On Screen
Emotional Arithmetic
BY Jason Anderson April 16, 2008 15:04
Adapted from a canonical work of CanLit by Matt Cohen, Emotional Arithmetic stays well within the terrain established by many other movies about characters who continue to feel the repercussions of the Holocaust decades later. Familiar it may be, the experience is still much enriched by the high calibre of the lead performances.
Susan Sarandon is particularly strong as Melanie, an acerbic but psychologically fragile woman who lives in an Ontario farmhouse with husband David (Christopher Plummer), a cantankerous academic. Over the course of a few days at their home, she has a tumultuous reunion with Christopher (Gabriel Byrne) and Jakob (Max Von Sydow), two men she originally met at a French detention centre that was the last stop for the Nazi death camps. All three are haunted by the question of why they survived when so many did not.
It’s a very daunting question, but what it yields is more graceful than one might expect. The actors’ evident thoughtfulness and care also help compensate for director Paolo Barzman’s penchant for ostentatious camera moves and tendency to oversell moments that need a lighter touch. Ultimately, it’s the quietest scenes — like David and Jakob enjoying a late-night snack, a rare bit of peace in between emotional blowouts — that carry the most weight.
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