Modern Love’s Season 2 Is An Ambrosial Yummy Yatra Into Loveland

Modern Love Season 2(Amazon Prime  Video,Anthology Of 8 Films)

Written & Directed by John Carney

Rating: *** ½

The second-most stupid  comment I’ve read  on this modernday  bouquet of takes on that thing called love, is ….the  8 stories are  uneven in  quality.  The  most  stupid comment: Season 1 is  better than Season 2. Firstly, of  course the stories are uneven in quality. These are not rotis  being  rolled  out in a kitchen, they are different stories about different  facets  of love, hence    you may like one   better than the other depending on which way your cookie crumbled when  your heart  rumbled and fumbled. And of course, the  first season  is always better  . It’s known as nostalgia.

Modern Love Season  2 is  every bit as kaleidoscopic and stirring  as  Season 1 with some great acting in all the stories, barring one. It is a mere coincidence that  the  first story On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down(yes every story has  a  quirky title) about a middleaged  woman’s grieving abiding  attachment to her 35-year  old convertible car is  helmed by  Minnie Driver  . She  drives not only the  precious  convertible but also the story forward  with a performance so  naked in its emotional  truthfulness that I could feel  her hurt all through. This is  a film about letting go…or rather  , not letting go of your memories and how wrong people are in  saying that time heals the pain of  bereavement. Minnie Driver  shows us  a path of  hesitant salvation in the  dark tunnel  of bereavement. Don Wycherley and Tom Burke  as her present and past husband are also very  convincing.

The  only other story of this ambrosial  anthology  about mortality  is   the last  film A Second Embrace, with Hearts and Eyes Open in which the brilliant  Sophie Okonedo  plays a single mother of two  lovely little  daughters who finds herself drawn  close to her estranged  husband(Tobias Menzies) after she  is diagnosed to be terminally  ill. The story of a  broken body and  a broken marriage healing simultaneously is well worth telling.And  Okonedo is  incredibly believable in her role.

The breathlessness  of  first  love , albeit  between  two young girls Katie  and  Alexa,is  amply  captured  in the story  Am I…? Maybe This Quiz Will Tell Me. The first flush of  love, the  verbal exchanges overrunning   one another,  the  sheer  madness  of  rampageous  hormones are all there.Above  all there  is  the captivating Lulu Wilson  as Katie. She is a prized find.I couldn’t take  my eyes  off her.

 While the lesbian story worked  for me, the  gay  story How Do You Remember Me left me  cold. It’s all about a painful reunion on a busy New York  sidewalk pn  a sunny  afternoon between two men who had a one-night stand. The characters are  phony, the two main actors Marquiz Rodrigues and  Zane Pais behave like models in a condom commercial, and the  style of  storytelling is  unnecessarily  complicated. When you have only half an hour to have  your say, you don’t  fool around with the  form and content. You tell it….errr…straight , even if it a  gay love story.

Only one story  Strangers On A (Dublin) Train refers to the pandemic. Two charismatic stars  Kit Harington and Lucy Boynton play  Michael  and Paula who meet-cute  in  a train . While they  get  to  know each other during the  journey , a co-passenger sings  a  cute meet-cute song on the guitar just to pre-empt  our cynicism. By the end  of the journey , you expect  phone numbers  to be exchanged. Instead Michael does a When Harry Met Sally and the two decide to  meet at the station two weeks later. But God,  the pandemic and the scriptwriter(in that order) have  other plans. The  story never  had me as invested as  Minnie Driver and  Sophia Okenodo’s  stories. Harington and  Boynton look like strangers  on  a train rather than potential lovers  right till the end. Watch out for  Miranda Richardson  as Paula’s mother in this  Irish gaffe.

I  preferred  The  Night  Girl Finds A  Day Boy about a mismatched couple  –she sleeps  during the daytime, he  sleeps  like  most people  during the  night—who try to find a common ground to keep their  mutual feelings afloat. The fact that  Gbenga Akinnagbe and  Zoe Chao actually look  like an incompatible   couple  helps  furnish a hefty hormonal value  to a story that is otherwise  lighthearted. An Indian actress  Aparna Nancherla plays the  heroine’s best friend. That also helped keep my interest alive in this  story.

 The outright no-nos  for me were  A Life Plan for Two, Followed By One and the dumbest  of the  engaging octave In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses.  A Life Plan for Two, Followed By One is  about two annoying  kids who grow up into two super-annoying young adults played by  Dominique Flashback and  Isaac Powell who  can’t make up their minds whether they want to be friends or lovers.How about a coin-toss?

As  for In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses a war veteran  falls in love with the wife of  the man the  war veteran’s wife is seeing.This is  Yash Chopra’s Silsila made sillier by  Garret Hedlund’s  eye-rolling  performance. Modern Love Season 2 has its  slippery moments. But it overrides the  iffy interludes. Because  you see, at the end , love conquers all.