OF DREAMS AND MONSTERS... "MARNIE"

Ok, I know you guys kinda prefer me writing about the newer things out on the cinema screen. I respect that. This is why this week is about compromises. Something old and something new. Nothing borrowed but my pyjamas are blue so that should count for something. Ehm. Moving on.  Now I picked this film because it has a little bit of something for everything I think. You may have seen the name “Alfred Hitchcock” and automatically assumed “crime and gore” well, here’s some good news for you : Not every film Hitchcock did was a derivative of Psycho. Oh no. Mr Hitchcock was a man of many, many talents not a one trick pony. So this is, in fact, a top notch psychological thriller with some romance and drama thrown in. You’ll like it. I know you will.

Marnie (Tippy Hedren) is many things for many people. She is not a “lady of the night” nor is she a special agent – she is, in fact, a secretary. But she is not exactly content with the life or salary of a secretary. She makes her “real” living changing identities and moving from job to job, robbing the safes of the companies she works for as she goes. And she has got quite a nice little side line going in this way until she stumbles into Rutland Coop. Now the dashing young owner of the company, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) takes a shine to her. He takes a shine to her in a big way. So much so, not only does he want to “make her his” – which is easier said than done, believe you me – but he also wants to cure her of her thieving and lying. What starts as something cross between a love affair and an interesting project for him and a minor inconvenience for Marnie will end up taking the couple on an eventful journey, both psychological and physical, that will lead to more and greater discoveries than either of them could possibly imagine.

Now this is an interesting one. Firstly, it’s a Hitchcock classic as far as suspense goes. This is undoubtedly a voyage of adventure and discovery. And the added benefit? No blood or gore. That’s good news for those of you who are weaker in the stomach area. Mom, yes, that means you too. The chase this time takes place largely in the human psyche. And I have always said, our minds can dream up monsters and horrors greater than anything the “real” world can provide. Of course the construction of the story is picture perfect and you are just chomping on the bit trying to figure out where the whole thing is going, not least because Mr Hitchcock is not exactly renowned for his happy endings. He invented the concept of killing of the lead character mid plot, remember (yes, that was Hitchcock, NOT Game of Thrones).

But why is it, I pondered as I watched, that we get so enthralled in the fates of this typically good looking movie couple ? I am a romantic at heart, but it takes more than “beautiful people” and some /any premise that they are together for me to root for them. Then I did a bit more deep thinking and worked it out, well I worked out my perspective at an answer anyway. See, the film taps into what we all really, deep down inside want in life. At a certain age, we have all got hang ups, old wounds, battle scars… Things that have hurt us, that makes us suspicious or over-protective or whatever your own particular Achilles heel might be. Now, we may or may not voice it openly, as we know this is a rare occurance, but deep down, yes we would love a beautiful stranger of the gender and sexual preference of our choice to sweep us off our feet, fall madly in love with us, face up to all our excess baggage, not shy away or be daunted by it at all, and “cure us” of the baggage. Thus we emerge, perfectly healed, at peace with our past and madly in love. I mean yes, in this particular piece the couple are very “typical Hollywood” – blond beautiful woman with a set of problems clearly (and unabashedly) taken straight from Freud’s own textbooks (at least Hitchcock has the integrity to slip Freud in there too) coupled with a tall dark and handsome Sean Connery who just happens to be a millionaire and an amateur scientist (and thus in possession of the means and knowledge to cure her). I mean the premise is as unrealistic as they come, yes, bosses fall for their secretaries but it is rare that they actually stick around to “cure” them. In fact, like most people, they probably shout “excess baggage” and bail if they have as much baggage as Marnie. Then again, you are so enthralled in the story you can easily put yourself in Marnie’s shoes and have your own “dream relationship” for two hours. This, my friends is the beauty of cinema. Maybe not therapy per se, but catharsis guaranteed…