Arts & Entertainment

Love And
Marriage

A look at Flannel
Pajamas.

Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News

S

Justin Kirk and Julianne Nicholson in a scene from Flannel Pajamas

Interfaith Intimacy

Writer-director Jeff Lipsky addresses audiences at Detroit
premiere of his semi-autobiographical film.

Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News

V

iewers of the film Flannel
Pajamas, running March 2-4 at
the Detroit Film Theatre, will get
to know about the life of writer-director
Jeff Lipsky.
Besides seeing a fictionalized version of
Lipsky's failed marriage, audiences at the
first two screenings will hear the writer-
director introduce the movie and answer
questions afterwards.
"I hope to engage in no-holds-barred
sessions," says Lipsky, who has built a
career in film distribution. "I find out
about myself from the questions because
they make me think about me. Sometimes,
it takes an objective observer to distill [the
issues]!'
The film, which premiered last year
at the Sundance Film Festival and soon

will open in England, features Julianne
Nicholson (Law & Order: Criminal
Intent) as Nicole and Justin Kirk (Angels
in America, Weeds) as Stuart. Religious
differences are among the characters' dif-
ficulties played out in the film. (In real life,
Kirk's mother is Jewish, though he was
raised without religion.)
"Flannel Pajamas ultimately is about
two flawed, imperfect people who fall in
love with each other but at two completely
different times," explains Lipsky, who got
the idea for the film after finding his wed-
ding pictures 10 years after his divorce.
"The tragedy is not so much that they
don't stay together but that this love is not
synchronous!"
Film critic Roger Ebert called the film
one of the wisest films I can remember
about love and human intimacy!'
Lipsky, who has been to Michigan to
distribute other people's films, knew that

"

he wanted to be a filmmaker when he was
10 years old.
"Movies were an escape for me:'
explains Lipsky, who grew up in New
York State and returned after a stint in
California. "As soon as the lights dimmed
and the movie began, that alternative
universe was as real as anything I encoun-
tered in my life. Ultimately, I decided I'd
love to be able to write and direct and
create a paradigm, a reflection of what life
should be or what life is."
Lipsky's path detoured away from film
school. At 18, while a college film critic, he
met John Cassavetes, the filmmaker who
became his role model, a man who wanted
to do everything on his own. When Lipsky
turned 21, he got to work for Cassavetes,
and the two became friends.
"The reason I chose to hitch my horse to
his wagon in 1974 to distribute A Womran

Interfaith on page 48

tuart Sawyer and Nicole
Riley are not complete
opposites, but they are
definitely attracted to each other.
From their first date, a fix-up in a
Manhattan diner, they are insepa-
rable.
But could the differences in their
backgrounds — religious, cultural,
family and childhood — that initially
seem so intriguing and attractive
turn out to be obstacles to their
enduring happiness?
The ballad of Stuart (Justin Kirk)
and Nicole (Julianne Nicholson), as
it unfolds in Jeff Lipsky's semi-auto-
biographical independent feature
Flannel Pajamas, is intimate and
intense. Be prepared for a two-hour
talkfest punctuated with plenty of
kissing and just enough arguing and
icy silences to jangle your nerves.
Lipsky employs lots or long takes
that allow the actors to act, an
admirable approach that recalls
Bergman and Cassavetes. Flannel
Pajamas isn't a feel-good, nothing-
at-stake date movie. The post-show
conversation could reveal plenty
about your (prospective) partner.
Stuart cracks a dreidel joke at
their first meeting, as a way of
informing Nicole (and us) that he's
Jewish. This initial flash of self-dep-
recating humor is atypical, we soon
realize, for the assimilated Stuart
is both hyper-verbal and extremely
confident.
Nicole can talk, too, but the dis-
placed Montana native is slower,
softer and shyer than Stuart. She's
deferential to him, partly because of
the limits of her own self-confidence
and partly because he's so assertive
and decisive. This being the movies,
there's always the possibility that
her vulnerability also stems from
being damaged in some way or from
a childhood secret she harbors.
Such conjecture may be unfound-
ed, but it is unavoidable, if not irre-
sistible. For better or worse, Flannel
Love on page 48

March 2007

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