Life of Riley (2014) - Alain Resnais

Loosely based off of Alan Ayckbourn's play, Alain Resnais' final film, Life of Riley, is meditation on love and affection, following three couples living in the English countryside.  Using illustrated setting-based cue-cards and beautifully designed production design, Life is Riley creates an aesthetic that attempts to bring the theater-setting to celluloid, with Resnais' creating a meta examination of these characters where the lines between fact and fiction begin to blur.  The story centers around amateur dramatics Colin and Kathryn, who receive news that their friend George, a playwright, is fatally ill and only expected to live a few months.  Of course, the couple can't keep George's secret, sharing this tragedy with other friends of George, setting off a whirlwind of emotion.  Many of the characters in this film are admist rehearsals of a stage play, and Resnais beautifully uses their fictional personas to touch on these characters deep-rooted desires, offering a unique, playful, and poignant study of affection that shows how tempered such emotions of love can be in such circumstance.  While these character's go over their lines, Renais explores these character's true-selves in a very meta way, exposing their deceits and mixed emotions that make it hard to decipher their character from their true self.  This aspect of the film is interesting on multiple levels, almost as if Resnais is commenting on the blurred consciousness that exists between actors and the character's they portray.  With George's illness, many of these characters are forced to face their own mortality, which begins to create conflict among these three couples, as they are forced to reflect on their current relationship and overall vision of what love should be.  Uniquely structured and told,  Alain Resnais' Life of Riley is a playful and exuberant study of human emotion, capturing the self-reflection and jubilant absurdity that often comes when facing one's own mortality.  

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