Half
of all marriages today end in divorce. In Pants on Fire,
directed by Rocky Collins, that statistic is maintained. When
the film begins, Assistant District Attorney Max Hammer (played
by Harry O’Reilly) is married to Julie Hammer (played by Christy
Baron), an elementary schoolteacher, and Barry Grogan (played
by Neil Maffin), a fellow teacher at the same school, is married
to Dierdre Grogan (played by Karen Young), a homemaker who
takes care of two adorable younger children. Julie and Barry
have been working together to publish a children’s story,
a collaboration that carried over into having sex, often immediately
after school (even in a schoolroom). Max is running for district
attorney; he had an affair with one of his administrative
aides, Nicki (played by Arija Bareikis), but he broke off
the lovemaking three months earlier so as not to jeopardize
his marriage. Both husbands are domineering, and both wives
are trying to please their husbands, but serious lovemaking
has stopped at home. Max does not want children until after
he is elected district attorney, whereas Barry believes that
two children are enough. One day during a love tryst Barry
insists that Julie must marry him, and he misreads Julie’s
hesitation. He then tells his wife Deirdre, who kicks him
out of the home. Julie, however, remains ambivalent. When
she tells Max about her affair, he insists that she must end
the relationship with Barry immediately. But she cannot do
so, so she commutes between Barry’s hotel room and home, unable
to make a clear decision that will make everyone happy. Dierdre
and Barry remain apart, since Barry is committed to marry
Julie, while Dierdre is unhappy but does not want Barry back.
A marriage counselor enters the scene, making helpful suggestions
to Julie and Max, but Max is so eager to be decisive that
he explodes with emotion over the ambiguity of the situation,
while Julie realizes that all her life she has tried to please
men by telling lies, if necessary. The counselor suggests
that Max and Julie should sign a contract, vowing to remain
in the marriage for three months to see whether the problems
can be resolved satisfactorily. The document is drawn up and
signed, but Julie continues to be torn between the two men
who love her, and Max continues to respond emotionally, even
losing his election because of hysterical responses to reporter’s
questions on the way to work one day. When he is almost on
the verge of creating more equality in the relationship by
admitting his affair with Nicki Julie confesses that she is
pregnant but does not know the identity of the father, whereupon
Max kicks her out. She flees to Barry, but Max follows her
to his hotel room, insisting that Barry must know that she
is pregnant. Neither man wants another child, but now Julie
for the first time articulates what she wants: She wants to
be a mother, even if she has no husband, but she would prefer
to have Max as her husband. Then Max suggests a new contract,
to be signed by all three, that will keep his marriage with
Julie intact. They sign. The film then fast forwards to a
home with Julie, Max, and a blue-eyed baby girl. Two friends
have dropped by to see the baby. One apparently realizes that
a blue-eyed baby could not have been born from Julie and Max,
who both have black eyes, but decides not to say anything,
leaving the two happy parents in ignorance about a sensitive
issue. Barry, who has finished collaborating on the children’s
book with Julie, is said to have made a down payment on a
condo from the publisher’s advance on the book. Happy ending?
One marriage was saved, but the other was not. The film’s
director, whose father taught political science at a campus
of the University of Maine, focuses on the fact that married
couples tell each other white lies instead of being honest.
But there are further subtexts in Pants on Fire.
Men in the film clearly display chauvinistic attitudes, discounting
the feelings of their spouses because they do not want to
understand them, leaving women without the ability to formulate
their own needs. The positive intervention of the marriage
counselor is a hint to couples in crisis to take advantage
of third party mediation, though often couples do so too late.
However, the most unexplored issue is why heterosexual marriage
partners place such high store on marital fidelity. Would
more marriages and more egos be saved if married men and women
provided unconditional love for one another amid the ambiguity
of human relationships? MH
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