The death of a child is a devastating turn for parents and can sometimes devastate their marriage. Blind Date imagines the estranged parents of a five-year old (who died in a car accident for which they feel responsible) working through their problems with their girl’s death—and each other—through a novel device. Arranging to meet through newspaper personal ads, they pretend to be strangers, play acting through a series of roles as they hope to find some resolution.
Although best known as an actor, Stanely Tucci shines throughout Blind Date as director, co-writer and co-star with Patricia Clarkson. The Sundance favorite (out Dec. 22 on DVD) is a feast of great acting, essentially a two-person stage show set in the slightly rundown but entirely charming barroom where the couple rendezvous. But despite the theatrical set-up, the film is brilliantly cinematic. With many small moments of insight, mordant wit and restrained pathos, Blind Date is the sort of adult film Hollywood once made, back in the 1960s and ‘70s, before abandoning the field to independent directors.
