Cinema is therapy. A chance to see the world from different viewpoints, to see our emotions reflected back to us, sometimes with a new clarity that makes those emotions easier to process. Cinema can incite change within ourselves, on any level superficial or profound.
Not only for an audience, but for the artist behind the lens. Certainly, Lake Bell agrees. She’s built an entire career out of a sense of reflective honesty: in her down-to-earth performances in the likes of Man Up or No Strings Attached, or in her authorial voice as writer, director, and star of the critically acclaimed In a World…, about a woman who leaps into the male-dominated world of film trailer voice-overs.
To Bell, art and therapy seem largely interchangeable, as she’s quick to enthuse: “Therapy is my best writing tool ever. And I often use my writing as therapy as well.” With her latest, I Do… Until I Don’t, it turned out be something of a longer term self-consultation, with the screenplay taking ten years to write.
“I’m kind of a slowpoke writer,” she admits. But to Bell, it was an effort anchored in a determination to “investigate the subject of commitment and marriage”.
“I had been surrounded by divorce my whole life,” she explains. “I had a really cynical view of it. I just felt like it was archaic, like the institution itself was created in a time where people had to make contracts for land ownerships and dowries and what-not. Back when people were dying at forty-five.
“Why the hell would we keep on such an absurd institution when we’re living to nearly a hundred years old? It’s just a tall order. ‘Until death do us part?’ Are you kidding me?”
As was her philosophy. That is, until she met her now-husband, tattoo artist Scott Campbell. Bell’s anti-institutional, self-confessed cynical ways have melted over time; yet, this wasn’t the flash transformation of a traditional rom-com.
This was, as Bell repeatedly refers to it, a true “investigation” and interrogation into her own relationship with relationships, as it were, one partially achieved through the process of writing I Do… Until I Don’t.
It’s a film that carefully contrasts Bell’s changing perspectives by pitting them against each other: her former cynicism manifested in documentary filmmaker Vivian Prudeck (Dolly Wells), who attempts to convince three couples to experiment with idea of a seven-year contract, with an option to renew at the end, or simply walk away.
This litter of relationships seem superficially blissful, but there are cracks to be found: Alice (Bell) and Noah (Ed Helms) must negotiate whether or not to have children, Cybil (Mary Steenburgen) and Harvey (Paul Reiser) have a thirty-year marriage to nurture, while Fanny (Amber Heard) and Zander (Wyatt Cenac) tussle with the reality of their open relationship.
Cracks, however, are repairable, and I Do… Until I Don’t is an ode to fighting for love, even if it sometimes feels like an uphill battle. “You know, I really always set an intention out, even in my deepest cynicism, I always wanted it to have a happy ending,” Bell notes. “And to have an ending that was deeply hopeful. I wanted my feeling at walking away from it to be like, yes, there’s a reason.”
“Because, I think, ultimately, that is more provocative in this day and age than to say, ah well, it all goes to sh*t. It’s an easier path, surely, to move on when things get tough and uncomfortable, but this was almost a manifesto to say to myself that when things get ugly, I’m not going to move on.”
“I hope the takeaway is that to have a witness in life should not be taken lightly,” she adds.”It is profound. Especially in this day and age when it’s scary, when there’s a lot to be scared of. A lot of legitimate concerns that are tough. But, at least, to have this person, a constant, is not to be underestimated.”
“And that, ultimately, is our biggest privilege – to evolve, right? That’s our human privilege. And it’s very difficult. And almost impossible to evolve if you’re not called out on your sh*t.”
Marriage is a tough business, Bell’s film cries out, but even the grunt work, the struggles, have their own worth. They’re the marks of a life truly shared. And made richer by them. It’s here that I Do… Until I Don’t seeks to find a kind of honest levity, its humour a reflection of how common these banal (or even embarrassing) moments are within a marriage.
Bell notes that her favourite scene from the film sees Alice try to initiate sex with Noah, only to discover that he’s already taken care of himself.
“That is an extremely honest scene, as is most of them, because I do think comedy is most present in things that feel cringingly honest,” she adds. “But for me, I don’t feel like they’re doomed because of those moments, that’s just how it really is.”
“I think it’s more interesting to talk about marriage instead of, in a romantic comedy, where it ends with the wedding. And it’s like, dude, what about five years, seven years in? Let’s talk about that moment.”
Approaching marriage with an honest lens, in many ways, almost necessitates a comedic touch; Bell may convincingly argue for its profundity, yet marriage’s ability to somehow intermix a stratosphere of grand, romantic emotions with the logistics of who’s picking up the milk on the way back home opens the door to a certain kind of absurdity. You can love someone, yes, but also despise them for leaving hair in the sink plughole at the very same time.
Yet, comedy’s also fairly inherent to Bell’s work, and she’s quick to admit it’s the genre she’s far more interested in working within. “I want you to laugh and have a good time and feel goodness because, ultimately, I unabashedly want to put forth good energy and good juju. And kind spirit,” she says.
“I’m not interested in making people feel like crap. Or sad. Or scared. Other people can do that and that’s great, they’re good at it. But the thing I’d like to put forth is that, when you sit down to watch this movie, hopefully you’ll walk away and feel good. I don’t apologise for that. I think that’s what the world needs.”
Bell’s mission to spread good juju certainly doesn’t end with I Do… Until I Don’t, which she sees as only the beginning of her investigative journey into the nature of relationships. As she concludes: “Now that I have kids, I always think of this movie as Chapter One in a lifelong investigation into commitment, marriage, and relationships. It doesn’t get easier, but it does get more interesting.”
I Do... Until I Don’t is available to rent and own on digital now.
