THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: THEM
ORIGINALLY unveiled at the Toronto Film Festival in a 191minute version that was novelly divided into two parts called Him and Her and told from two different perspectives, Ned Benson’s feature debut screened in a new 123-minute cut entitled The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them. Shedding 68 minutes off makes a hefty difference in the way the story is told and how it feels to watch it. It is a far more conventional film and a much less fascinating journey with the characters.
In line with the film’s college focus, this could make a unique teaching tool for film students studying point of view. In the long version, the breakup of a marriage is seen first through the young husband’s eyes, then the wife’s, in two semi-autonomous parts.
In the aptly titled Them, their POVs alternate as in most films, depending who’s on screen. That change makes a big difference.
Although all the main characters and plot points survive the transition intact, they don’t carry the same weight. Him and Her have an undeniable literary, collegiate feeling, like reading a long novel and getting to know the characters inside out. Themsteps on the accelerator in a sort of Cliffs Notes version. It’s not that there’s too much story to tell; the problem is that Conor (McAvoy) and Eleanor (Chastain) and their assorted families and friends don’t have time to grow on you, and the viewer makes less of an investment in their problems. The whys and wherefores have been edited out, and the changes that took place over time now take place in a classic, familiar narrative arc.
As the curtain rises, Conor and Eleanor are charmed lovers for whom life is a game, though ominously he asks her not to break his heart in the first scene. Cut to Eleanor jumping from a bridge. In between events are gradually revealed. They got married and lived in lower Manhattan, where he has a small restaurant and bar. But after a great tragedy strikes, they begin to pull apart.