Word: alexa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ginny and Gracie blossomed with therapy. "It was obvious these kids hadn't had much exposure to anything," recalls Speech-Language Pathologist Alexa Romain, who was assigned to Gracie. "They wanted attention." The twins were soon attending severe language disorder classes at nearby Beale Elementary School and clinical therapy sessions three times a week. Psycholinguists Richard Meier and Elissa Newport were brought in from the nearby University of California campus, to study and decode the girls' hyperspeed chatter...
FERNAND, LOUIS, AND ALEXA are simply three people who live in a run-down suburban house; each has joys and sorrows outside of the commonly shared bedroom. A darkly handsome man, Fernand (Sami Frey) exists as the pivot. He is the one who cooks, cleans and generally maintains order amid chaos. The shock of seeing this massive embodiment of conventional virility doing the "family's" mending is dissipated by Fernand's softness of manner and voice. It is his nature to be a gentle, mothering person. This overflowing warmth has been cruelly diverted away from his own children because their...
...delicate blonde, Sylvie. Their impossibly romantic meeting is right out of 1930 s screwball comedy. Everything seems perfect--she's beautiful, rich and looks like Carole Lombard; he's handsome, poor and resembles Clark Gable. After an idyllic ten days together, they return to the suburban house where Alexa and Louis have been anxiously waiting. Suddenly, things change. The steady current of attraction no longer flows in a closed circle around Fernand and Sylvie but rather short-circuits into a series of sparks between Fernand/Alexa, Sylvie/Alexa, Louis/Fernand, and Louis/Sylvie. The breadth and variety of human desire expressed in this film...
...film is beautifully cast, well-written and technically flawless. But her approach has a gaping hole in it. The skill with which she sensitively portrayed those outside of society apparently vanished when she was called upon to portray those within. To emphasize just how happy and fulfilled Fernand, Alexa and Louis are, she reduces the film's "straights" into one-dimensional jokes. Fernand's ex-wife is a case in point. She sports grotesque polyester clothes, has a permanent Pat Nixon hairdo and screams continually at her children. Her voice grates across the screen like razors on a chalk board...
...Alexa's husband is accorded the same, insensitive treatment. An eager, upwardly mobile businessman, his agony and rage at being left is trivialized into a despicable obsession with keeping up appearances. In making her case for sexual tolerance, Serreau commits reverse discrimination. This lack of tolerance flaws but does not destroy the impact of Pourquoi Pas! The film gives promise of great things to come from Coline Serreau...