Contributed By Esther Ang
Yes, she has done it again. Black Swan’s Natalie Portman steals the limelight with yet another dark portrayal in the family drama Love And Other Impossible Pursuits.
The movie opens with a heart-warming prelude of proud parents, Emilia (Portman) and Jack (Scott Cohen) in the delivery ward with their newborn, Isabel. Fast-forward to the present, and we see an out-of-sorts Emilia trying to be a good stepmother to William (Charlie Tahan) while coping with the apparent death of Isabel. Her marriage to Jack, already under strain from the caustic treatment she receives from his ex-wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow), unravels further as she puts up a defensive front against her loved ones.
Her increasingly eccentric behavior soon manifests in her incapability to care for her stepson and things come to a head when she has a public breakdown. At first, the audience is led to think that her decline into angst is caused by her unresolved bitterness toward her father, but the final act reveals a secret she has been harboring, one that proves too heavy for her alone to shoulder.
Portman juggles her role as a grieving mother, a struggling stepmother and an untruthful wife with compelling depth, drawing the audience into Emilia’s sea of emotions. Love And Other Impossible Pursuits is a hit-or-miss—some might find it too draggy, but the rawness with which it depicts the struggles of a person wracked with guilt and sorrow makes for a heart-warming bowl of chicken soup for grieving souls.
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