So she and her husband (Edgar Ramírez, Domino) agree to give their kids a “yes day”—a day when they will say “yes” to everything their kids ask for. The kids’ requests generally aren’t too outlandish—well, except for driving their mom’s car through an automatic car wash with the windows down—but of course things eventually spiral out of control. It’s entertaining enough, but nothing special.

The Essence of the Thing (book review)

From the desk of The Movie Snob.

The Essence of the Thing, by Madeleine St John (1997). This follow-up to A Pure Clear Light is the story of a break-up. In the very first chapter, a thirtysomething woman named Nicola is stunned and then heart-broken when Jonathan, her live-in boyfriend of several years, unexpectedly and coldly breaks up with her. The rest of the book is, for the most part, the story of Nicola’s trying to come to grips with this seismic event in her life. It’s a good story. Like A Pure Clear Light, The Essence of the Thing is told mostly in very short chapters, some of which are entirely dialogue. The characters are well-drawn; even ones who have only a page or two of “screentime,” like Nicola’s and Jonathan’s parents, are pretty vivid. Re-reading this book for the first time after many years, I found myself wondering how Nicola could love Jonathan so much because at first he seems like a heartless jerk, and later he seems more like an emotionally stunted adolescent. Nevertheless, I enjoyed revisiting the novel. And the paperback is only 234 pages!