Band Aid

     The Gateway Film Center near Ohio State University is in such a beautiful, lively  location,

...that on a balmy summer evening it's worth the trip to the University District just to walk around the Gateway area,

...as Tom and I did last night,

...before going to the Gateway to see a wonderful,  thought-provoking  comedy called "Band Aid."

...written by, directed by, and starring musician Zoe Lister- Jones.

     "Band Aid" is the story of a young, beautiful-looking couple, Anna and Ben,

...who can't stop fighting.

    Soon into the film one realizes that fighting has become their means of communication and that Ben regularly exhibits behaviors guaranteed to bother Anna, who can never resist the fight-bait.
    And yet the overarching dynamic between Anna and Ben seems to be more subconsciously than deliberately motivated; he is an artist, she is a writer, but both are creatively and emotionally paralyzed and grieving, each needing a loving word or act, but neither able to give the other what each wants from the other.
     But while at a birthday part for the child of some friends, where Anna and Ben have to mingle with other couples who appear to be happily married, successful and basking in the joys of parenthood,

...in a moment of playfulness they pick up a toy guitar and microphone and improvise a little song.

     So refreshingly fun do they find this brief moment of togetherness that they come up with the idea of singing their fights,

...and forming a band in their garage with the purpose of singing whatever is going on between them.

      Scene-stealing Fred Armisen plays their weird neighbor Dave, who hears Anna and Ben practicing and, having played drums in high school himself, asks if he can join their band.

     The band's  jam sessions become an outlet for communication and  creativity for all three, and Anna and Ben  find working and composing together so satisfying and enjoyable that they're not fighting anymore and their relationship blooms ― amidst the still ever-present rocks ― with each other and with Dave, who, they come to realize, has been coping with emotional pain of  his own.

       With funny wonderful dialogue, "Band Aid" is a comedy in the way that life can be a comedy and the movie mines the things people  - whether in couples or alone - struggle with behind closed doors and closed hearts.
       But when the characters reach the moments when they are finally able to open their hearts to each other and let the pain they've been turning inward pour out, they express themselves so clearly and well that one leaves the theater concluding that what every relationship really needs is a good script writer.

      "Equal And Opposite Reactions" is now available in Kindle Edition, and also at http://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/equalandoppositereactions, amazon.com,  barnesandnoble.com, and
Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio