It won't move the Earth

Film Review: Hope Springs (12A)
Running time 100 minutes Rating:**
Fresh from portraying a grim, acid-tongued harridan in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep has transformed herself into a wimp of a disappointed wife (Kay) in Hope Springs, lumbered with a dry-as-dust husband in Tommy Lee Jones (Arnold).
This is not to Kay’s liking and the film turns into a sex instruction manual on how to arouse a half-dead husband who thinks the Golf Channel is pretty close to porn and will only go on holiday to visit the kids.
Despite the fact that critics and audiences have – to date – condemned the movie in robust terms, there must be something to it because of the half-knowing giggles in audiences up and down the land.
Now Britons are well known for being easily embarrassed whenever sex is mentioned (at least those of a certain age), but a film must be hitting some sort of spot (no details please) to elicit any kind of reaction.
Arnold is a middle-aged accountant in Nebraska. He and Kay have their routine after 31 years of marriage – same breakfast every day and separate rooms. Arnold is also a bully, browbeating Kay mercilessly until she feels totally inadequate.
She spots an advert one day for an intensive counselling course run by a Dr Feld (Steve Carell), in Maine, which is the other side of America, and, screwing up her courage, she books them both in.
Arnold is really just a mildly grumpy old stick who has forgotten what he got married for, so he goes along reluctantly and they start finding out what they should have been doing all along.
Carell plays the doctor role so straight it looks creepy, Jones’ facial features get lost in the contorted wrinkles and Streep looks as if she is fighting hard to stop barking out orders at any moment.
Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) also plays it straight, going for the serious ‘Let’s examine a problem’ approach, rather than the British ‘Let’s all have a laugh at rude words’, or the French ‘Let’s go to bed’ approach.
Although there are a few amusing moments – based inevitably around what you call certain things and what you might do with others in a private moment – the film fails to get going – a bit like Arnold really.
The question of whether they rescue their marriage or not depends on spending some good Earth pounds in a cinema of your choice, but then, this is Hollywood, so you can work it out for yourself.
Mind, you, Maine in the autumn looks nice, so the time was not totally wasted.