Mid Life Women on the Verge

The Diplomat, On the Verge, The Last Thing He Told Me, and Tiny Beautiful Things have all made my recent "zeitgeist of women in their middle years" watch list

The show, Fleishman is in Trouble did a good job of depicting a certain malaise that sets in with women of a certain age and socio-economic stability, when they arrive at a level of consciousness about their life, their sacrifices and how one decision can close the door on a multitude of others.

In the show, Libby (played adeptly by Lizzy Caplan and which I expound upon here), the narrator, leaves a fledgling career, albeit more open options existence as the sole female writer at a frat-mospheric, GQ men’s magazine stand-in, in NYC, sometime before settling into married life with lawyer, nice guy (Ted from HIMYM) in suburban NJ where she devotes her days to a steady schedule of kid pickups, meal times, kid play, and trying to care for her family. She’s grieving a loss but unclear what it is and how to label it.

It’s only now in her early 40s when the story picks up, and she reconnects with old college friends, that she starts to re-evaluate her life choices, and dig into why she decided to forego her dreams of being a writer in the first place. She’s lacking personal fulfillment. She misses the ease of youth and the freedom she perceives her male friends benefit from - one is separated from a spouse, with kids and the other single. Both guys are still living in NYC and retaining some shred of their former selves, even if just through osmosis of being in the city. The latent idea here being that by opening door #1 (husband, kids, big house, nice neighborhood, stability), she’s had to shut door #2 (excitement, uncertainty, carefree life, risk) - the one that afforded Libby the privilege of choice.

Libby is one of a number of portrayals on screen of women in their 40s wrestling with life choices, where representation on screen of this period of life, has grown. If the recent sale of Reese Witherspoon’s very lucrative production company, Hello Sunshine (for $900 million in 2021) is anything to cue off of, and Apple TV+ doubling down on that partnership with The Morning Show and now, The Last Thing He Told Me, there’s a strong market out there for middle aged women watching women like them or at least, ~ their age, on screen.

Source: NPR

‘Nobody is sitting around thinking, what can I shoot in L.A. that’s going to have a 50-year-old woman in it?’ She’s [Reese] like, ‘You’ve got to create your own stuff,’” Garner says in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “All women in this town owe a debt of gratitude to Reese.”

On the Verge

I would also argue that women of a certain age owe a debt of gratitude to actress Julie Delpy - the ultimate Gen-X thinking woman’s/ existential angsty film femme. In the 90s, contrary to popular opinion, Julie Delpy had me at “hello.” Not Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Or Tom Cruise in anything, but I did really enjoy Knight & Day (2010). Seriously, give the movie a whirl. It’s entertaining as heck. Anywho, back to Delpy… I first came upon her, by watching French films with my brother in high school, specifically the trilogy (Trois Couleurs: Rouge, Bleu, Blanc) by Krzysztof Kieślowski, I was hooked by her ethereal, lightness of being and how she could convey such depth in her expression and directness.

From there, Delpy went on to more commercial success when she was paired with the equally stunning Gen X emo-intellectual heartthrob, Ethan Hawke in Richard Linklater’s trilogy on a theme of a love match between two soulmates fated to spend eternity with one another - Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013)- where we got to bear witness to how a conversation, full of all the freedom and hope stuffed into a single night, can truly be a transformative experience. The films are an ode to chance, circumstance and choice. The last one, in particular, has Delpy’s character, Celine, now middle aged, with kids and coupled with Hawke, wrestling with her feeling the inequity often present in being a caregiver (i.e. mom), having to choose between a career or kids, whereas Jesse (Hawke), the husband and father, hasn’t had to limit his choice or curb his ambition, and is a successful writer.

In many ways, Delpy, an accomplished director, singer, and screenwriter, in addition to her acting credits, could be channeling a “what if” version of Celine into her portrayal of Justine, in On the Verge (Netflix), where she plays a very successful French chef with her own posh LA restaurant and brand (and a book), who has the career but lacks the loving partnership, as her husband belittles her and is very envious of her success and this plays out in rather sadistic ways over the course of 10 episodes. Her relationship with her son is a positive one, but she’s running herself ragged with pick ups, exhausted, while her out-of-work husband blames her for taking them out of France, where he believes he could have been a renowned architect. Justine has the career (purpose) and is still seeking escape and seemingly stuck in a joy-less marriage, begging the question of, “Can a woman really have it all?”

Rounding out the cast of female friends in the show, are Anne (Elizabeth Shue), a hippy, CBD gummy inhaling, heiress with her own clothing line and a gender fluid son, who has seemingly loving marriage, before her husband decides he’s unhappy with her one night after she jokingly mentions her friend’s unhappy marriage and then leaves her and her son and their nanny; Yasmin (Sarah Jones), an affluent mother and wife to a tech entrepreneur who has a back story because why else would the show spend so much time on some of the existential angst she has; and Ell (Alexia Landeau), a poor, single mom, who starts a hit YouTube show with her kids about a dysfunctional family. Ell is probably one of the show’s highlights as well, come to think of it.

While the show is “meh” in many parts and I found myself speeding up these mediocre parts (basically any scene that didn’t have Delpy and/or Giovanni Ribisi in it), it did make for a truly binge-able experience on a 10 hour plane ride. Unfortunately, the show did not get renewed for a second season, but I can only wish for another fresh go at comedic greatness on the mid-life female experience from Delpy.

Note: On the Verge is not on the caliber of Dead to Me in its deeper kind of ride-or-die friendship vibe, but it’s a quartet of unrelatable, but relatable, realistic, but totally unreal women. Like Real Housewives, but with better lighting, editing, more cerebral women, and less botox and filler. I know this probably makes sense to a segment of my readers, so thanks for that.

Source: Chronically Streaming / Justine (Julie Delpy) works on her book in a storage closet with a really old cat that poops all over the house.

The Diplomat

Can former mouseketeer, Y2K pixie hair toting college student who was lovesick for Ben in Felicity, Keri Russell (The Americans) do any role half ass? I don’t think so. Her latest U.S. Netflix hit (not to be confused with the UK version on which it’s based), The Diplomat, has Joan Allen Russell, starring as 1/2 of an ambassador powerhouse couple, deployed to England, to diffuse a potential landmine of warmongers, posing as heads of state. Her husband is Hal Wyler, portrayed by Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle), a charismatic, yet somewhat principled, former foreign policy mastermind/ambassador who is now playing second fiddle to Russell’s Kate. This is a role reversal and shift in power dynamic for the couple, as Kate, has spent the better of her career as Hal’s #2 helping him do his thing. She really wants to head up the U.S. presence in Kabul and at the last minute she’s appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to the UK (why? who knows), which she feels unprepared for and asks for Hal’s help, just until she gets her feet wet. This is England, so that could literally and should literally be a minute.

Oh, and she and Hal are married in name only. How did the show phone this one in? Too subtly, or British-like cause it went over my head. Apparently, Russell/Kate asked the host when touring her swanky new UK digs if there were sheets on the bed in the east wing. I’m making up the wing part, but it was something to this effect. And this is code for “hubby is sleeping in another part of the house away from wife” but like I said, it went right over this American’s head. Couldn’t they have said something about the thread count? Now that would have tipped me off.

At times, Russell’s Wyler presents “Carrie Mathison” (Homeland) levels of harried, frenzied, impulsive genius, neglected woman leaning into that problematic female archetype often portrayed on screen. See Anna Friel’s Marcella. There’s just a hint of madness brimming on the surface, ready to boil over into self-destruction that can burn the house down. Kate Wyler, on the show, seems at times in dire need of the strategy support of her husband or emotional/romantic needs, of her love interest, played by David Gyasi. Every time she’s distrusting of Gyasi’s Dennison, or upset with him, she just huffs off, prompting him to chase after her to talk which then leads to a make up. This didn’t really show consistency in her characterization, especially as Kate Wyler is a skilled negotiator who even makes the comment on the show, “There’s nothing I can’t talk out. [I’m a diplomat] That’s what I do.” And yet, when it comes to her personal life, she’s all talked out. Well, I guess that tracks.

The Last Thing He Told Me

Adapted from the Laura Dave novel, The Last Thing He Told Me on Apple TV+, the new mystery drama about a woman, Hannah (Jennifer Garner), whose husband, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) mysteriously disappears, leaving her to care for her teenage stepdaughter, Bailey (Anjourie Rice), in an Architectural Digest-grade Sausalito houseboat, and who wants nothing to do with her, is entertaining, at least.

Hannah, like Justine in On the Verge is a thriving artist. Here, it’s the oddly specific craft of woodcarving. She gets dismissive jokes on this occupation by Bailey, because Bailey tends to like to be mean to her and only likes her grilled cheeses. Point being, Hannah had a seemingly plentiful, less stressful life prior to Bailey and Owen, begging the question, was the 1-2 years of romantic love with hunky and dreamy Owen worth the cost of this shitstorm of a mess Owen’s left for her to clean up? The cynic in me thinks Hannah might be thinking the same question throughout the caper. As a caveat, I read the novel a few years back, so seeing the story unfold on screen is a bit of an indulgence and Garner is always in her element when she’s playing physical, quick thinking, quicker acting, roles (Sidney Bristow, Alias).

Like any good mystery, there’s some suspending belief elements, some defying any reason or logic, and odd memory reliance on the part of a teenager to basically solve the entire mystery based on a day she remembers in broken fragments from when she was between 3 and 5 or maybe 7. But yeah, if you can get over this, it’s exciting to see Garner/Hannah still have the action-packed moves after all the Alias years that have gone by.

Tiny Beautiful Things

Kathryn Hahn is back! And in author Cheryl Strayed (Wild) adapted for Hulu TV, show Tiny Beautiful Things. In this show, Hahn plays Clare, a talented writer, who doesn’t write anymore when the show starts, but works as an admissions officer in an assisted living facility and has am estranged husband (Danny) and a teenage daughter (Rae). Things aren’t great at home and Clare, stumbles upon a chance to reboot her life a bit when she’s offered up a gig as an advice columnist of “Dear Sugar.” Through giving advice and receiving the solicitations for help from her readers, she starts to heal and come to terms with her own life and where she is at.

Through a series of flashbacks and present time, we understand that Clare’s mom died when she was in her early 20s and her brother is financially dependent on her to some degree. She still grieves her mom’s loss, feels responsible for her brother, and beats herself up about what a punk she was to her mom before her mom’s passing, even though there is nothing in her behaviour as exposed through the flashbacks that indicated Clare was hurtful or unkind - more so that she was acting like a normal teenager, ignorant of her mother’s imminent death, and had a pretty loving relationship with her.

Quote from Clare (on grief and loss): It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.

Clare is still recovering and mending from a type of grief that oozes at all the most inconvenient types and makes for a somewhat “shit-stirring” persona but I’m here for it. She’s smart, vulnerable, and really needs to find a place to sleep that’s not the assisted living facility.

On a personal note, this show speaks to me as I am one of those women who lost their mother at a young age and works everyday to navigate life, marriage and motherhood in the absence of that attachment - in its severed state. I get that people have all kinds of complicated relationships with their mothers, and in some cases choose to be estranged. It’s still not the same, as never having a way in your adult life to experience that person that brought you to life, ever again and to know that finality. There’s a type of pain to that, that know really gets unless they, too have experienced it. So give me more Clares and more messy mom-less stories.