Gloria Bell, adapted from a story by Gonzalo Masa - Nine out of 10

Gloria Bell, adapted from a story by Gonzalo Masa

Nine out of 10

The note is about the film, not the story itself and this is a clarification needed for those who have requested it

Perhaps the main reason why one would love to see a film like this is that it may have almost everything, from poetry ( if I were a tree, you would be a bird’s nest or something hopefully similar) to drama, from absurd humor and situations to love and tenderness, from informative dialogue about medicine and how our body rejuvenates, regenerates presumably tissue – the epidermis, according to the main character is replaced periodically – and even the skeleton appears to be ‘replaced’, if that is the word, every ten years or so, and a story from the bible…

Supposedly, there is a story in the bible, referring to cats and that pops up at the beauty parlor where the beautician – is that the name of the woman, it is mostly if not always a woman, right and this is not sexist inappropriate for the absent reader of these notes? – tells it when the issue of the hairless cat that keeps sneaking in Gloria’s flat, although she shuts the door, the windows, but the animal seems to be ‘sending a message’, which maybe that the disturbed man upstairs, maybe her owner, is not taking care of her, given the outburst he has at night, which cause Gloria to call his mother, the landlady, to explain that she has to go to work in the morning and though she is also a mother and understands the situation, the man needs help and that is evident when she has the phone out of the window for the mother to hear the breakdown of the shouting man with a challenge.

In the bible section for the cat, we have Noah and the ark, with the familiar collection of animals – on which the hilarious, if sardonic Ricky Gervais has a splendid, mirthful criticism, looking at the size of a boat which would hold the myriad creatures that will have later populated the earth, once the terminal, calamitous Flood will have ended – and an explosion in the number of rats – it is not by the way, in fact it is totally off topic, but the joke with lawyers and rats comes to mind, so there it is…

Scientists have decided to stop making tests on lab rats and use lawyers instead and there are three reasons for that:

1.        There are not enough rats

2.       People get attached to rats

3.       There are some things, even rats will not do

Now, given that the rats are invading the famous, if absolutely impossible, invented ark, they have to find a solution and when Noah goes to see God – yet another contraption, an invented myth that was needed in the ancient times, but seems to absurd today – the latter explains how to solve the problem and all the biblical savior has to do – the one on earth, not the bearded fellow in the sky…well, not exactly in there, for it would be impossible to reside like that, but in heaven – is to pat a lion three times on the head and puff, just like Athena coming from the head of Zeus, in yet another Religulous – as in the film by Bill Maher – narrative, a couple of cats come out…

Gloria Bell is portrayed by the ‘glorious’ Julianne Moore and she is the divorced mother of one son, Peter aka Michael Cera, and a daughter, Anne aka Caren Pistorius, the latter involved with a Swedish surfer of very high, terrifying waves that falls in love with her and asks her to be with him and move over to…Sweden, which she accepts.

The life of character that enjoys her life at the age of fifty or more, is about to change when she meets Arnold aka impressive John Turturo, as they dance and then get acquainted, have sex, after which he fails to call, only to explain later that he had been so overwhelmed by the encounter that he had strong emotions – the trouble would be that this man appears to lack control of his feelings and ‘lacks a strategy to cope with adversity’ as suggested in the marvelous book The How of Happiness, written by the brilliant professor Sonja Lyubomirsky – and could not bring himself to take the phone and act upon his desires…

The speech is powerful and the man says that he had thought he would never experience this state of grace ever again – which if we are cynical made sense when he was extremely overweight, a condition that would be solved by an operation for gastric bypass, after which he is no longer recognizable – and behaves with politeness, delicacy, romantic involvement, love, kindness, care and tenderness, up to the point where he will have failed to see his way out of situations which present him with challenges, such as when he meets with the family of her lover, including her ex-husband.

Gloria and Dustin have been divorced for twelve years and had not seen each other for five years, but when the latter starts reminiscing, looks at a picture from the wedding and repeats a few times that they were in love and then Peter takes a picture for the record with ‘then and now’, Arnold shows he lacks self – restrain and prudence and when they look for him around the flat, they see that he has simply…vanished.

This will be complicated yet again, for the absent man, although he returns with explanations and accusations might show that this is a trait of his character – maybe not as weak and contemptible as the American president of the day, but rather helpless nevertheless…