Object of My Affection (film)

I'm not sure what the point of Object of My Affection is.  Is this supposed to be a cautionary tale for young women who think they can turn a gay man straight with enough love and personal attractiveness?  Or is a deliberate plan to depress a romance loving audience by luring them with what looks like an against-all-odds love story and then bait-'n'-switching them with this downer shlock propaganda?  

The movie is about Nina (Jennifer Aniston), a young woman in a problematic relationship with a somewhat controlling man.  She has a spare bedroom in her Brooklyn walk-up, but rather than have him move in, she offers it to George (Paul Rudd), a gay man who has been summarily dumped by his long-term boyfriend, Joley (Tim Daly), and left without a place to live.  Nina and George hit it off, bonding watching movies and going to dance class.  So when Nina finds out she's pregnant and feels unsure about parenting with her boyfriend, she proposes a new scenario: she will instead raise the baby with George who wants to be a dad and never thought he would have the chance.  George initially balks and Nina gives her relationship another shot, but it becomes clear that it isn't going to work.  Unfortunately, while Nina and George have fun nesting and planning, well before the baby is born, George finds himself attracted to a young man he meets on a retreat, a man who is in a complicated relationship with someone else.  Will Nina and George be able to form their unusual friendship-and-love-based family, or will sex get in the way?

This movie is pretty old now, and I suspect the audience I have here is of the end-peeking variety so I'll give the ending away (highlight): George and Nina don't end up together.  George finds that he wants the romance he can have with a man and Nina, in love with George but heartbroken because he doesn't pick her, tells him to move out.  She and the baby will do it alone.   Suffice it to say that this was not what I was hoping for when I picked up the box with the above photo on it.  

I found several things problematic about this film.  Firstly, and least importantly, is how social worker Nina deals with her young inner-city group of girls dealing with sex and how to navigate relationships with boys. To my mind, asking a girl how she feels and handing her a box of condoms is not adequately doing your job, if your job is looking out for said girl's best interests. 

Secondly, George, by his own admission, had at least one successful heterosexual relationship with a girl back in high school.  While he says throughout the movie, "I'm gay" when asked if he and Nina are involved, he is probably bisexual, identifying as gay, rather than only able to attract to men.  Which means his rejection of Nina is a rejection and not a you-do-not-qualify-by-virtue-of-your-girly-parts dismissal.  This makes the ending even more sad and more depressing for anyone who has ever experienced not being chosen identifying with Nina.  

Thirdly, the way the film ends, with an epilogue 5 or 6 years down the line showing a scene so completely optimistic, that, considering the emotional mess present at the end of the story proper, it makes the point of the film seem to be persuasive rather for entertainment's sake.  In other words this is propaganda.  Propaganda that states that fathers can be shunted out at the mother's discretion and have no lingering bad feelings.  Propaganda that posits that kids don't need full-time dads, friends are good enough substitutes.  Propaganda saying friends you meet while pregnant stick around and give you amazing support when you give birth and raise your child.  Propaganda that says you can still be friends and the hard feelings will just go away because of a child.  

Paul Rudd has a lot of charm in this role, and it's nice to see a gay man portrayed in a normal, non-stereotypical way.  Jennifer Aniston, on the other hand, is pretty bland throughout, though her treatment of her ex, her dismissal of his importance, despite her repeated protestations to him that he is the father, makes her more and more unsympathetic as the film progresses.  

All in all, plot-wise this one disappoints, and message-wise it's unpleasant and full of happy lies that people want to believe just now because they are politically correct.  So I'd say - give it a pass unless you want to be ticked off.  

tags: movies