Poly Movie Review - Portrait of a Marriage

I had such high hopes for this movie!  It's based on the true story of renowned feminist writer Vita Sackville-West, during the early part of the 20th century.  It follows her through her marriage to diplomat and writer Harold Nicolson, and her affair with her childhood friend, novelist Violet Keppel.  Vita and her husband Harold had several same-sex affairs each during their life-long marriage, including a relationship between Vita and famous author Virginia Woolf.  So I was expecting this movie to rank up there with Carrington, which I also reviewed and loved.

But this movie did not have the same feel.

( Spoiler Alert! )

This movie should have been a classic poly story.  Even the biography sounded more poly than the movie ended up being.  It's not the ending of various relationships that make this story not-poly, it's the screaming, jealous, drama that made it not poly.  The movie portrayed the women as jealous, spiteful, deceitful, selfish women who completely screwed over their husbands.  Even the gay husband with his same-sex lovers and STD was a more sympathetic character, and his willingness to overlook his wife's lesbian relationships as long as it didn't destroy their family should have set this up perfectly for a poly arrangement.  And knowing that, in real life, the main character did, in fact, continue to have relationships outside of her marriage (as did her husband), this movie could have portrayed all of this in a much more poly light, like the way Carrington did.

But it didn't.  I really wish I could put this movie on the poly list, because even with the drama in Carrington, it was still clearly about people who understood the concept of multiple loving relationships.  But this one was not.  It only showed this one multiple-person relationship and the "multiple" part is what destroyed it.  Knowing that Vita, in real life, continued to have outside relationships leads me to believe that her life was more poly than this movie portrayed it, like Carrington.  Which then leads me to suspect that the script-writer disapproved of open relationships (or at least of women having same-sex affairs) and wrote that tone into the story.  I'm highly disappointed.

For more movie reviews, click on the "reviews (movies)" tag below.  For a list of poly movies, visit www.theinnbetween.net/polymovies.html

Poly Movie Review - Whatever Works

http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Whatever-Works/70114945?strkid=353249791_0_0&strackid=5527d0d14ebd642d_0_srl&trkid=222336 - Netflix
http://amzn.to/2wdfZCT - Amazon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178663/ - IMDB

Whatever Works by Woody Allen, was recommended to me by corpsefairy.  I'm not a Woody Allen fan.  I get awfully tired of his neurotic-old-man-gets-hot-younger-woman schtick that seems to be the only kind of relationship he is capable of writing about.  But corpsefairy told me this movie has a functional poly relationship as sub-characters and that I should watch it.

So I did.

I was pleasantly surprised.  The main character IS a neurotic old man who gets a hot younger woman, but I liked it anyway.  Boris is a cranky, atheist, nihilist, genius, egomaniac, and other than the nihilism part getting tiresome rather early, I actually kinda liked his character.  He bitched about religion and stupid people, which I can TOTALLY get behind.  His constant dismissive and condescending attitude towards others, assuming that everyone is dumber than him, got annoying, but otherwise, I found I had a lot in common with the old crank.

( The Plot With Spoilers )

So I liked the movie because the protagonist was a cranky, atheist, son of a bitch, and the poly triad had no drama or issues whatsoever.  Marietta discovered much more of herself through her relationship with her two male partners, which is exactly what happens in poly relationships (if you do them "right") and is one of the greatest benefits to poly relationships.  The relationship worked and the movie ended with the triad still functioning and happy.  And throwing in that bit about the homophobic, gun-toting Republican coming out as gay was just a fabulous cherry on top.

I recommend the movie for a bit of light viewing, and it definitely deserves to be on the poly list, even though the poly family is not the main plot focus.

For more movie reviews, click on the "reviews (movies)" tag below.  For a list of poly movies, visit www.theinnbetween.net/polymovies.html