'My Life So Far' gets its caber up for romance

COURTESY YORK SQUARE CINEMAS BEGORRAH!: Scottish boy meets world.

One of the more appealing characteristics of Hugh Hudson's new movie, My Life So Far, is its pastoral scenery, which is devoid of current movies' increasingly prevalent alien invasions and catastrophic explosions. Instead of this usual formula, the film tells the refreshing tale of the Macintoshes, a Scottish family living in 1927, as it is seen through the eyes of little Fraser (Tcheky Karyo), their exceptionally adventurous and thoughtful 10-year-old son.

The setting of the film is Kilovan, a large and beautiful estate in the Scottish countryside, where Fraser lives with a seemingly endless stock of relatives. There is his father, Arthur (Colin Firth), an energetic and idealistic "genius and inventor," as his son affectionately dubs him, whose two great passions are Beethoven and the Bible; his nervous, beautiful mother, Moira (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), adored by both father and son; Grandma Macintosh (Eileen McCallum), the household's matriarch, who still mourns the death of her late husband; and an overwhelming number of siblings and servants.

Every so often, Uncle Morris (Malcom McDowell) stops by. Morris is Moira's stately elder brother, who seems to carry a good deal of weight in the household—despite the fact that he lives elsewhere. From the start, something about Morris rubs us the wrong way. His dress is lavish, he smokes fancy cigarettes, his voice is nasal and unappealing, and his demeanor is both commanding and abrasive. Arthur at one point remarks that Morris "has no soul," and we believe it. When he suddenly brings his sensual young French fiancée, Eloise (Irene Jacob), to the household, this emptiness is made even more apparent. We wonder how on earth he managed to attain such a woman.

The entire family immediately falls in love with Eloise, especially Fraser and Arthur, who each begin pursuing her in his own way. An odd, unprecedented tension springs up between father and son, and for the first time we see a somewhat bitter, competitive, lascivious streak in an obviously caring father and husband. Of course, both fail in their pursuits—the movie is ultimately interested not in the family's various love tribulations, but in the implications and consequences of the family's overlapping passions.

Fraser's encounters with Eloise pique his curiosity in women, and he begins to explore his dead grandfather's collection of pornography that is hidden in the attic. With the aid of the collection, he grills his sister on her nascent relationship with a French pilot whom Fraser calls "the Emperor of the Sky," and who periodically roars his plane overhead to the delight of the family. The results of Arthur's attempted dalliances with Eloise, however, are more dire: his marriage with Moira is threatened, and tension falls on the household. The uproar intensifies when we learn that Morris plans to take over the estate and evict the family.

Though the plot of the movie may appear to be somewhat trite, My Life so Far is actally a well-crafted and rather complicated film. Throughout it, there are obvious tensions between the Christian morals that Arthur continuously preaches and the sexuality that runs rampant—it mirrors the conflict between Art-hur's love of Beet-hoven's soaring tunes and Morris' affinity for jazz. Similarly, the household's adamant Christianity seems to be opposed to the lasciviousness of Greek gods and goddesses, about whom Fraser reads in his grandfather's books. At the beginning of the film, we are told that Fraser is not allowed in the attic because "that is where the devil lurks." It's no coincidence, then, that the attic is where the boy finds the books and gains a knowledge of good and evil.

In the end, though, the film makes a crucial distinction between wanton sexuality and true passion, and the latter ultimately has in itself a redeeming quality. Arthur and Moira's simple love for one another saves their marriage. Grandma Macintosh is at one point overcome by emotion for her late husband, and we realize that, despite his taste for pictures of nude women, he had been a wonderful man and a loving companion. There is something delightful about the budding romance between Fraser's sister and the pilot who seems to fall from the sky. And Fraser, in the end, adds, "The devil doesn't lurk in the attic- because I lurk there." There is nothing evil in an innocent boy's curiosity about sex, a truth even Arthur recognizes. Indeed, it seems that the devil is embodied by the soulless Uncle Morris.

Despite its lack of visual effects and stunts, My Life So Far is a rare kind of movie: one with both a complex moral vision and a satisfying sweetness.

Editor's note: My Life So Far represents yet another chapter in the York Square saga. The cinema's first first-run movie in what— months? years? decades?—was yanked on Wed., Sept. 22 by Miramax because it wasn't drawing crowds. Alas, alack, and all apologies. Try catching this movie somewhere else.

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