Thursday, April 16, 1998
Unrequited affection
FILM: Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd star in a romantic comedy
sans the romance
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Boy meets girl. Boy and girl discover a mutual love of Brooklyn
and ballroom dancing, a mutual disgust with hoity-toity relatives.
Boy moves in. And late at night … they eat ice cream
together.
But that’s about as lusty as things get. Think separate
bedrooms. Because the one other thing Nina and George have in
common is that they are both searching for Mr. Right.
Such is the premise of "The Object of My Affection," which opens
Friday and stars Jennifer Aniston ("Friends," "Picture Perfect")
and Paul Rudd ("Clueless"). In an age when race, class and religion
are all relatively surmountable barriers in a relationship,
"Object" poses an uncharted challenge. But perhaps more
importantly, it uses a newish topic to address a question that has
plagued would-be lovers since the beginning of time: Where does
friendship end and romance begin?
"I wanted each relationship constantly reflecting the relation
previous to it," says director Nicholas Hytner ("The Madness of
King George," "The Crucible"). "This constant chain of unrequited
desire. Of friendship, deeply complex and mutually satisfying,
undermined by an un-returned sexual passion."
Nina and George are surrounded by an ensemble of equally
love-struck characters, whose relationships intertwine in typical,
romantic comedy fashion. When Nina becomes pregnant by her
loud-mouthed boyfriend Vince, she decides she would rather raise
the child with George. Vince is understandably upset. George
waffles between being Nina’s roommate and soul mate until he meets
Paul, a young actor. And Paul? Paul is living with theater critic
Rodney in a friends-but-almost-more-than-friends relationship not
unlike George and Nina’s.
"I love the irony of the title ‘The Object of My Affection,’"
Rudd says. "Every single character in this film, gay or straight,
is in love with someone they can’t have."
The commonality of the premise emerged when all involved
discovered they could make parallels to their own lives.
"I connected with wanting something you can’t have and knowing
many women who’ve been in that situation and held many of them in
my arms," Aniston says. "It’s brutal and it happens and it’s not
pretty."
Pseudo-cuckold Vince is played by "Mad About You’s" John Pankow,
who recalls: "I have a friend who was just dumped by his fiancee,
and it was the second time that he was in a long-term relationship
that he was given the heave ho." He admits with a sheepish laugh,
"I’ve always been in a position to be the dumper. Thank goodness
for that. Because it is rough being on the other end."
Though the story originates from Stephen McCauley’s 1987 novel,
Hytner, and screenwriter and playwright Wendy Wasserstein ("The
Heidi Chronicles") quickly bonded with characters who were all too
familiar. Wasserstein has shared Nina’s heartache. And Hytner?
"Oh, I’m George," he says. In fact, Hytner attempted to bring
much of his own background and observations to the film in light of
other recent portrayals of homosexual characters, namely in "The
Birdcage" and "In and Out."
"I know lots of screaming queens and love ’em. There are gay men
who are obsessed with Barbra Streisand. I’ve met them – they’re
great. But you watch movies and you think 100 percent of us are
like that. And it’s kind of boring," Hytner says. Thus, "Object"
contains "no Judy Garland jokes, no RuPaul jokes." Hytner pauses a
moment, then adds, "I’m not that great a fan of Barbra
Streisand."
Perhaps it should be a non-issue. But while the film is
ultimately a character-driven exploration of human relationships;
the homosexual thing seems to be on everyone’s minds, save the
filmmakers’. The cast and crew respond with a rather blase attitude
that may be nothing new off the screen.
"It’s a different climate than it was 20 years ago or even 10
years ago," says Rudd, who didn’t worry that playing a homosexual
character would damage his career, as was the case in old
Hollywood.
Though Nina’s stepsister stereotypes hilariously when she drags
elementary school music teacher George off to help her arrange her
centerpiece at a party, the film features no outright homophobes.
This helps the film maintain its center, but has drawn charges of
an overly PC look at the world.
Then again, maybe those critics don’t live in a patchwork
metropolis where, for years, the patches have more or less all just
gotten along.
"It does exist," professes Pankow, who shared the concern when
he first read the script. "I lived in a building on 85th Street (in
New York) for years. It was about 11 units, it was a tenement, cold
water flat, and the greatest thing about it was that very thing –
you had gays, you had straights, you had Hispanic, black, white –
you had everything. And there was a real closeness in the community
that was that building. I think tolerance in New York comes from
people living on top of each other. You have to be tolerant to
survive."
"Object" also invokes East Coast sensibilities in its many
self-effacing jabs at the theater world from which Hytner,
Wasserstein and Rudd originate. At one point a curler-laden
housewife shouts out to Rodney (who is momentarily slumming), "I
love Andrew Lloyd Webber. I love ‘Les Mis!’" Later, Nina, George
and Rodney watch Paul in a painfully abstract, arty interpretation
of "Romeo and Juliet."
"I tell you, I have directed that production," Hytner
laughs.
"It’s exactly like 75 percent of what’s going on in New York in
off, off, awful, off-Broadway," Rudd says. "In one of the original
versions (of the film), they were talking about a play with these
grown, muscular men, these scantily clad boy scouts, and it was
called ‘Scout’s Honor.’ That show is probably playing
somewhere."
Yet Hytner and Rudd give the Bard a break and return to their
roots this summer when they collaborate on "Twelfth Night" at
Lincoln Center. Pankow and Aniston both have their small screen
roles to consider, both logistically and artistically, when looking
for film projects.
"’Friends’ gave me this whole trump card," Aniston says. "But
you also have to be careful because of all that can come to you,
you can start saying yes to everything, and your career’s over in a
minute."
Aniston is the first to admit she’s been lucky, playing half of
TV’s most riveting couple and now exploring the ins and outs, so to
speak, of homosexual relationships on the big screen. She is
painfully aware of what the outcome might have been, had the latter
story tried to make its way into living rooms. Viewers only have to
flip to ABC for just such a saga.
"It’s heartbreaking, truthfully," Aniston says of the un-renewed
"Ellen." "You see this woman fighting a fight, and she gets tired.
It says a lot about society or our business. It’s ignorance. There
aren’t many shows that are better written than that show, and it
doesn’t deserve the backlash it’s been getting."
And as for "Object"?
"Who knows if it will be instrumental or monumental," Rudd says.
"But one of the things I really like about it was it’s a very real,
very common story."
FILM: "The Object of My Affection" opens Friday.
Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd take center stage at his
brother’s wedding in "The Object of My Affection," opening
Friday.
Alan Alda bids farewell to Jennifer Aniston in "The Object of My
Affection."
Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd speak to Director Nicholas Hytner
(right).