Adaptation
stagnation

>>Despite the knockout cast,
Emotional Arithmetic feels distant

BY THE NUMBERS: Emotional Arithmetic

by MATTHEW HAYS

The starstruck had good reason to be thunderstruck last summer, when Emotional Arithmetic was shooting in Quebec. Consider the talent assembled: Canadian veteran Christopher Plummer, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, Scandinavian icon and Bergman fave Max von Sydow, local fixture Roy Dupuis and, last but not least, Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon (who has a nice history with our local cinema—in 1971, she starred in Canada’s first bilingual feature, the shot-in-Montreal Larry Kent flick The Apprentice).

The film is based on Matt Cohen’s dramatic, critically acclaimed novel of the same name. The story has Sarandon living lakeside in Quebec, apparently on very emotionally shaky ground. Through various hints in the screenplay, it seems she’s had something of a breakdown lately. Her son and husband, Dupuis and Plummer respectively, are concerned.

Enter her old friends von Sydow and Byrne, who drop in for a visit, one that seems fraught with tension. We learn through flashback (and we know they’re flashbacks because they’re conveniently shot in black and white) that during the Holocaust, Sarandon and Byrne were saved in a concentration camp by von Sydow. These memories are obviously completely overwhelming, and there are a lot of grim memories to ruminate over. Which the cast then does for most of this movie.

Emotional Arithmetic is nicely captured, but the film suffers from what might best be referred to as adaptation stagnation. One can feel the novel winding its way to the screen, and not quite making it there. It’s a common problem with page-to-screen adaptations, often among the most intricate transplants to execute.

There’s certainly something odd about watching all of these talents sitting down to the same table. But the emotions that are meant to be stirred often just feel stilted, making the entire affair feel very odd indeed: given what the characters are going through and all their various bits of baggage, shouldn’t we be feeling more?

Ultimately, Emotional Arithmetic just doesn’t realize its potential. And when I sat down to write this review, I promised myself that I wouldn’t end it with a crack about the movie just not adding up.

Emotional Arithmetic
opens Friday, April 18

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