Lonelyhearts

Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater.

I admit I only watched Lonelyhearts, a 1958 drama directed by Vincent J. Donehue, because it’s one of two movies starring Montgomery Clift that I haven’t seen. I’ve been a fan of Monty’s soft, pensive performances since I first watched Suddenly, Last Summer, and feel like he and his short career deserve perpetual attention — even when they gave us a picture this unremarkable. Unremarkable, but not unmemorable.

Since we were graced with the latest season of White Lotus, Twitter, ever the voice of, well, loud people, has chimed in. The gays, in particular, have been vocal (again, not news) about the anxiety around infidelity that has been amplified week to week on the show. The take? That heterosexuals are as fearful of it as they are of death, and display a lack of emotional nuance when it comes to dealing with a cheating partner.

Lonelyhearts actually poses the same thing, and interrogates a bunch of characters who are haunted by infidelity, and have adopted its consequences as their identities. It’s a full on tragedy, an over-the-top one, but it also proposes that all the grief we endure around the matter could be assuaged with a little more openness and a lot less shame.

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