Hope Springs

I don't usually do movie reviews.  Heck, truth be told, I don't even go to that many movies.  Today, not only did I see a movie, I'm reviewing it here.  Mom and I went to see Hope Springs, with Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell.  For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a movie about a middle aged couple whose children are grown.  Their marriage has fallen into the same routine of many long term marriages, where the partners co-exist in a relationship of benign neglect that has sentenced them to live parallel lives without intimate connection.  For many of our clients here in the Trenches, such a state causes them to feel like Kay, Meryl Streep's character, when she says she's not sure whether she would be happier being alone in her marriage or just alone.  Those who become our clients choose being alone as the preferable state.  Kay does not, and the movie is about her and Arnold's (Tommy Lee Jones) struggle to attempt to regain and discover intimacy in their marriage.  It is an excellent movie, funny and poignant by turns.  It should be required viewing for folks before they decide their boring but otherwise solid marriage needs to end.  Maybe it would change a few of their minds before they come seek our services.  We could handle a few less clients - happily.  Here in the Trenches.