Crush Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)May 3rd, 2002
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Crush has "chick flick" written all over it, but the film shouldn't cause too much suffering throughout the male community. Granted, I groaned during an early scene depicting a trio of women sitting around, drinking gin and complaining about men, but this Brit import never degenerates into the "You go, girl!" shtick that would plague an American production starring three females either careening into middle age or already hip-deep in it.
We meet(-cute) the women as Crush's opening credits roll. Kate (Andie MacDowell, Harrison's Flowers) is a dour schoolmarm in her late 30s at a posh private institution in Cotswolds, Janine (Imelda Staunton) is pushing 50 and is a police officer in that tiny village, and three-time divorcee Molly (Anna Chancellor) is a 40-something local doctor whose love of men is surpassed only by her love of rich men. The three ladies, who are about as lucky in love as Buffy's latest foes, meet each Monday to drink, smoke, snack and gripe about their pitiful lives, with the winner earning the title of Saddest Fuck of the Week, as well as a box of delicious sweets (Crush was tentatively titled Sad Fuckers Club during production, possibly a spoof on First Wives Club).
Their dynamic is thrown off-balance when Kate falls for a replacement organist at a local funeral, which concludes with both several bad "organ" puns and a scene where Kate gets ravished in the cemetery (second alternate title: No Weddings and a Funeral...and Then Maybe a Wedding). Not only is Jed (Kenny Doughty) a decade and a half younger than Kate, but he was one of her students 10 years ago. She tries to keep their relationship a secret, but because their village is so small, Janine and Molly eventually find out about it.
The other two women are initially shocked, but neither believe Kate and Jed will last more than a few weeks. Once it becomes clear the youngster is in it for the long haul, Janine and Molly try their best to disrupt the relationship in a selfish attempt to reassemble their weekly pity party. They even whisk Kate off for a weekend in Paris, but she bails on them and runs home to Jed.
Things take a surprisingly tragic turn more than halfway into Crush, but not quite in the last reel where you'd expect to find something this dramatic and integral to the story. Its placement was enough to catch me off guard and draw me back into the film, which had been slowly losing my interest. Until that point, the highlights in writer-director John McKay's (it's his feature film debut, after two successful shorts) script had been a scene where Jed explains exactly how he ratchets up the emotion in his organ playing, and a nicely done montage of the two lovebirds having sex in various places where sex is typically not had. Crush is also glowingly photographed by Henry Braham (Waking Ned Devine, The Land Girls, Roseanna's Grave), who is certainly no stranger to making small villages in the UK look like places we want to visit.
While the aforementioned tragedy does breathe some life into the story, the results do get a bit sappy and easy to predict. MacDowell logs another impressive performance after a string of unwatchable flops, which is great to see, but I'm sure more than a few women might object that the only member of the SFC to get any play is the former model who still looks like she's in her late 20s (and the only American in the cast, to boot). I have a feeling Crush isn't so much the realistic dialogue between women as it is what guys hope the realistic dialogue between women is (the writer-director is, remember, a man). His subtle message seems to be that dry, uptight women merely need some serious deep-dicking to make them socially tolerable. Now that's my kind of chick flick!
1:52 - R for sexuality and language
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