The Blind Date

Director: Stanley Tucci
Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thijs Römer
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance 2007
Running time: 80 mins. 
Rating:★★★★

Based on the acclaimed film by Theo Van Gogh. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson play Don and Janna, an estranged married couple who, after suffering a tragedy, go on a series of "blind dates" to reignite their relationship. As the dates progress, Don and Janna reveal their pent-up emotional angst to each other, and wonder if their marriage can be saved.

Improve-blind date-role playing with your significant other seems a bit strange, when it isn't meant for the bedroom. You're unsure, as the audience, why they feel the need to put a variety of personal ads in the paper, meet each other, and act out different scenarios. The deeper meaning behind it doesn't make sense at first. Then there are moments where their daughter, unseen at all on screen, narrates questionably and frankly why she thinks her parents go on these series of "blind dates." But questions continue to be raised still as to the why?

The chemistry between Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson is magnetizing and electricifying. You really feel the struggle of this couple desperately trying to make these "blind date" work on a therapeutic level. The shakiness of the camera at times or rather the rawness, that would normally have me calling it TV or Home movie quality, is irrelevant. Nor does it matter that the main and only location that this film takes place is in a bar. For the dialogue and strong performances, by both Tucci and Clarkson, captivates and commands your desire to discover the psychological and traumatic undertones behind this need for the "blind dates." It is the decisions made on a cinematic level that allows for this empathy and to witness this struggle back to salvation in their marriage.

When you learn what brought them to these games of the "blind dates," it almost reminds you of the similar tension between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. If they don't speak of the child, the loneliness and the loss won't exist or be forgotten.