Five Nights in Maine stars David Oyelowo (Selma), who is also one of the film's producers. It also stars Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands), Rosie Perez (White Men Can't Jump), and Teyonah Parris (Chiraq). The film centers around Sherwin's (Oyelowo) trip to visit his mother-in-law, Lucinda (Wiest), in Maine after his wife, Fiona (Hani Furstenberg) dies in a fatal car accident. Ann (Perez) is Lucinda's paid caretaker, and Penelope (Parris) is Sherwin's sister/unpaid caretaker in the wake of the death of his wife.
Though the movie is focused on the five-day visit between a grieving husband and a grieving mother, what may be surprising to some is that the film never brings you to the point where you join them in their grieving. In fact, Sherwin and Lucinda do not even join each other in grieving. When Sherwin breaks down into tears in front of Lucinda, he apologizes and she gets up and leaves. But the real reason the audience is not brought to tears is because there is no in depth character development. We don't learn much about Sherwin or Lucinda that goes beyond the surface. And Fiona, who is the one who has died, is revealed to the audience piecemeal throughout the film in Sherwin's memories. Though it, even coupled with seeing her in the beginning scenes, is not enough to emotionally tie you to her character. Ultimately, the glimpses into the past reveal that the couple was making plans to have a child, until a recent week-long visit with Lucinda led to Fiona changing her mind. Sherwin would later learn from Ann that the week-long visit was filled with fighting between Lucinda and Fiona.
Though the audience may not be emotionally attached to the characters, it would seem that was not the intention of the film. Rather than being a film that pulled on your heartstrings as you watched people grieve the death of a loved one, it is more of a fly on the wall feeling as you watched a grieving husband "live" after the tragic death of his wife. The audience is witness to things one might not think about if one has not endured such pain. The not eating, and maybe even not showering, are to be expected. But then you see other things, like him sleeping on the couch in lieu of sleeping in the bed they once shared. There was even self-infliction of pain by puncturing his thumb on an exposed nail on the porch. From Lucinda's perspective, from as little as we can attain from the film, it is a grieving mother who didn't have the best relationship with her daughter in the first place. Add to that, she had just accepted the fact that the recent visit of her daughter would be her last time seeing her, because Lucinda was fighting a losing battle with cancer. She had accepted her own impending death after fighting through chemo, but she was not expecting for it to be her last time seeing her daughter because she would be faced with the death of her child. One can only imagine the complexities of those emotions. And though the film does not dig into it much, Wiest does a good job of portraying the complexity of the situation and emotions in Lucinda.
The film itself feels a bit slow. Most of the film takes place in conversations between Sherwin and Lucinda or Sherwin and Ann. So you learn the story and background through their conversations, with a few hints thrown in with Sherwin's occasional memories. Perhaps that was Maris Curran's (writer/director) intention. Going back to being a fly on the wall, one can only imagine spending five nights in Maine after the death of your wife with the mother-in-law she did not get along with would be really slow, given both the location and the situation.
As always, I appreciate films that cast Black actors and actresses in roles that are not innately Black. Sherwin's race never seems to come up, though there could possibly be hints of it. A couple of strange looks, which could actually be the looks any stranger would receive in such a low populated town. There is one scene that made me think of Trayvon Martin, as Sherwin found himself running in the woods with a hoody on while being shot at. I assumed maybe someone was shooting at what they thought was an intruder on their property, but later Ann tells Sherwin it's open season in the area. And of course, one has to wonder if race may have played a part in what the couple seemed to discuss as Lucinda trying to break them apart. However, given Lucinda seemed to be a very critical person, it could have possibly been a number of reasons. After typing this, I was curious to see what other reviewers of the film thought about race in the film. It seems some feel there was some element of race in the film, though not a lot of it. But again, I wonder if it was required that Sherwin be Black for the film to have the scenes where there are suspected elements of race involved, or if the fact that Oyelowo played Sherwin made scenes seem like they may have elements of race. I will give the film the benefit of the doubt, and appreciate the fact that Oyelowo and Parris were cast as Sherwin and Penelope. And so, I am here for it and say support the film!
Five Nights in Maine is in theaters under a limited release in only a handful of cities for one week only, until August 11th. Visit here to see if it's in your city. It is also available on V.O.D. at Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, and Google Play.