A COOLER CLIMATE
US, 1999, 95 minutes, Colour.
Sally Field, Judy Davis.
Directed by Susan Seidelman.
A Cooler Climate is a television movie, a star vehicle for Sally Field. She portrays a divorcee in her fifties, who has lost all her possessions, has taken a job in a remote oceanside town as a maid. Judy Davis portrays the rich woman, a neurotic woman with a low self-image who dominates people, who makes Field’s life something of a misery.
The film is a portrait of the divorced woman, her trying to come to terms with her new situation, trying to work with her neurotic employer. She becomes involved in the family situation, the philandering husband, the rebellious daughter. She has her own problems with her own daughter, a well-qualified lawyer, who blames her affair for the break-up of her parents’ marriage.
She also becomes involved with people in the local town, especially a boat builder with whom she begins an affair.
The film is particularly well acted, has a screenplay by playwright Marsha Norman (‘night, Mother). Susan Seidelman directed such films as Desperately Seeking Susan, Cookie and episodes of Sex in the City.
The feminine perspective is very strong in the film, with strong performances by both Sally Field and Judy Davis – leading to some kind of self-understanding on the part of both women, a reconciliation, possibilities for independent and strong lives for the future.
1.The impact of a film by women about women? Audience identification? Experience? Challenge?
2.The picture of the town, away from the cities, a sense of isolation? The community? Homes, the beach, hotels? Authentic? The musical score?
3.The title and its symbolic understanding of the place, the situation of the two women?
4.The focus on Iris, the present, the flashbacks? The train ride, her keeping aloof from the passengers, her arrival and Paula meeting her, Paula’s haughtiness? The nature of the job, thinking it a mistake? Her talking and Paula’s reaction? Wanting to leave? Her room and Paula’s intrusion? Her history, the long marriage, the daughter and the estrangement, her clash with her husband, the younger man, the divorce, losing practically everything? The experience at her age?
5.In the house, working for Paula, buying, fixing the car, meeting the policeman? Meeting the bookseller, going to the drama reading? Meeting Jack? Paula’s husband and his absences? Beth, surliness, bringing the man home, walking around the house naked, the food, having to clean up? Her coping, responsibility? The husband asking her to keep an eye on Beth, increasing her wages?
6.Paula, her personality, her marriage, haughty, low self-esteem, self-assertion? Affluent style? The visit of her friends and their attitude towards her? Her husband, wanting to stay married, his affairs, the estrangement? With her daughter? Iris and her beginning to rely on her? Going to find Beth, the fight, the truth? Her husband leaving her, her complete withdrawal? Beth and the drugs, going to meet her? Going for the walk with Iris, Iris’s fall, helping? The possibility for change?
7.Jack, pleasant, his own history, the friendship with Iris, the relationship, the affair?
8.Beth, alienation from her father, attitude towards her mother, bringing the man home, going out with Iris, talking with her, a new mother-daughter relationship? The drugs, her mother rescuing her?
9.Iris going to work, the computer courses, going for the interview at the hotel, getting the hospitality job, success? Her daughter visiting her and the reconciliation?
10.Themes of marriage, brittle marriages, divorce? The two daughters and the relationship with their mothers? The struggle of a middle-aged woman in this experience?
