frankie and johnny- the imperfects..

Frankie and Johnny.
She is 32 or 34 or 35. He is 42 or 44 or 45. She lives in a studio apartment in new York, has not been in a relationship from a long time. He was in a prison from 18 months, and has just come to new York, looking for work. Everyone in her family is mostly happy except her, she is living alone and miserably. He sees the photo of his ex wife and children every now and then in his room and misses them, he gets a hooker but does not sleep with her, just wants her to wrap her arms around him when he sleeps. She is a waitress, he joins the restaurant as a cook. And then, it happens.
The premise of the movie Frankie and Johnny is very simple. But the characterization is as complex. Frankie (michelle pfeifer) is a lonely mid thirties woman, living in new York and working as a waitress, and johnny (al pacino), a mid 40s man, joins the restaurant as a cook, and things start ‘cooking’. What transforms this very simple story is the writing, and the acting. And the fact that it deals with the most basic human fears and emotions., and the fact that it seems to be even more relevant today, then in 1991, when it was released.
The backdrop of the story is the restaurant in which the two characters work, and the loneliness of the people working in the restaurant and those who come to eat there. Frankie has had her share of relationships, which has led her averse to commitment and intimacy. She fears, that everytime she gets close to someone, something bad will happen. Johnny has been very lonely, and he senses an instant attraction between him and Frankie, though she does not want to admit it. He falls madly in love with her, and how they try to get past their previous baggages which has resulted into extreme mis trust and fear of relations to give their own relation a try, which forms the premise. That seems familiar.
But, its how the mood of the place and chemistry of characters is captured, is whats brilliant. There is a constant tennis match of emotional give and take about fears of what if, which the main characters go through as they work in the restaurant and try to get close to one another. The day Johnny joins the restaurant, the same day, a women who used to work at that place for 15-20 yrs is admitted to the hospital and soon dies. When frankie and her friend go to visit her, they look at each other and say ‘ are we also going to end up alone like this in a hospital’. There are the sub plots of a strict restaurant manager, the other cooks and waiters, who add humility and believability to the setting. Ultimately, its about connections. Its the fears of living without any purpose, hope and loneliness in concrete jungles, which lies at the core of the movie. In one of the scenes, lying on the bed, Frankie asks Johnny why does he want to kill himself sometime? And he replies-
‘I want to kill myself sometimes when I think that I'm the only person in the world and that part of me that feels that way is trapped inside this body, that only bumps into other bodies, without ever connecting to the only other person in the world trapped inside of them. We have to connect. We just have to. ‘
Its these internal quite desperations, which the characters around the world, go through in real life, which the story tries to pinpoint. The movie, which is based on a play, has some great dialogue, but the actors say it so naturally and casually that one hardly notices their brilliance. Whoever thought that al pacino could not carry off a light role, has to watch this movie. His character is emotionally extremely vulnerable and in a way little cheesy, and to play that so naturally with intricacy is so difficult. Having been in prison, he had mastered the art of not making a noise while cuming. When Frankie and Johnny sleep together for the first time, he screams for the first time in possibly a long time, and he does it with such a twinkle, these small points of writing genius spread all over the film lifts the film. He lays himself open so easily and his eyes give out his desperation. Nathan lane as tim, the gay neighbor of Frankie is as always spot on and steals the show, one wonders why he is not seen in more films. But the best part was without a doubt Pfeiffer, film after film she expresses layers of complicated emotions with grace, and one cant help but fall in love with her eccentricities and so called weaknesses. She does not need words to say, or tears to cry, she acts by reacting, and expresses love without touching or even looking at the other character.
As the buildings get taller, people think faster, flights become cheaper, planet becomes smaller, distance between people keeps on increasing. Probably its true that relations are not meant to last forever, but in a moment, for even few moments, there are bound to be small, even insignificant human connections and bonds, maybe it might not be a bad idea to keep the calculations and logic aside, and give these connections a chance, who knows what the breeze may bring !This is one of the old school romances, which I hear was not given its due at the time of its release. I thought its never too late to do something about that, in whatever small way we can!!! Probably the best line of the movie-
‘Now, there's a man and a woman. He's a cook. She's a waitress. Now, they meet and they don't connect. Only, she noticed him. He could feel it. And he noticed her. And they both knew it was going to happen. They made love, and for maybe one whole night, they forgot the 10 million things that make people think, I don't love this person, I don't like this person, I don't know this- Instead, it was perfect, and they were perfect. And that's all there was to know about. Only now, she's beginning to forget all that, and pretty soon he's going to forget it too. ‘