Living Out Loud

Living Out Loud, which is not a great title, is a small film in a minor key about loneliness. Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, it's also refreshingly honest and without the usual annoying cliches that mar other films of its type.

Holly Hunter stars as a woman who has divorced her philandering husband. She lives in an Upper East Side apartment building, and spends much of her time either talking back to the evening news or listening to music at a jazz club, which features a singer she admires (played by Queen Latifah).

The doorman and elevator operator of her building, Danny DeVito, is a middle-aged man holding in a lot of sorrow and disappointment. The two strike up a friendship, and DeVito feels something more strong for her. The way the two interact is lovingly written, and though DeVito is not the type that usually stars as a lead in a romance, he is very good as a man who has been beaten down but is resolved to make something better of himself.

As for Hunter, I've long enjoyed her work, but she can sometimes be very bad. Here I thought she was terrific. She withholds mysteries about the character, making us wonder just what it is that makes her tick, which makes her that much more interesting. There's a scene in which she hires a masseur to give her an "erotic" massage that is fraught with sexual tension but without being gratuitous.

The script was based on two stories by Anton Chekhov, and has some of the same complex yet universal features that his writing contains.