Mark Reviews Movies: LANGUAGE LESSONS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 9, 2021

Two people, about 3,000 miles apart as the crow flies, have a series of conversations. That's about the extent of Language Lessons in terms of story, but when there are characters this rich and performances this effortlessly engaging, who needs anything more in terms of story?

Obviously, the film, co-written and directed by its co-star Natalie Morales, takes place on a couple of computer screens, over some kind of video chat, and usually allows us to see both participants at the same time, thanks to that little video window in the corner that lets a chat participant see oneself. It would come as little surprise to learn that the film was made at some point during the ongoing pandemic, but it would be equally unsurprising to find out that it was filmed before so much of human communication outside of households became dependent on such technology.

While it's irrelevant to the success of the film, there's something comforting in seeing this technique used in such an ordinary, pandemic-free context. It's just the story of two people, who are so different in so many ways but come to care for each other, making a very human connection. Things were normal—well, as normal as things could be—once, and they could be normal—well, whatever "normal" may mean if or when we actually get through this crisis—again.

Lest this review become about something the film most assuredly isn't about, the story involves Adam (Mark Duplass) and Cariño (Morales). He lives in Oakland, California, with his wealthy and unseen husband Will (Desean Terry, in addition to appearing in a few photos, provides the voice and maybe a hand in the opening scene). Adam doesn't have a job, since Will and his success as a performer provide everything that he could need—and a lot more. He does have a morning routine, though, of swimming in the pool, alternating between cool and hot water, before spending the rest of the day eating, drinking, and eating and drinking some more.

His daily schedule is interrupted, though, with the surprise appearance of Cariño on his laptop. She lives somewhere in Costa Rica and makes a living teaching Spanish online—and not definitely not a living as comfortable and luxurious as the one Adam doesn't make. There's a lot more to her, which becomes a key point of intrigue and conflict as the story and relationship progress. In the immediate moment and for most of the proceeding lessons, though, she's smart, funny, sometimes bemused and amused by her well-to-do student, thoughtful, and compassionate—as any good teacher who has done it for a while should be.

Will has paid for language lessons for Adam, who mentioned in passing that he wanted to speak Spanish again after taking four years of it decades ago. He's pretty decent in conversation, although one of the cleverly intentional quirks of the subtitles here is how it directly translates Adam's grammatical flubs. He even pulls the old, standard mistake of being embarrassed by something he said, only to describe himself as "embarazado." It doesn't mean what he thinks it means.

By the end of the first lesson, we learn that Will paid for a hundred of them. These two will be chatting a lot, but circumstances and unforeseen tragedy turn the lessons and discussions into deeper, far more challenging, and intensely personal conversations. Will dies.

If the scene that establishes the tragedy and this new dynamic is a bit too awkwardly stagy, it's a brief and eventually forgettable distraction from what Duplass and Morales' screenplay are going for here. The script is surely improvised to one degree or another, either completely, aside from the basic outline of the story and characters, or significantly. If it wasn't, the actors' performances are even more impressive in their naturalism and spontaneity than they seem.

The initial tone shifts, of course, as direct conversations become individual video messages from Cariño—offering condolences and statements of sympathy and suggestions for how to work through grief to her student—and Adam—thanking his teacher and showing that he's taking her advice and gradually working through what seems impossible. It's another sign of the strength of both the performances and Morales' filmmaking that, even with an additional layer of separation between these two characters, we can feel the bond between them forming and firming along the way.

The lessons eventually resume. The two talk some more, in Spanish (Adam is here to learn, after all) and English (Cariño uses it most notably when she wants to make sure Adam understands something important for himself or, later, what he believes about her). While there's an undeniably mournful undercurrent to the talks, as Adam is an open book about his grief and Cariño is hiding a lot more than she unconvincingly puts on, they're also funny, considered, and, ultimately, have something to say about the expectations people put upon each other, simply based on initial impressions and the veil someone may use to hide what's really going on in one's life.

In case it isn't clear, Duplass, who's starkly sincere and vulnerable, and Morales, who comes across as thoroughly charming but gradually reveals the traces of a secret pain, are equally but distinctly great here. With Language Lessons, the two, as actors and writers, have created and crafted a pair of fascinating characters and, more importantly, the sense of a bond that feels admirably, affectingly real.

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