The Prince of Tides

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Probably a prime ambition factor for HBO' s critically acclaimed Sopranos series, and one of the most relevant work of singer! actress! politician! director! diva! culture icon! Incredible! Nose! Enigma! Barbra Streisand, The Prince of Tides managed to overcome focal risk factors and sinister mockeries time tends to stain romantic drama with. Featuring the Nick Nolte we are most likely relate to as his powerful, natural archetype character, Streisand's 1991 effort still has, and probably always will have more significant sequences of timeless values to appreciate than fearsome acts of overkilling romantic appeals.

As a fine testament of a world about to adept for a quite swifter pace though yet having to recognize, The Prince of Tides definitely enjoys a somewhat massive caliber of a spotlight shining on it timelessly, granted you are willing to enter into the Halls of Movie Romance and leave bias at the checkroom. For that, I urge you OH!, Dearest Visitor, as there is a first time to almost everything, and romance is bad only if you happened to be left out of it for a lifetime. Or two.

The Prince of Tides probably would focus it's attention on the adult lives of three siblings, granted all of them would have the chance to lead an adult life. Unfortunately though, only two of the three are alive by the time we join in, a circumstance to hint at a vague, though probably quite dark of a spot in the past of this stable, rational family buildup. This cautious notion is subtly emphasized by the fact that both siblings seem to have a hard time of coexisting with their mother, as all encounters between them and the female ancestor have a massive chance to end up in intense verbal assaults.

The sister, Sally - Blythe Danner - even has a definite history of suicidal tendencies, as if running from a past unbearable hopelessly, indeed. Her determination to end her inner sufferings prove quite radical by the time the flick starts, thus we have the chance to join in when a psychiatrist is assigned to identify and threat Sally's problems. The buildup takes quite an interesting turn in it's very early segment, though: as Sally is yet unable to communicate with the psychiatrist, the doctor - Susan Lowenstein, offered by Barbra Streisand - asks for the brother's help to localize the possible sources of traumas Sally is incapable to deal with. Probably will shock you considerably when I am to tell you that the role of the brother, Tom Wingo is rendered by Nick Nolte, thus Streisand's and Nolte's characters quickly end up developing a personal relationship to have way much more to it than "professional relations" between doctor and patient usually have.

Brief, yet intense moments are devoted to present the focal conflict points between the two, though all these differences have their romantic, all-natural tendencies of boiling down to conclusion periods of calmness and sane regret, emotions to bring these two, deeply alienated characters closer and closer to each other. Oh, seems we have some explanations to do: both Lowenstein and Wingo seem to be massively estranged and unhappy individuals indeed, yet they are quite strong characters as well, thus being capable to form stable inner compromises, still having and keeping both desire and capacity to love flawlessly and respectfully - funny ideas, yes? Though both of them live lives that are painfully far from feeding these urges, they seem aware enough to recognize a rare and precious opportunity of embracing something that is very pleasant to appreciate and being attracted to in the other.

A classy, elegant interpretation we see on the very subject of similarly classy, similarly elegant relational developments that tend to take place in real life between sober, complex, "real" individuals. Though the characters are cautiously seeking and quickly find very precise motives to open up while keeping their dignity intact, the mere qualities of the intellectual/spiritual (?) engagement of psychiatry sessions they conduct inevitably lead them to a field where options to not-to submit for the other character's feminine/masculine appeals are superscarce.



If all this sounds idealistic, then we probably arrived to the correct interpretation field, yet we should not forget that these pleasant emotional fields we see here are not necessarily of fiction, they are probably rare to find because of all the outer, less significant emotional layers people tend to develop for themselves to rely on and operating with. These characters yet possess the capacity to recognize and live with an occasion to share most precious aspects of the non-tainted inner realities they are living through. Even better, both the author of the story, Pat Conroy and Streisand do decent of a job to stay away from regions to present explicit emotional masturbation to radically shock us with.

There is little doubt that the latter portion of the movie has a lot to do with this sober, welcomed decision, as massive attention is devoted to the curios aspect of how Lowenstein's and Wingo's past is to react to their freshly developed relation, serving the movie both with memorable, highly original peek moments, and the oldschool narrative pathways of presenting bridges-of-respect slowly and surely forming over gaps between Wingo and somewhat redundant supportive characters, mainly Lowenstein's son. Though the relation of this kid and Wingo utilizes drama language you are probably overly familiar and quite possibly, utterly fed up with, it still remains a tolerable aspect of a layered storyline, though ultimately having no chance to offer evident, timeless content to the global buildup of the movie.

This is not something we could tell of the dark secret that the past of Wingo's family seems to conceal. A destructive, radical memento will be suspected, then later found and even exploited by Lowenstein, supporting The Prince of Tides both with quite a significant drama appeal, simultaneously pushing the boundaries of intimate emotions and the very acceptance of these to the farthest regions we could possibly conceive. A quite welcomed, additional aspect we should cheerfully identify on the narrative part, as the Wingo family's secret even renders convincing, decent thriller elements to a rather strong, stable mixture of drama and romance. All these circumstances offer a special narrative experience to speak fluent in various storytelling languages, especially via the radical tonal differences these three directions clearly and strictly exhibit. Truly can't think of any reasons you might have to dislike this installment - a safe bet for a movie that faced time rampant with considerable dignity and kept it's conclusions both intact and relevant.



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