Film Review: THE LAND OF STEADY HABITS

This great movie is currently streaming on Netflix. It features outstanding acting and witty, authentic dialog, meaning the characters all sound real. There's no silly Hollywood fluff; instead it's a snapshot of real life set in a rich Connecticut town. (The title has something to do with that but nothing to do with the story so stop wondering.)

Ben Mendelsohn as Anders, couch-surfing in his condo.

Starring an Australian actor named Ben Mendelsohn, who deserves an Oscar just for his spot-on facial expressions, The Land of Steady Habits is by turns funny, sad and downright depressing, yet somehow uplifting when the tale is all told. 

He plays Anders, a 50-ish divorced man in the midst of a messy mid-life crisis complicated by quitting his job where he made lots of money and divorcing his wife Helene (Edie Falco) of many years for reasons we don't understand until the end. Lonely and looking for love, he finds it easily enough -- apparently every woman he meets finds him instantly irresistible -- but his poor performance in the bedroom sends them packing. 

Strong sub-plots involve Anders' 27-year-old son fresh from rehab for drugs and alcohol who is lost and unready for adulthood, and the family's best friends with a same-age son who is headed to rehab for the same issues.

Nothing very out of the ordinary happens, which is why Anders is so blue most of the time: He sees a therapist, but when the shrink takes a phone call during one of their sessions, Anders is pissed off and walks out, taking an armload of expensive art books with him. A strained relationship with his son causes him angst, but he kicks the kid out of his rented condo anyway, hoping tough love works. Helene's planned remarriage to an old friend of theirs makes him angry. A visit to a strip club with a friend (Josh Pais) barely registers as he shoos away a naked babe who wants to give him a lap dance. 

It might all be boring in the hands of another director, but Nicole Holofcener makes it worthy of a re-watch, which I plan to do as soon as possible.

What to Feed A Starving Brain

Years ago when my son was in high school, one of his classmates said something that I laughed at back then but have since come to understand is the truth: Sam said he was "sick of reading books because he had plenty of his own thoughts."  At 16 that's a silly statement, since one virtually knows nothing, but as I grew older, the more I agreed with it. Soon enough I stopped reading novels altogether, except old favorites, because I understood they were just someone else's thoughts and I had my own!

But now, so many years later, I have grown tired of my own thoughts. They are used and stale and ceased being constructive long ago, yet they still run rampant through my brain. I'm ready for some new ones yet unsure of how to get any. I've tried surfing the internet but that's all just trash and lies. TV is of course a vast wasteland, and that's not something I thought up myself: Newton Minow, an American attorney who served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is famous for his 1961 speech referring to television as a "vast wasteland," and he surely would know. As for podcasts, the cool new word for radio shows, they are just vehicles for egoists espousing their opinions in hopes of becoming rich and graduating to an "influencer," God help us please.

I might have to take a college course in something strange and unusual. Not sure what subject, but it definitely won't be The Music of Taylor Swift or The History of The Third Reich, two subjects that have lots of fans but turn me off. Until I find one I'm stuck inside my own head, which these days is not a pleasant place to be, crowded as it is with thoughts of Israeli hostages and Hamas terrorists and obese Americans having heart attacks and diabetes and Trump-haters whining and getting on everyone's nerves. 

Despite young Sam's declaration, I might have to rely on one of my favorite novels until I figure it out. Following is a list of books that never fail to spark and sparkle my brain, and possibly would do the same for yours.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks

The Plague by Albert Camus

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

A Shaggy Doc Story

If you need surgery and you live in Maine, get outta town! That's my advice after hearing what just happened to one of my closest friends. I'm not naming names, except for the hospital where this sordid story occurred, and that was at Maine Med as the locals call it, or Maine Medical Center if we are being formal. 

Three days ago my friend, let's call her Jane Doe, went there at five in the morning for surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her abdomen. She underwent the surgery and woke up in severe pain. Despite the boatload of pain meds she was given, Jane distinctly heard her surgeon say, "We got it" before drifting happily back to la-la land.

The following morning the same doc showed up with bad news: "Actually, we didn't get it." She said, you mean you didn't get it all? He said, "We didn't get any of it. We missed it. We removed a cyst that was benign. We'll have to go back in." 

The next day Jane was wheeled into the OR for another opportunity to have her abdomen ripped open. This time they were going to "really get it!" and would use some sort of sonar equipment to be extra-sure. After recovering from a five-hour surgery, Jane woke up to good news: "Guess what, we never found any cancer. There was no tumor after all." But, but, but....

What about the biopsy? What about the Pet Scan? What made you think there was a tumor in the first place? Oh, they took pictures and a biopsy at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham Center, the leading cancer center in New England and ranked #5 in the country, and they figured they knew what they were talking about.  

The end? Maybe not.