Counterprogramming: Alternatives to regular summer movie fare

Looking for something more meaningful at the movies? Try 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,' 'Hysteria,' 'Moonrise Kingdom,' 'Your Sister's Sister' and more.

April 29, 2012|By Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams are a couple whose marriage is threatened by her passion for the proverbial neighbor in Sarah Polley's drama, which costars Sarah Silverman. "I became obsessed with the idea of our feeling of emptiness, in the Buddhist sense, and that the most obvious way of filling it is with relationships," says Polley, who also wrote the film. "I think we aren't culturally comfortable not filling it, so we decide it's about our relationship. I wanted to make a movie that was about that emptiness, but also about desire, and our desire to fill it." (June 29)

Hope Springs

Determined to put passion back into her 30-year marriage, Meryl Streep strong-arms her cantankerous husband (Tommy Lee Jones) into attending an intensive therapy retreat in Maine. While the film has comedic moments, they for once don't belong to Steve Carell, who plays the sage and compassionate counselor urging the couple to reunite emotionally and sexually. "Tommy wrote to me afterwards saying it was his favorite professional experience," says director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada"). "You wish you had a truffle hunter to find projects like this. But people do write them" — in this case, "Game of Thrones"' Vanessa Taylor — "and once in a while studios are brave enough to make them." (Aug. 10)

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