Hope Springs Synopsis: After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense, week-long counseling session to work on their relationship.
After thirty years of marriage, Kay is feeling rather… unsatisfied. Her grouchy husband, Arnold, sleeps in a different bedroom and rejects any romantic overtures from Kay that may lead to sex. Wanting to reignite the passion in her marriage, Kay signs them up for a week-long, intensive couples counseling session with Dr. Feld. Kay is eager, and Arnold is reluctant, to say the least, and the couple must figure out if their marriage is worth saving.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into Hope Springs. I’m a fan of Tommy Lee Jones, and of course, I love Meryl Streep. Add Steve Carrell as a bonus, and it seemed like a no-brainer that I would give this a watch.
Especially because I feel like it’s so rare to see romantic movies centered around mature relationships, especially where sex is the focal point, is it a comfortable watch? No. In Hope Springs, you can feel Kay’s humiliation and pain accompanying Arnold’s constant rejection to the point where you begin to wonder when she will leave his butt? But Arnold isn’t a mean or abusive person. He has his doubts and his sexual hang-ups. These are revealed during therapy, as is Kay’s.
I have to admit, there were parts of Hope Springs that did make me uncomfortable, and I don’t consider myself a prude by any means. It was truly like sitting in on a couples’ therapy session, hearing the most intimate details of their sex life, things they like or dislike, and fantasies they may have. I felt like I shouldn’t have been watching, like I was being invasive!
Kay even attempts to give Arnold oral sex at a movie theater, and their attempts at physical intimacy feel awkward and stilted. But despite their inability to re-ignite the passion, you can see their familiarity with one another and why they were still in love after so many years.
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones were perfectly cast, and I can’t think of many seasoned actors who could have made this movie as charming, awkward, and sweet as they did. Streep is an actress who can shine in any film, good or bad, so I expected and received the standard Streep performance she gave here as Kay.
Tommy Lee Jones is also wonderful and gives Arnold an emotional complexity that is absolutely needed to sympathize with him. Steve Carrell’s role as Dr. Feld is fine. He fits the role of a very patient therapist quite well, although there is nothing overly special or flashy about it. I had wondered if he took the part so that he could work with Lee and Streep. I probably would have.
I feel like, after a point in life, a certain demographic is forgotten and ignored, like people aren’t supposed to be or allowed to be sexual after the age of 50. Hope Springs tackles this problem pretty bluntly. Even if you become comfortable with the person you’re married to, that doesn’t mean you have to lose that sexual spark. I’m not sure Hope Springs is a movie I’ll ever watch again, but I’m glad I gave it a chance. Enjoy the rollercoaster of emotions because the ending is definitely worth all of the uncomfortable sex talk in between.
Watched: 02/02/2021
Notable Song: Bright Side of the Road by Van Morrison
