I guess it’s true that there are fewer Audrey Hepburn movies that I have seen than not; hopefully this project will change that! I mostly stick to the basics: Sabrina (I prefer the remake, honestly), Roman Holiday (best), Breakfast At Tiffany’s (fave), How to Steal A Million (enjoyed), Charade (love!) and Wait Until Dark (so good). Since I’m absolutely plowing my way through the recipes in the book, I better get started watching more of her movies. I’ve re-watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s already this year (which I have to say just might be my favorite), Charade, and Always, and that’s about it. I saw Love in the Afternoon this afternoon, so that one’s checked off. I probably could have guessed that it was not one of the best (which I had always somehow known) when it was heralded as the token classic film in the movie Because I Said So. That should have been enough to tip me off.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the film, the synopsis is: a private investigator (Maurice Chevalier) lives with his young, age-unspecific daughter (Audrey Hepburn) and mostly works to identify men who are having relationships with his clients’ wives. One time, Ariane interferes, unbeknownst to her father, because she overhears that a certain client is intent on killing his wife’s lover (Gary Cooper). She becomes infatuated with the adulterer, and the rest is history—unfortunately.

     When I first saw Gary Cooper on the screen, I literally thought that he was a supporting character who would be the first to benefit from Ariane’s (fave part is that’s her name) most recent hobby of intervening in her father’s private-eye business to save poor, adulterous shmucks who would otherwise be killed by the cuckolds they’ve made. I was impatient for him to get off the screen so that we could meet the bachelor with whom Ariane would inevitably involve herself. I didn’t recognize Gary Cooper from the still photograph that was shown to introduce his character and try to convince us that he was still a suave, sexy young man at the time of filming. He is very old in this movie, and he looks it. 

     This character, Faragan (even his name is old), is a lech. There is a scene that is a good 15 seconds long in which he is at the opera waiting for his date to come out of the bathroom, then checks out three different women who walk back and forth in front of him—and not in a charming, smarmy, eye-contact kind of way, either, if you know what I mean. More like in a my-eyes-are-up-here-and-on-the-other-side-of-my-body way. The next time you’re doing a crossword and the answer is “ogle,” the clue might be “what Gary Cooper spends the entire two hours of Love in the Afternoon doing.” It’s absurd. The time that he isn’t either eyeing other women from tip to trotter or talking to them on the phone in front of another woman, he is trying to slowly lie on top of Ariane and trap her under his body weight.

     Gary Cooper’s (I literally keep almost calling him Gary Oldman, because he is such an old man) age and appearance would not be such a hurdle for me if the rest of the movie weren’t also so demeaning. I kept anticipating alternate endings, trying to give the film the benefit of the doubt that it would take a turn for the less misogynistic. For example: Ariane figures out that Flanagan is the jealous type. One of my favorite parts is when she lists all of her made-up former lovers in a voice memo on a device in his hotel room. Each person is from a different country with a different occupation, and the list is fantastical, imaginative, and funny. Then he spends the rest of the night obsessively re-listening to it and getting drunk with the traveling band he pays to serenade him every night. That was the best part of the movie, besides the young guy in her music class who takes Ariane to the orchestra, conducts from his seat, and has a loose string that pulls out most of his sleeve, who also has Kramer hair. In one of my re-writes she ultimately ends up with him because she realizes that he’s not a vampire and is nice and quirky, and that’s good enough for her.

     At one point, Flanagan is in the process of physically cornering her under a desk in his hotel room, when the phone rings, it’s SWEDISH TWINS with whom he has evidently been intimate, and he ANSWERS IT WHILE KISSING HER! Later she’s going through a list of obviously ridiculous and immature physical imperfections about herself, and he says “even so, I like the way it all sort of hangs together.” At which point she should have been like, excellent, thank you, that’s my cue! And stood up and left forever. Ladies, if a man ever says anything similar to you, you now know that you can also get up and leave forever, because someone once said this to Audrey Hepburn, so you know it can’t possibly be valid.

     I thought that she would come out with the upper hand and succeed in exploiting his jealousy in order to ultimately win his affection. Instead, he learns from her father the truth about her innocence, and she spends the last moments of the movie (spoiler alert! Don’t watch it, though) going through her long list of [fake] ex-lovers tearfully, running alongside the train pathetically, while he knows the truth that she has made all of this up in a desperate attempt to attract his attention. I even thought that maybe, maybe, he would make the decision to jump off the train and join her in her life in Paris. Instead he PULLS HER UP ONTO THE TRAIN with him. (Think of your bone density!) Like oh, cool, I didn’t want to bring any of my belongings with me to Cannes, that’s perfect, I’ll sleep in this the whole time I live there, or better yet, you just buy me what you want me to wear. I also have no opinions or preferences, and my personality is just one big daddy issue, even though I’m very close with my father and have lived with him in a healthy capacity for years now, assuming that I am a legal adult, which is never actually clarified at any point in the movie. Then her dad comes out with her cello and stuff, sees that she’s gotten on the train with the haggard grandfather who wants to suck her blood, and HE IS HAPPY ABOUT IT! HOW!?!?

     At one point her dad says“she’s not exactly what you call a dame,” and I rewound it four times because I thought he was saying “of age,” but it’s STILL KIND OF THE SAME THING.

     No one with facial crags the size of Gary Cooper’s should ever be tenderly holding the young head of Audrey Hepburn—at least not the way he does. It’s borderline Draculean. I thought he might drink her blood to extend his dwindling years. This is not ageist, by the way—I would watch him make out with Marlene Dietrich all day (which I can! in the film Desire, which was made 21 years before this one). Hellooo have you either read or seen Our Souls At Night? Because you should. But in this current (lol read: eternal) climate of female actresses being vilified based on the characters they play (see Anna Gunn) and male celebrities routinely having sexual relationships with young teenage women and then somehow surmounting the scandals to keep being just as famous, rich, revered, iconic, and etc. as before (see Woody Allen, David Bowie, Drake), this film left a bad taste in my mouth. Audrey Hepburn deserved every lifetime achievement award she received just for kissing any one of her aged co-stars. My favorite pairings are her and Gregory Peck (13 years her senior) and her and William Holden (just one year older, although it’s sobering to know that he made their working relationship difficult).

     What about any of the young men in this day and age? Where is their respect? Why were they not being cast in this or any of the other roles that Audrey played opposite the first 25 years of her life? I would have been upset with that, if I were one of them. And it’s not like her co-stars are some ageless Will-Smith types who have looked the same plus a wrinkle or two and keep themselves in tip-top shape. This is some Bing Crosby in his underwear in White Christmas, next level, old stuff. And it’s not OK. 

     I also discovered that this movie is the source of my current lock-screen Audrey Hepburn/Ariana Grande crossover meme. So I guess technically that is my favorite part.

     I am *so* confused, because this movie has an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What? Did I miss something? If I did, or if this is a movie you feel protective love over, please, please let me know in the comments what subtleties I missed and why I should give it another chance.