All Things Are Not Equal in ‘Sunset’

A rich and powerful Hollywood icon and a chance encounter with an attractive and talented comer to the industry. The basic ingredients for a Hollywood romance? Not if the icon happens to be female and the sweet young thing is male, at least according to this apparently dead-serious remake of “Sunset Boulevard” playing at the Shubert in Century City.

Film has given us a parade of sweet young things who, having been mentored or protected by an older, successful man, find themselves falling hopelessly in love with him (“Mad Dog and Glory,” “Pretty Woman,” “My Fair Lady,” etc.). In this melodrama, the male lead’s attachment to this older, powerful woman is portrayed as the consummate journey into degradation for our hero. The older woman, now 50 (“ancient,” proclaims a bit player), is by all show-biz standards now unbeautiful. Her attempts to woo her young love interest with her wealth and connections are portrayed as pathetic at best and sinister at worst.

History has given us examples of younger men who are attracted to older women for their inner beauty as well as their worldly power, the most prominent among them Catherine the Great. Yet the underlying notion here is that the bonds that tie December-May female-male romances are based on narcissism in the former and some wretched weakness in the latter. According to the subtext of the plot, it is wicked for the mature woman to wish to be loved for her wealth, and thus we can assume only morally proper for her to wish to be loved for her beauty.

Yet the main character’s efforts to become beautiful are mocked in scenes depicting the futility of her rigorous beauty regimen. (We even witness a scene in which the studio mogul, presumably 20 years her senior but still in his prime, condescendingly feeds her hopes of making a comeback in what seems to be part maudlin sentiment and part catty private joke among himself and his youthful staff.) Our star is condemned as narcissistic for her attempts to meet the very standards that her culture dictates. In short, she is sinister to wish to be loved for her wealth and vain to hope to be loved for her beauty.

Are we given here another plot in which women are blamed for their own obsolescence? How can the mature woman garner a modicum of respectability? The play’s ending portrays the author’s vision of the answer: She should remain loyally tied to the older, powerful men who bestow success upon her in the first place. According to the plot line, she might have had a chance at happiness had she remained married to the man who directed her early work and presumably constructed her career.

In the end, we learn that he is her only loyal remaining fan. It is hard to imagine this now wimpy man once in the male dominant position, first as her director, then as her husband/lover. The star’s divorce and venture into independence seem to break both her and her maker.

The message? Women shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously into midlife, so we’d better attach ourselves to a powerful man who will be. Without male direction, our star seems doomed to a tragic downfall.

Imagine instead a happy ending in which she remains married to the man who made her career--now, sadly, her butler. Perhaps if she were cooking his meals, the domestic picture would seem less deranged. She’d give up her notions of being sexy at 50 (or of becoming a writer or director herself for that matter). Then we could have a grand musical finale.

It would celebrate the joys of marriage and momhood!