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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
"Cider House" fails where "High Fidelity" rules.
May 15, 2000 | "The Cider House Rules," an earnest and strangely contrite morality movie about the horrors of illegal abortion, has received official designation as the pro-choice film of the year -- if not of all time. And that's OK, I guess. It certainly works hard to remind us about the agonies our society endured when abortion was a crime.
But it is not the courageous or radical film that critics and pro-choice advocates claim it to be. That particular distinction belongs to a movie that has been recognized as little more than a smart romantic comedy with an exceptionally great soundtrack. That movie, which conveys an almost revolutionary take on abortion, is "High Fidelity."
It is not surprising that "High Fidelity," directed by Stephen Frears and based on a 1995 British novel by Nick Hornby, has received almost no attention for its pro-choice politics. Its abortion plot line occupies about three minutes of film time.
Running down the list of things he did to cause his girlfriend to leave, Rob (the protagonist, played by John Cusack) tells us that, among other things, he slept with someone else while his girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle), was pregnant. He quickly explains that he didn't know Laura was pregnant, but Laura knew about his infidelity and, as a result, had an abortion without telling Rob about the pregnancy in the first place.
Rob learns of the abortion during a conversation with Laura about having children. She breaks down and tells him about the abortion. Mortified and full of guilt, Rob responds by chastising Laura for having had an abortion without consulting him. And then he does an amazing thing. He tells the movie audience -- flatly and without melodrama -- that his response was both spineless and insincere. It was not a valid complaint, he admits sheepishly, but just more evidence of his selfish unwillingness to take responsibility for cheating on Laura. And then he starts talking about something else.
That's it.
The abortion incident becomes part of Rob and Laura's history, another example of how they have hurt each other (mostly how he has hurt her). It is not an event that defines who they are or what shape their relationship will take. Laura is not a villain for having had an abortion. Rob is not a villain for using, in a moment of self-serving piousness, the anti-abortion language of "It's my baby too." They are just two people who experience the ups and downs of an intimate relationship, including the reproductive consequences of sex.
"High Fidelity," in a context free of dogma and high drama, represents Laura's abortion as a brief moment of crisis that does not doom her to eternal unhappiness. In fact, the film gives Laura and Rob a happy ending. That is radical. When has a movie ever suggested that a woman can have an abortion and move on with her life?
Certainly that is not the message of "The Cider House Rules," which is based on the 1985 novel by John Irving (who also wrote the screenplay). The first woman we see having an abortion in that movie dies. She is a young, nameless white woman who suffers through a gruesome illegal abortion only to die before she can be helped by the "good" abortionist, Dr. Larch (Michael Caine). Maybe this woman, as a symbol of all the women who endured the horrors of illegal abortion, had to die. But her death is more than just a poignant reference point in the movie; it sets the tone for the whole saga. All the women who have abortions in "The Cider House Rules" are punished in one way or another.
