The Michigan Review

A Perfect World

by Kristina Curkovic

Nina and George believe they can build a perfect world together, raising Nina's child and living in the blissful friendship that has been the backbone of their relationship.

But a couple of factors might catch up with them and ruin things: George is gay, and Nina can't help falling in love with him.

In The Object of My Affection, George's (Paul Rudd) lover leaves him and he moves into his new friend Nina's (Jennifer Aniston) apartment while her boyfriend Vince looks on with subdued suspicion. Nina finds everything in George that is lacking in Vince: sincerity, honesty, trust and unquestioning friendship. They become the best of friends and do everything together, including taking dancing lessons. When she learns that she is pregnant, Nina decides that she wants to raise the child with George, not Vince (the father); George, realizing that he has the chance now to be the father he never thought he could be, agrees and the two of them begin a dream of creating their own new world where they make the rules.

But the outside world starts throwing reality Nina's way. She is in love with George and can't bear sharing him. When he falls in love with a young man, she finds herself surrounded by homosexual men who, as a wise theater critic points out to her, can leave her at any moment for other men. Nina and George have built a world where Nina could be left completely alone, or George could be completely unhappy.

The movie could have danced around the relationship and ignored the fact that relationships between heterosexuals get complicated. But Object approaches the subject with absolute maturity and realism. When George falls in love with Paul, Nina is devastated and their relationship is in question; Nina's sister Constance represents the outside world as a woman who accepts alternative lifestyles as long as they are outside of her own family; Vince's anger toward Nina and her decision about their child provides the edge the audience needs to show that Nina and George's world cannot be the perfect one they imagine.

Aniston, as Nina, is as cute as ever, and almost believable as a low­income social worker. She has made a sure niche for herself in the big­screen world that she may not have quite done with her previous starring role in Picture Perfect by playing a character with not only her usual comedic talents, but also a range of necessary reactions and emotions. The true star of Object, however, is Paul Rudd as George. Movie audiences kept their eyes open for him after his first major role in Clueless as Cher's ex­half­brother. In Object, he steals hearts again as his character falls in love different kinds of love with Nina and Paul, and as his heart is broken and mended throughout the film. Rudd tackles his complex role perfectly with a sensitivity that makes his character's varied emotions completely believable.

The movie as a whole contains the same sensitivity, creating a love story between people which, while idealistic, delves into real emotions emotions that often are uncontrollable and unchangable. The actors, directing, and screenplay convince us that we can't choose with whom we fall in love, and that the old rules don't apply anymore in either love or society. The movie's creators should be applauded for their work, and presenting a movie that is not only an "alternative" love story, but a very good one as well. MR

Kristina Curkovic is a senior majoringin English and Linguistics, and is Arts Editor of the Review. She eats Ramen Noodles and Spam in order to be able to afford to go to the movie theater these days.

This article was published in the 22 April 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 16, Number 10).
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