Moms I Like to Feature. Remember when there was talk Naomi Watts might be nominated for Mother and Child? And this year we watched her rise again in the Oscar ranks as another Mother with extraordinary attachment to her son. In Two Mothers she appears to be exploring a whole ‘nother facet of motherhood. Meanwhile, how cool that David Fincher gave a leg up to Robin Wright as the go-to girl to play World’s Best Better Half in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and House of Cards (same as she did in Moneyball). Wright has always made smart choices and Two Mothers is only one of three interesting movies she has coming in the year ahead. She tops a fantastic cast in The Congress, an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s sci-fi brain-twister directed by Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir), and releasing at the peak of Oscar heat in November Robin Wright headlines Anton Corbijn’s adaptation of John Le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man. See how all this makes posting a wet steamy trailer seem a lot less salacious?
Looks like someone took the Lonely Island “SNL” digital short “Mother Lovers” a little too seriously.
I love Robin Wright and I have followed her career even if some of her movies are not very good. I think she deserved nominations for Sorry, Haters, She’s so Lovely and Nine lives.
She was also great in silly movies like Pippa Lee or boring dramas like The Conspirator.
And now she’s amazing in House of cards.
I think I will enjoy “Two Mothers” even if it is as silly as Pippa Lee.
^All I know is there is no word strong enough in either language to describe how ridiculously handsome James Frecheville is! Maybe we can find an appropriate adjective in Japanese, can’t we? Xavier Samuel looks fine too, but he is himself getting a little old, after all he’s almost 30 not too teenagey anymore…
Christophe,
(I didn’t mean anything inappropriate.) The main reason I quoted in my first comment *what you said is that I’ve simply used it to relate to my compliments given to French people as a whole (as good people of culture, etc.). [*You are French after all. (If you are not French, I wouldn’t use it as a lead to my comments MAINLY about French people as opposed to the film itself. Because it would sound redundant to me.)] Cheers.
—
[Just in case some readers did read too much into it: I was not implying both of them looked too old in the movie given the rough storyline depicted in the teaser, as well as the alternate title.]
^but i do agree “magnifique” is stronger than beautiful. it’s actually closer to magnificent (displaying exceptionnal beauty) but i guess the later English term might sound a little ridiculous in a casual conversation abt people, whereas “magnifique” sounds perfectly natural in a French conversation.
jviewer,
not sure abt everything you say… all i said was the original French title “Les grands-mères” is the literal translation of Dorris Lessing’s short story title “The grandmothers”. The film title became “Two Mothers” in the USA and just before the trailer came out it became “Perfect Mothers” in France. Pls note it is not a translation: the latter French title is in fact in English.
So I can’t help thinking these changes were made to avoid the lack of sex-appeal of the original title. I guess the short story title was subtly ironic, not to be taken literally, since they aren’t really grandmas yet at the time when they date each other’s sons, but they might be feeling like they’re already elderly people when they see younger folks (like i do when i see teenagers even though i’m in my 20’s). Nevertheless this subtle irony would most likely be lost on unknowledgeable potential viewers, so they had to choose more accurate or blatantly ironic titles to keep up with a deliberately sassy movie (based on early reviews).
I loved Robin Wright in White Oleander. She was so deserving of an Oscar nom. Then again I loved that movie. Haunting beautiful soundtrack and stellar performances.
When Cole Hauser and Alison Lohman are watching the fires in the hills I melt.
Vince, I also knew her first as Kelly Capwell. Oh how I miss the cheese that was Santa Barbara–it was so gloriously over the top. But Robin Wright really did show some amazing talent back then. She should have been nominated for She’s so Lovely. And while I’m at it, Watts should have been nominated for Fair Game.
Ryan,
Christophe, as a French viewer, I believe, should be more qualified […]. Anyway, in this case, I didn’t really see any significant nuance lost in translation – after all, it was just a trailer/teaser…. And I am NOT really good at French.
(at) 0:16, “They are beautiful…,” said Wright’s character. [Ils sont magnifiques!]
^Depending upon whom we’re talking to, there may be linguistic discrepancy between what a French viewer perceive, in this case, in the French word, “magnifique” (meaning: beautiful, of very good quality, splendid, etc.), and the choice of word in English, “beautiful”. Nuance might not be lost much, in my opinion, but then again, against the original script, French people might see something new […] upon their minds through the remark “Ils sont magnifiques!”, the which, let’s say, other peoples, understandably, might not be able to discern.
However, I believe we might see potential divergence when it comes to period drama because the French language has what is called literary tense, which is extremely elegant and, more importantly in our discussion, can not be translated into English without losing its original nuance…. *signed out*
Upcoming flicks? I am all for this as I start to snore every time I think of the Oscar race that is about to conclude….it all seems inevitable now.
Wild premise for this “mothers” flick…..strong leads and intriguing aside from the salacious nature of it. It’s a shame to hear it already received a so-so reception at Sundance, leading me to think we won’t be talking about it 12 months from now.
PS: Watts is beautiful. As usual. (Plus, correction: Looking forward to seeing what Robin Wright and Naomi Watts have to offer.)
“lol, the original French title was The Grandmothers which wasn’t very appealing and not too kind to watts and wright…”
French people are deep. (I was not really referring to the title of the film here.) And in my opinion, their sense of – say – sarcasm and humor is akin to our (East/Southeast Asian) own to an extent. I personally believe, sometimes many Anglophone viewers just didn’t get the jokes and nuances in our (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc.) films and movies, or even the Francophone pieces for that matter. But — I may be wrong — it seems French, Spanish and Italian viewers get nuances in our (Asian) films better.
Sidenote aside, looking forward to see what Robin Wright has to offer.
And if I could, I’d like to watch it in English first, and then in French with or without English subtitle. French language is elegant…. And I spotted something linguistically interesting in the (French) subtitle featured here, even if French people would consider it too common a register.
Thanks for the ups, Ryan.
And I spotted something linguistically interesting in the (French) subtitle featured here,
The J Viewer. An you tell us what you saw? I’m always curious about how thoughts translate across cultures. In the case of film dialogue, in the literal sense I wonder how much nuance is lost with subtitle translations.
The two boys are hot
even if the reviews hasn’t been so good, I’m still quite curious about this film. Robin Wright is usually a quite underated actress!
lol, the original French title was The Grandmothers which wasn’t very appealing and not too kind to watts and wright… but I do agree Perfect Mothers is very fitting imo! The only thing missing from the movie is some girl on girl and guy on guy action 🙂
The Sundance reviews I read weren’t kind to this film, but they did like Wright. She was really quite extraordinary in Sorry, Haters and White Oleander. And, of course, she will always be The Princess Bride, though I first knew her as Kelly Capwell. The AMPAS have never recognized her, but she’s always gone her own way, which is kind of cool.
Two Mothers.
It must be called ‘Perfect Mothers’ in France, but in the English-speaking world, it’s called ‘Two Mothers’.
Since Naomi Watts spent most of The Impossible doing one of the following…:
– Crying (standard Naomi)
– With her tits out (standard Naomi)
– Crying with her tits out (standard Naomi)
… I’ll certainly be attending Two Mothers. Not that I wouldn’t have seen it anyway. N-Watts ’til I die!
ah, ok… thanks, Paddy. I’ll fix that.
how is it that only the French can see that these mothers are perfect?
how about the fact that name of the Doris Lessing novel is in fact called The Grandmothers.
I do like a wet steamy trailer…and with French subtitles.