You know the story: A disenchanted writer and college professor is seduced by a younger woman, who lifts him out of an existential silence and helps him reconnect with his creativity. It’s a story that awkwardly lands in 2022, romanticizing a problematic power dynamic and viewing women as mere accessories to a man’s personal growth.
“Art of Love”, directed by Betty Kaplan, is a male fantasy. Called only the Writer (Esai Morales), the film’s lead role is an enigmatic older man, surrounded by women who crawl all over him despite his apathy. When he begins to receive cryptic messages from an admirer – slipped to him by a young woman on a skateboard, etched on the sidewalk with chalk, or hidden in the pages of a book – the writer seems for the first time invigorated. He soon discovers that the messages come from a young Chinese immigrant named Li Chao (Kunjue Li), eager to escape the confines of her situation. The two embarked on a giggly, unsettling and confusing journey through the city, posting art installations, having pseudo-deep conversations, and eventually getting physical, despite Li’s early proclamation that she is a lesbian.
The film is full of tropes and stereotypes: Li’s character is an epitome of modesty and submissiveness that serves as a mouthpiece for problematic beliefs, noting at one point that her “irregular choice” to read makes her an anomaly in her insularity. Chinese community. Lesbians are treated as a matter of circumstance rather than an entire identity.
And the film reinforces the fiction that it is often younger women who seduce older men and not the other way around. The writing, which leaves much to be desired, underlines these problems. Tortured by Li’s elusiveness, during one of his solipsistic reflections, the writer ponders why Li “persistently possessed me.” It’s a tired and male-serving story that you wish you would retire.
art of love
Rated R for graphic sexual content, nudity and some language. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters and for rent or sale on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV providers.