That Cold Day In The Park

I ended up discovering this movie by accident as I was in the mood to watch something but nothing was really grabbing me. I can't say what made me click on this other than perhaps the title grabbed me, but as soon as I read the description and read reviews of people bitching about it being too slow and "lacking plot" I was sold. Slow burn character studies where someone slowly loses their mind over the course of the movie is one of my all time favourite genres, particularly from the 60s and 70s with that dreamy aesthetic. Some of my favourites include Polanski's Apartment Trilogy, The Wicker Man, Lets Scare Jessica To Death, The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane, and the more recent The VVitch. I love it, and now I have a new movie to add to that list!

That Cold Day In The Park is primarily about Frances, a 30-something wealthy "spinster" who lives alone in her late parents house, surrounded by her late parents things, helped by her late parents housemaid, socializing with her late parents friends, and taking part in old people activities such as luncheons and lawn bowls. She's clearly still fairly young, but she's old before her time, both too young and too old for her early thirties and without any identity of her own. Isolated by the circumstances of her class and previous life as her mother’s caretaker, she's both non-existent to the outside world and invisible within her own. I found her to be an incredibly tragic character, trapped in her loneliness with a quiet desperation of her pitiable state of a life unlived, and so out of touch with her own peers and generation. 

During one of her luncheons for her elderly friends Frances spots a boy in the park from her apartment window, and she takes pity on him as it begins to rain. After everyone leaves she goes and asks The Boy if he'd like to seek shelter in her home as she presumes he's homeless as he hasn't attempted to leave the park despite the horrendous weather conditions. He accepts, and she helps him to dry his clothing and offers him a meal and warm bath. Although he can clearly understand her he appears mute (hence he doesn't have a name, even in the credits he is just 'The Boy') but she seems grateful just for someone to talk to and offers to let him stay in her spare bedroom. 

We quickly realize that it's probably the closest interaction she's ever had with someone who isn't 40 years her senior. At first we know nothing about The Boy until he begins sneaking out of the window at night and we learn that he has a home and a family and can talk but chooses not to in certain situations. It sheds a lot of light onto his character as although he isn't technically doing anything wrong, it does show that he's manipulative and openly taking advantage of Frances and her vulnerable state. Because he doesn't speak to Frances she's able to use him as a sounding board and project her insecurities and desires onto what she sees as a naive young boy in need of her help, when in fact he's none of those things. 

I really struggled to find any sympathy for The Boy or his plight as he could tell that Frances was struggling emotionally, and yet he still kept returning to her and giving her false hope of friendship. It's a shitty way to behave. Because of the patriarchal time this film was made I'm not even sure which angle the movie is supposed to be taking - is it OK for him to treat her like this just by virtue of him having been born with a dick and I'm supposed to vilify the woman for being jealous and overbearing? Or is he just a shitty deadbeat taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable woman? It's difficult to tell how it would be viewed in 1969, but from what I've read it was fairly unsuccessful and is mostly buried, which does make me feel like we are supposed to sympathize with Frances. Plus it's worth noting that the source novel was written by a then closeted gay man (Richard Miles) and is loaded with queer themes, and the screenplay was adapted by a woman.

One of the constant themes in the movie is age. Obviously Frances' friends are a heck of a lot older than her, and at one point a clearly elderly man has the audacity to proposition her which she promptly refuses before the most heart wrenching scene in which Frances spills her heart about her loneliness and opens up about her revulsion at the old man to The Boy, only to discover he's run off again and hidden toys in the bed to look like he was asleep. It perfectly illustrates the double standard of society that it's perfectly natural for a much older man to assume a young woman would harbor any romantic interest in him at all, yet Frances's romantic interest in The Boy is treated as aberrant. 

Although The Boy is supposed to be 19, and Michael Burns who plays him was only 21 at the time of filming, he looks much older especially compared to Sandy Dennis’s tendency to defy age (she is 31 here). Because of this I had to remind myself that there even was an age gap between the two characters. The biggest difference between them is cultural, with The Boy escaping at night to go to clubs with his friends who are all clearly part of the '60s youth counterculture complete with 'free love' (which shows up in some uncomfortable scenes with his sister that border a bit too close to incest for my liking), compared to Frances's uptight prim and proper repressed upbringing due to both her class and being so sheltered. The Boy’s arrival triggers a desire she has no idea what to do with, and a suffocating awareness that the world outside and its individuals are permanently alien to her.

Although the movie advertises itself as Frances holding The Boy prisoner, I feel like it's important to mention that it's not until the movie's climax that this really takes place after she's been continually manipulated and let down by The Boy and finally cracks. Whilst she does lock his bedroom door when he's asleep, as a single woman myself I took this more as a safety precaution of having a strange man in the house rather than being any sinister threat towards him - he could and did exit through the open window after all, and at the beginning she repeatedly asks him if he's staying giving him free will and consent in the situation.

Although the archetype of the unhinged, repressed older woman isn't anything new, it's subverted and complicated by Sandy Dennis's youth and treated with a grace and sympathy that felt truly refreshing. Her performance is mesmerizing, and although I hated his character I have to give Michael Burns credit for being smug enough to make me hate him. While the film never really goes fully off the deep end with it's weirdness, it's beautifully shot, and I really love the structure of it, especially that batshit left turn at the end. No one is ever quite as they seem.