{"id":121,"date":"2002-04-30T06:48:49","date_gmt":"2002-04-30T13:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=121"},"modified":"2008-06-16T06:49:45","modified_gmt":"2008-06-16T13:49:45","slug":"surviving-desire-variety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/?p=121","title":{"rendered":"Surviving Desire – Variety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Variety, Jaunary 20, 1992<\/em>
\nSurviving Desire<\/strong> By Roberta Bernstein<\/p>\n

Independent filmmaker Hal Hartley (“Trust,” “The Unbelievable Truth”) makes a satisfyingly weird TV debut with “Surviving Desire.” Like his iconoclastic films, the “American Playhouse” comedy depicts people lost in existential black holes who, by virtue of their endless quest for answers, end up appearing all the more sane.<\/p>\n

The story revolves around the overeducated and depressed college literature professor Jude (Martin Donovan), and the student he falls for, the pretty and somewhat pretentious Sophie [sic] (Mary B. Ward). The opening scences set the tone: Jude, reading a passage from Dostoyevsky on love, for apparently the 100th time, is getting books thrown at him by bored and agitated students; and Sophie, in the student cafe with her roommate, is writing notes in her journal for, as she says dreamily, “a story with him in the center — or someone like him. I’ll call it…’Him.'”<\/p>\n

Jude and Sophie get together — only, of course, to break up. They don’t know who, or what, they really want. By the end, however, Jude does understand — as he writes on the blackboard — that “knowing is not enough.”<\/p>\n

The dialogue, full of funny non sequiturs and refreshing insights, occasionally tries too hard: “Ideas” and “statements” (“love without faith is infatuation,” “all pain is desire,” to name two out of hundreds), are issued so liberally that they are in danger of becoming platitudes.<\/p>\n

Donovan and Ward are excellent, as are Matt Malloy as a misfit and Jude’s best friend, and Julie Sukman as Sophie’s roommate, both of whom ground the flyaway twosome with quick, sharp does of reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Variety, Jaunary 20, 1992 Surviving Desire By Roberta Bernstein Independent filmmaker Hal Hartley (“Trust,” “The Unbelievable Truth”) makes a satisfyingly weird TV debut with “Surviving Desire.” Like his iconoclastic films, the “American Playhouse” comedy depicts people lost in existential black holes who, by virtue of their endless quest for answers, end up appearing all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martindonovan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}