Today is Saturday, January 4, 2025. As you might recall, I was absent from this venue because Elliot and I had a rendezvous with one of New York’s premiere steakhouses, Peter Luger’s, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After that, I browsed the bookstores in Williamsburg and discovered, to my huge fortune, that a favorite restaurant that we both frequented and has since shut down, has reopened. I learned this from the cashier at Black Spring Books, located at 672 Driggs Avenue. I was bringing up a book and paying for it when I engaged the young woman in a conversation about the dining scene in Williamsburg and this is when she told me that Egg, the restaurant that we so fondly remembered, has returned under a new name. It’s now known as Egg Shop and is located not too far from its earlier location, on 138 North 8th Street. It was located originally on 3rd Street, opposite Book Thug Nation, a unique secondhand bookstore I frequently visited when I ate at Egg across the street.

Oh, the book I bought for only $6 was a chronicle of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which primarily chronicles the adaptation of the early 60s film starring Audrey Hepburn in her star-making role, that of Capote’s prostitute with a heart, Holly Golightly, but that particular feature of the main character of Capote’s novella was watered down for the film costarring George Peppard and Mickey Rooney in a cringeworthy turn as a Japanese neighbor of Golightly’s who was always complaining of the noise emanating from her apartment. You see, she was always entertaining men and throwing these wild parties. The name of this book is called Fifth Avenue, 5 a.m.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman, written by Sam Wasson. I have the sneaky suspicion that I’ve read this book already, but as a library book, not as one of my books on my shelves.

Elliot drove home, leaving me to wander the streets on my own. Eventually, I took the “youth express,” the L to Manhattan and got off at 14th Street to walk to the IFC Center, where I bought a ticket for the 8 p.m. showing of Oh, Canada starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Jacob Elordi as the young principal character portrayed by Gere, Leonard Fife.

I was attracted to the film because it starred Gere and it was written and directed by Paul Schrader who cast Gere 44 years ago in his homage to the American Gigolo, way back in 1980. It is now 2023 and Gere plays well-respected documentarian Leonard Fife living in Canada but who is dying of some unnamed form of cancer. The film, as I wrote yesterday, is based on the late Russell Banks’ 2021 novel, Foregone. Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m inspired to read the book so as to get more out of it.

The film stars a much older Gere who really looks the part of a dying filmmaker. He is married to Uma Thurman who is considerably younger than he. The movie opens with a camera crew invading the inner sanctum of Fife to make a documentary on him before he ultimately succumbs to his disease. He is being filmed by a former student, Malcolm, who is portrayed by Michael Imperioli (formerly of The Sopranos) and his wife, Diana. Soon the crew, his wife, and the audience out there in the dark are privy to his memories – some quite confusing, given his condition – of growing up in Vermont and being the swain of several women. He ends up marrying several of these women, having a baby with one young woman called Alicia (Kristine Froseth), back in 1968, when Fife was only 22. It is here during this time that Fife is offered a life-changing job by his father-in-law to become the chief executive officer of the company he owned. But that would mean that Fife and his young bride would have to stay in Virginia which he didn’t want to do. He was going to buy a house in another state and start a job as a university professor. Instead of accepting the job offer, he abandons his wife and unborn child and emigrates to Canada as a “draft refugee.” In quick succession, he’s thrust into the world of documentary filmmaking when he produces his first film on the misuse of Agent Orange by the United States in New Brunswick. But as he looks back on his past, Fife’s memories become increasingly confused. In scenes depicting him as a young man, Gere is seen as himself instead of his younger stand-in, Elordi, which just makes the scene more confusing to the viewer.

The film that Fife consents to is supposed to be a confession to his wife of thirty years, Emma (Uma Thurman), who judges her husband’s memories as the delusions of an ailing and dying man. Gere suitably rages against his decaying body and the inevitability awaiting all of us: the specter of death. Also Schrader goes for intentional ambiguity in deciphering what are the true memories of this man who has definitely abandoned a son over thirty years ago. There is a scene with this now-thirtyish son who tracks his father down at a film festival in which his films are being honored and who confronts him with the truth of who he is. But Gere denies that he is the young man’s father. This leads to Fife’s abandoned son to meet surreptitiously with Fife’s wife. There is no further explanation as to why Fife denies his grown-up son’s existence after that initial scene at the film festival.

After the film ended, which was close to 10, I briefly entertained the idea of going to a local gay bar, but I quickly abandoned that idea. I didn’t want to be riding the subway that late. So I came home instead.

I’m not so sure if I would recommend this film since there are no standout performances, except for Gere who handles his restricted role fairly well. He exudes impatience, intolerance, anger, and disgust exceedingly well as he’s wheeled in and out of the camera’s eye. It’s also quite a shock to see this actor known for his physicality in previous roles reduced to a man in decline forced to confront his mortality. To me, just taking the role is an act of bravery in my opinion.

Elliot is waiting for me to watch something, so I will end right here.

And so it went!