"The Object of My Affection" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL April 19, 1998 Last night I went to see a new mainstream film called "The Object of My Affection" mainly on the strength of the fact that the screenplay was written by the well-known playwright Wendy Wasserstein. While you don't exactly think of Wasserstein as a raging feminist, she does write perceptively and wittily about women as in, for example, her plays "The Heidi Chronicles," and "The Sisters Rosenzweig." As far as I knew, however, this was her first screenplay. As it turned out after I researched this question, she actually has written one previous screenplay and one teleplay but both were adaptations of her own plays, so this is actually her first screen adapatation of someone elses work, a novel by Stephen McCauley. And I think she's done a very good job of it, for this film is far more textured and complex in its characterizations and plot elements than most films of this "romantic comedy" genre. The plot revolves around Nina Borowski (Jennifer Anniston) and George Hanson (Paul Rudd), a straight woman and a gay man who become roommates and very close, loving friends when George is dumped by his pompous college professor lover. Nina is a social worker at a community center in Brooklyn. George teaches first grade at a posh private school in Manhattan where one of his pupils is the daughter of a bigtime literary agent (Alan Alda) and his wife (Allison Janney) who is Nina's stepsister. Nina is engaged to a rather overbearing legal aid lawyer named Vince McBride (John Pankow) and becomes pregnant by him. She decides to have the child even though she doesn't want to marry Vince. In fact, what she wants is for her and George to raise the child together. Needless to say, huge complications arise on every possible front, as these nice people struggle with their belief that in this day and age you don't have to go by the old rules and you can make up your own rules as you go along. They soon discover, that, though this may be true, it's a lot harder to do than you think it would be. And it's very easy even for people who love one another very much to hurt and betray those they love and be hurt by them. I suppose a film gets called a comedy only if things turn out more or less all right in the end. I can't tell you how this turns out, only that the ending is about seven years after the events of the film and everyone seems pretty happy. This is not the case along the way. But the emotional tugs and pulls and outbursts that are generated by these people in this situation seem to ring pretty emotionally true. There are many gay men in the film and one good thing about it is how varied and diversely they are written and portrayed. It's hard to come away from the film with any one gay stereotype reinforced. Some, like our hero George, are sweet, decent guys. Others are less so in various ways. The Friday night crowd where I saw this movie was distressing. Young and apparently heterosexual, they seemed to be fine with all the various characters and plot turns and very positive toward George--until there was a shot of him kissing another man on the lips, at which point their tolerance evaporated and the theater was filled with the sounds of young heterosexuals going"Ugh," "aargh," "bleahh," and other "Peanuts"-like expletives. It's discouraging to see such blatant and widespread displays of homophobia. The last time I recall hearing such a reaction to a same sex kiss on screen was in Havana in 1991 when Sor Juana and the Viceroy' wife kissed on the lips in "I, The Worst of All." I dunno. I rather enjoyed this movie. It's fast paced with lots of cutting back and forth between various locales and subplots. The main characters are as loveable as they can be and you really want both of them to find a way to have what will make them happy. Great filmmaking it isn't, but the writing and the acting bring it a cut above the average cineplex fare, so if there's nothing better playing in your hometown, this one will provide an evening's entertainment. Copyright 1998 by Linda Lopez McAlister. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or reproduce this review without the permission of the author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu. Linda Lopez McAlister, Chair HMS 413 Department of Women's Studies||University of South Florida mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu||Tampa, FL 33620 813-974-0982||||FAX: 813-974-0336 http://www.cas.usf.edu/womens_studies/mcalister.html