SILVER TONGUES

US, 2011, 87 minutes, Colour.
Lee Tergesen, Enid Graham.
Directed by Simon Arthur.

This is a surprising film, small-budget, puzzling at first, and then quite challenging.

In fact, it is several episodes forming the one film. The audience is misled at the opening in thinking that the film is about a young honeymoon couple who share a table in a restaurant with a middle-aged couple. It is the middle-aged couple who are the centre of the film. At first, they sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the young couple eventually making each of them suspicious and then act in a vindictive way against each other with the couple who then, rather diabolically, laugh at the mayhem that they have created in this relationship.

There are further episodes with the couple, the first in a church where the woman accuses the church leader of pocketing donations for orphans in the Congo, the man then acting the part of the detective and justifying the woman while moving the congregation from suspicion to further support. This has an effect on the sexuality of each of the couple who have rather violent sexual encounter.

They then go to a residence for the elderly, pretending to be the son and daughter of someone with dementia, promising a new home for him but his being unable to take any of his possessions. This includes a shelf full of diaries from which he reads and gets some satisfaction from the couple. A nurse reveals that, perhaps, the old man was as devious as the couple. Once again, a sexual encounter in the woods with the woman being left for dead, the man being picked up by the police, interrogated, explaining that he was an actor, taking tips from the interrogation – when the woman arrives.

Each of them then goes back home, separately, to spouse and family.

The audience is appalled at times at the manipulations and manoeuvres of the couple, a challenge as the audience watches these two who seem bent on destroying peoples peace and lives.

1. The impact of the film? Dismay, surprise, revulsion, value challenge?

2. Small budget, locations, the hotel and the restaurant, the church, the old people’s home, the woods, the police station? Authentic? Musical score?

3. The performances, the central couple, with each other, complementing each other, their roles in the different psychodramas? And their going home to separate families? The reason that they were together? The sexual encounters? Acting, testing people? Morbid and macabre humour? Sadistic and cruel?

4. The first story, the couple in their hotel room, the honeymoon, unsatisfactory sex, the husband and his complaints, behaviour, the wife and the going down to dinner? The table not ready? Gerry and Joan and their friendship, offering them the table, the husband’s reluctance? The meal, the couple 16 years married, the initial impact? Ordinary? The discussion about sexual relationships, with other couples? The reaction of the younger two? The detail? The husband going to the toilet, Gerry following him, the discussion, accusing the young man of ogling his wife? Meanwhile Joan, talking to Rachel, talking about the inevitable infidelities and betrayals? Rachel’s denial? The return to the table, the husband and his looking at Joan? Rachel’s reaction? The tantrum, the challenge? The argument in the room? Gerry and Joan turning up, the mutual attractions, the sexual fumblings? Gerry and Joan, standing back, challenging the two, humiliating them, the older couple and the macabre joke and torment, leaving?

5. The second story, the church, the Minister from the Congo, speaking, the collection, her appealing for more help for the orphans, asking the people to close their eyes and pray? Joan, emerging, accusing the minister of stealing the money, her hard line, the nature of the accusations, reaction of the Minister, the reaction of the people, dismay? Gerry emerging and saying he was a detective? His interrogation, finding the $10 in the Minister’s pocket? His her humiliation? The changing attitudes of the congregation? The Minister saying she would lose her job, her visa, be returned to Congo? Her plea and her honesty? Gerry and his attacking Joan, what was in her pocket, finding the dollar? The response of the congregation, changing, denunciation, to support, to giving more money? The aftermath and Gerry and Joan and their sexual encounter, charged by the experience?

6. Going to the old people’s home, finding people who had Alzheimers? The various people interrogated? Finding William, pretending to be his son and daughter, his response to them, his lack of memory, the issue of his diaries, reading sections of them? Not liking it in the home, the couple saying they would get home for him, the photo, but not able to take his possessions, perhaps a year’s worth of diaries? William and his diary saying he had no sexual encounters, yet his son and daughter present, his relief and laughter? His being disturbed, the nurse coming, taking William away, revealing that the diaries were not his, that he got them from someone else, and that he liked leading people on? The aftermath and the sexual encounter in the woods? Rough sex, strangling, Joan left for dead?

7. The next story, Gerry and the car, his being held up, the policewoman, the licence and registration? The interrogation in the precinct? The cup of coffee? The policewoman, style, manner, questions about documents? The woman in the woods? Gerry explaining he was an actor, their taking turns in performance, the accused, the police? Gerry and his performance? Explaining what it was to be an actor, taking notes from the techniques of the interrogator? The aftermath, the chief of police not believing the officer? Joan turning up, not dead?

8. Gerry and Joan driving off, the mutual satisfaction, the sexual encounters? The surprise of each going to their own home and seeing each of them with a family?

9. An intriguing and disturbing film?