TEMPS, FRIENDS WITH A TWIST

By MARIA MAKREDES
IMMAGINE MAGAZINE (December 1999)

Alright I admit it... I belong to the infamous generation labelled “X”, so when I heard that Maria Burton of Five Sisters Production Company directed a film about our struggles to commit to work and relationships, I had a vested interest. As my friend and I settled into our seats, though, I wondered if this full-length comedy premiering at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts would reach beyond the surface of trendy hairdos and cut-off tops to see who we really are and what really moves us. The answer- a qualified “yes”.

The film follows five twenty-somethings- Ally, the protagonist and budding dilmmaker; her boyfriend Ben, a white-collar office worker; Jane, who changes jobs faster than you can blink; Georgia, a computer/industrial engineer/designer type; and Jonah, the former lawyer and would-be writer. Already this group seemed saltier than “Ross” and “Rachel”, so they garnered my attention. Besides, I loved the fact that the entire film was shot in Boston, and couldn’t help smiling at the sight of my favorite North End restaurants and Downtown Crossing shopping haunts on screen. Plus, what’s not to admire about the spunk of the young, multi-talented Burton sisters whose family’s creative gene pool not only spawned the film’s director, but also its scriptwriter and several of its actors?

So we begin with Ally, who strikes the much-resounded lament in the arts of not being able to pay the rent. Why? Because she hasn’t quite launched her fimmaking career, and often needs prodding by her beau to take the initiative in fullfilling her dreams. Can’t she treat filming like a “regular” job, leap out of bed in the morning, and get going, Ben asks? Ah, but we Gen X-ers understand! She thinks she really wants it but is afraid. What if she doesn’t succeed, or what if it’s not in the end what it promised to be? And then, of course, there is the temp work she must do to support her art. Still, throughout the movie, she videotapes meetings with her friends and, often to their annoyance, captures every word of their conversations and confessions to really “show” what matters to them in her film- this film “Temps”.

And why is her professional foundering hampering her longstanding relationship with Ben? Ben tires of goading Ally- he wants her to “make up her mind” on all fronts- including deciding to move in with him. She hesitates to do so for a long time, but, somewhat dissapointingly, not for any moral reason, rather solely out of a need to feel secure in her own path (I suppose this is an improvement on “Friends”, where serious personal goals wouldn’t really enter the question). Ben makes this perfectly clear when he exclaims that they are 28 and “old enough” to live together, and even notes that their parents wouldn’t object- at least the Burtons hit the nail on the head with the socail norms of the moment. Enter Angela, the slick, driven, blonde office vamp/exec a la Heather Loklear whose bulldozer-like aggression earns her a couple of dates, but alas, no kiss, for Ben loves Ally! Angela’s dreadfully disappointed to not have succeeded at something, and we are relieved that some standards of faithfulness still stand! Had this actually been “Melrose Place”, the scene surely would have ended in bed.

Other contemporary themes come into play via Jonah, whose office “temp” assignments are like walking through a house of distorted mirrors full of contradictions and hypocrisy. Filing is definitely not the job of a lifetime, but right now, all Jonah knows is that it’s not the empty practice of law. And by the way, he’s gay, and hasn’t fully embraced his identity. Running home for a while could solve the problem, he thinks. Writing novels and short stories could be his calling, but can he even focus long enough to begin? The “joys” of Generation X-hood are maybe nowhere more apparent than in his character, though the acting was a bit flat.

Jane is a caricature of the I’m-only-out-for-money type. She’ll sell out for any price. Her ultimate job? Working in a store peddling sex paraphanelia. Her perfect foil is Georgia, the golden-haired, smart idealist who is constantly trying to have her ideas taken seriously by her older, harassing boss, who doesn’t understand her insistence on integrity. Georgia has personal issues, too, of course- she can’t see to get her inter-racial relationship with a waiter off the ground until she lets go of the memory of a past love who we never see but know pains her. That is, until she invites that first kiss.

The movie has some really funny moments. Ben takes a pleaurable poke at “pc-ness”, questioning how one can be politically correct 24/7 when a friend balks at lamb as the dinner entree. And the irony is all there when the scene switches abruptly from Jane dancing in a strip club to Ally stomping her feet to fend off frostbite as a suffering parking attendent at a winter film festival. This is not to mention Ally’s constant ploy to steal toilet paper from every public bathroom in town- I knew this bore mentioning in my review when my friend said the thought of swiping a roll or two once crossed her mind! The same friend loved the Shakespearean bard/ Greek chorus type character of the cafe poet played by one of the Burton sisters. Her crazy diatribes about life were absurdly funny- at least my friend thought so.

So, “Friends” grew up a little bit with “Temps”, which the Burton sisters would like to parlay into a television show. I do want to see the next Five Sisters film entitled “Manna From Heaven”, but I’m still waiting for the quintessential true-to-life Generation X film to come out. It’ll happen, I’m sure, when Jennifer Aniston and I are both about 50.

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