Happy Friday Eve, friends! Hope you’re coasting into the weekend.
Some news you can definitely use: CNN has a nifty calculator to help estimate what your stimulus payment will be!
And maybe some news you didn’t know about in the American Rescue Plan and why experts think it will cut child poverty in half (!!) — read about “A Policy Revolution in Aid for Children” in The New York Times.
Here’s a good read from The New Yorker about something that could be coming our way soon: a New Deal-style Civilian Climate Corps.
Finally, I needed this today. Maybe you did, too.
Now, what you came for…
DAY 364: A New Leaf (available on Criterion Channel and for free with ads on Pluto TV)
Fifty years ago today, Elaine May’s A New Leaf made its premiere in New York City. It was not the movie she wanted. (Allegedly, the now 102-minute film ran somewhere in the range of three hours in her preferred cut!) The story lost subplots about murders and misogyny along the way, and May — one of exceedingly few women directors in the Hollywood boys club — grew so disenchanted that she tried to get her name taken off the film. Yet even with all the studio interference, I still think this is a comedic masterpiece. Perhaps May did not mean to make the most sincere ironic movie ever made. But A New Leaf has a disarming charm as love and appreciation sneak up on its characters — and us.
May (unwittingly) stars as Henrietta, a woman of tremendous value hiding in plain sight, her true worth often lost to those who fail to look beyond their clumsy or inelegant behavior. Her lack of social awareness seems to exist because of her surplus of book smarts in the botanical space. A New Leaf plays out like a tragicomedy for May’s character as she falls from her status due to impatient, short-tempered family members. For Henrietta, that’s her new husband Henry Graham (Walter Matthau), a formerly wealthy Manhattanite who becomes a gold digger to maintain his high-class lifestyle. He spots her as the perfect mark for his swindle and proceeds to take advantage of her naivete; meanwhile, the sheer shock of any man taking a romantic interest in her leads Henrietta to drop her critical faculties. Henry feigns infatuation for access to her hand in marriage (and, more importantly, her pocketbook), rarely deigning to speak even the most basic of niceties. Not only can he not feign the slightest interest in Henrietta’s desire to discover and name a new fern, he candidly mocks and denigrates her, even as many of his intricate insults fly right over her head.
In portraying both Henrietta, May makes the audience feel the hurt that her character is unable to feel herself. The pain of Henry’s neglect and spite often bounces right off Henrietta, only to be passed onto the viewer. The genius in May’s turn lies in the ambiguity with which she approaches it. Is her character supposed to be an object of pity? Is it acceptable to laugh at her klutziness or forgetfulness? May’s interpretation of the material suggests that it’s both, complicating any simple read of the story. She never hesitates to make her character’s behavior the butt of a joke, be it a physical gag, like getting caught in the armhole of her dress, or leaning into the uproarious simplicity of an absurd reaction. These moments never shroud the obvious compassion, though, that May brings to her portrayals of the character.
Don’t expect a contemporary banner-waving feminist reclamation in A New Leaf; May is far too complex and contradictory a figure to do something that easy. Yet Henrietta exists as so much more than just an accessory or portal of emotional discovery for the main man in her life. In fact, it’s largely because her character isn’t the protagonist that May can find opportunities for comedy and speak to her overarching sensibility. Directness just isn’t really her style. The poignancy of May’s work comes not from broadcasting the fact that overlooked women’s lives have innate, disrespected value. Instead, she lays a framework that allows the audience to arrive organically at this emotional truth.
P.S. — Much of this recommendation comes from a piece I wrote in 2019 for Bright Wall/Dark Room that analyzed A New Leaf, May’s first film, in conversation with The Waverly Gallery, her most recent appearance on stage.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall