Ordinary Love

Stays With You Forever.

Romance can be a very tricky genre for filmmakers to tackle because audiences don’t want them to be too corny but they don’t want them to be empty and lack emotional depth. Ordinary Love is a marvelous little indie that is not at all corny and has just the right dosage of emotional depth. The film itself is romantic because of how real it feels. Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville portray Tom and Joan, a married couple whose lives are affected by Joan’s recent breast cancer diagnosis. The day to day regulars of life for them after the diagnosis makes me feel that this must be what it’s like to live with cancer. There are tears and there’s frustration but also affection and gratitude. Of course, this could just as well point more towards who Tom and Joan are as a couple. Having lost their own daughter years ago from something that’s never fully revealed, it’s remarkable that the two of them are as close a couple as Neeson and Manville portray. The chemistry between them is just dazzling, delightful, humorous and tender. Not since Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci in Julie & Julia have I witnessed the portrayal of a marriage that made me want to hug the endearing couple and never let go. The depth of any ocean is how deep someone may be willing to dive for one another. Neeson and Manville dive to the very bottom instantly because the sincerity of their love is never questionable, especially in times of anger at the situation. How could they fear the worst at the extent that they do if they don’t love each other enough to comprehend losing one another?

Ordinary Love is a relatively short film but its beauty stays with you forever. Films like it rely on chemistry and the casting of two exquisite artists made Ordinary Love a film that was guaranteed to succeed excellence. Only through sincerity can the jewel of love be worn and that is why Ordinary Love resonated with me as much as it did. I still have something emotionally indescribably tender around my neck. I shall sleep soundly knowing it is that jewel.