Reading: Invited Everywhere

The eleventh in the Comfortable Courtesan series, Invited Everywhere sees Clorinda embarking on a round of summer house-parties, resolving her friends’ difficulties wherever she goes, but also somewhat troubled by reports that the sinister Mr R- O- has been prying into her affairs. As always, it’s an utter joy to spend time in the company of Clorinda and her set; by now they really do feel like old friends. Also, I particularly love (and had forgotten) Clorinda’s marvellous comparison between running a household and running a country. Exactly what I needed at the end of a long, difficult term.

Watching: The Kindergarten Teacher and Everybody Knows

I took today and Friday off to decompress before our holiday next week (a good idea, I think; I wouldn't have fancied driving 200 miles in the state of exhaustion I've been in most Saturday mornings lately) and today we decided to spend the afternoon at the cinema, watching two films with lunch at the Jericho Cafe in between.

The Kindergarten Teacher stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lisa, the eponymous teacher; middle-aged, bored in her marriage, disappointed at her children's life choices, taking evening classes in poetry despite an obvious lack of talent. When she discovers that one of the children in her class appears to have a talent for poetry, her determination to foster that talent rapidly becomes an obsession. It's an interesting, rather disturbing film, and Gyllenhaal is terrific as the gradually unravelling Lisa.

Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem as former lovers Laura and Paco, long since separated and married to other people, but thrown back together when Laura returns to their home town for her sister's wedding and her teenage daughter is kidnapped. The kidnap plot isn't really the point, here; this is a drama about the unspoken things in families that somehow, still, "everybody knows", and the way old resentments can simmer under the surface for decades and bubble up again in times of trouble. I'm glad we saw this one second, as it's much the better film; really good ensemble performances, interesting and rounded charaterisation, and beautifully shot in a rather bleak and wintery Spain.