The Frame

Wow. I was expecting to like this, because of the Audrey Hepburn factor, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it is. I may have to revise my opinion of director Stanley Donen after this. Hepburn and Albert Finney play a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapsing. As they drive to a party which neither really wants to go to, they think back and remember other times in their marriage, both good and bad; these other times are intercut with the present, but here’s the thing. They’re all the present. Each of these formative periods takes place during a trip of some sort. We get their initial courtship as Europe-hopping students, their honeymoon road trip through England, their vacation with Finney’s former girlfriend and her family (yeah, it’s as awkward as it sounds), and a few other trips. Each transition to a new time period is triggered by a car passing–a car which they will be driving in a different phase of their life. At first I thought this was just a visual trick, but Donen’s thinking much deeper than that. Each of these times has made the couple who they are, and each time is somehow present when they consider whether or not to break up. As a conceit, it’s simple but brilliant, and Donen and the actors carry it out beautifully.
Superior