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Cinema - Prime
Imagine this scenario. A New York shrink’s favourite
client suddenly finds she has fallen in love. The shrink is
delighted, and tells her that it’s no problem the new
lover is 14 years younger than her. She should let her hair
down, and enjoy it while it lasts. Then she spies the happy
couple in a shop. Shock, horror, the new lover is her son.
The next session they have, she doesn’t let on she knows,
and gets a lurid account of the awesome sex life the couple
are having. “We have made love on every surface of my
apartment,” says the client. And: “He has made
me want to do things I never wanted to do before.” Such
things, oddly, include knitting a woollen hat for his penis.
The shrink is played by Meryl Streep doing an impression of
Maureen Lipman. The client is Uma Thurman, doing an impression
of Julia Roberts. The lover is Bryan Greenburg. You wonder
why Streep doesn’t let on she has seen the couple in
the shop, then you realise: it’s to make the plot chug
along into act two. At which point most high-concept Rom-Coms
break down, and this is no exception. Prime is a little like
a summer romance: it starts sweetly, gets all steamy, loses
its way a bit, and nobody really minds when it’s over.
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