There are perhaps three scenes in the film Swallow that actually achieve an emotional truth that resonated with me. They all feature the main character, Hunter, and her interactions with people trying to help her. Two of those scenes are between Hunter and her therapist. One takes place under a bed. Hunter has crawled under it to escape the world. Richie, Hunter’s husband, along with his parents, have hired Luay, a caretaker from Damascus, to look after Hunter. Luay crawls under the bed with her to make sure she’s alright and to keep her company. These scenes made me believe the connections between the characters within them.
The rest of the movie is filled with interactions I didn’t believe for a second.
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There’s a scene toward the end of the comedy Late Night in which Emma Thompson’s character, the hard-driving talk show host Katherine Newbury, climbs multiple flights of stairs in a Brooklyn walk-up in order to have a heart to heart with Molly, her newest writer. Out of nowhere – or perhaps out of the early 2000s – a cheery, vaguely inspirational pop song comes on the soundtrack as Katherine huffs and puffs up those stairs, stopping at one point to take off her shoes in order to aid her ascent. It’s one of a few cliché moments (also included is an obligatory montage, showing hard work resulting in success) that stand out for all the wrong reasons in what is otherwise a smart, funny, and fresh take on both feminism and cultural diversity in the work place.
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