MOVIE REVIEW : Valedictory to Welles in ‘Love’

If Henry Jaglom’s “Someone to Love” (opening Friday at the Fine Arts) had only its gracious and dignified Orson Welles screen valedictory to recommend it, that would be reason enough to be grateful for it.

But “Someone to Love,” at once funny and serious, is a whole wonderful movie unto itself, in which Welles’ affectionately challenging presence provides a magnificent resonance. As a film maker, Jaglom enlarges his scope and achieves new levels of meaning while sticking to the deceptively casual improvisatory style of his recent work. There seems no question that he is indebted to Welles for giving him the courage and inspiration to risk such a stretch.

At first, “Someone to Love” seems to be picking up where “Always” left off. Once again we find Jaglom playing someone very like himself--something true of everyone in the film. For six months Jaglom’s Danny has been in a relationship with Helen (Andrea Marcovicci). They definitely seem in love, but Helen is still not ready for him to stay over. It took her a long time to learn to sleep alone after the breakup of her previous relationship, and now she’s finding it difficult to sleep with someone again.

This is hard on Danny, a man in deep need of affection, and it starts him thinking about the whole question of loneliness--especially as it affects his middle-aging generation. He suspects that he and his friends belong to the first generation of individuals unable “to create the illusion of not being alone.” He decides to throw a Valentine’s Day party in a picturesque, historic old theater, just sold by his sweetly neurotic businessman brother (Michael Emil, Jaglom’s real-life brother) and about to be demolished, inviting only those of his friends who are alone.

Standing on the stage, he starts quizzing his guests, most of whom are attractive women in their 30s (or beyond), on their solitary state. Their answers range from the frank and self-knowing to the foolish; what is illuminating--indeed, humanizing --is the process itself, the allowing of the individual to express his or her deepest feelings on the subject of being alone. The answers in themselves yield nothing new, but they let Danny/Jaglom make the point that while society may teach us to be alone, nature craves togetherness.

What could so easily turn into a tedious, self-evident, self-indulgent group therapy session becomes a far-ranging and richly varied musing on the human comedy, contemporary style. Before the Q & A has a chance to drive you up the wall, Jaglom is deftly cutting back and forth between a whole range of vignettes, most of them painfully funny.

Jaglom genuinely seems to like women, and the screen glows--thanks to cinematographer Hanania Baer--with the elegant beauty and sexuality of the dark Marcovicci, the blonde Sally Kellerman and the exotic and fascinating Oja Kodar, who was Welles’ longtime real-life companion and who brings a sophisticated and witty European detachment to the whole question of relations between men and women. Steven Bishop and Dave Frishberg perform, and there’s a smoky “You Go to My Head” from Kellerman and a stunning rendering of the film’s title tune by Marcovicci, now enjoying fresh triumphs as a cabaret singer. Incipient psychodrama has evolved into a successful party.

But now we become suddenly aware of Welles (billed as “Danny’s Friend” in the credits), sitting in the audience and ready to turn the tables kindly but firmly on Danny--to question him, not only on the matter of women’s liberation and its effects on men but to dispense a full range of commentary on life and art and film making. It’s as if Welles, mellow and charming, instinctively sensed he’d been given an opportunity to sum up the wisdom of a lifetime and decided to make the most of it. His dazzling eloquence, perspective and spirit of generosity help take “Someone to Love” (MPAA-rated R for adult themes) way beyond those tired buzz words of “commitment,” “space” and “relationship” used to define the nature of love in today’s world. It’s not too much to say that this vigorously personal and intimate movie brings us in touch with ourselves.