“Jealous,” I said without thinking.
It wasn’t that I wanted to go to that particular premiere—it was that movie premieres still held an element of magic. I’d interviewed enough celebrities to hear plenty of stories about the parties they went to and it was hard not to feel a certain twinge of envy at spending a night dolled up and surrounded by beautiful people.
“They’re pretty boring,” Gabe said. “Premieres.”
“Maybe to you,” I said, wanting to refocus the conversation before either of us could get distracted. “You’ve stayed in touch? You and Oliver?”
“We’re friends,” he said.
There was something he wasn’t saying, but before I could ask, he’d waved Madison over.
“Can I get another one?” he asked, gesturing toward his empty glass.
“Sure thing, hon,” she said. “How about you?” she asked me.
I shook my head. That would be Gabe’s fourth beer, and he was definitely more than a little drunk. He slouched back in his chair more, and his eyes were hooded, flitting around the room, unable to focus.
I saw my opportunity, swallowed my guilt, and took it.
“Still friends even after the Bond decision?” I asked.
Gabe looked up at me, narrowing his eyes. For a moment, I waited, breath held, bracing for him to react negatively. To yell, or throw something.
Instead he just laughed, and wagged a finger at me.
“Nu-uh,” he said. “I see what you’re doing.”
I said nothing.
“We’re friends,” he said, enunciating each word. “And he said he didn’t care.”
“He said he didn’t care about the part?” I asked, sensing I was getting close to something really interesting.
But then, as if she had appointed herself the bouncer of Gabe’s wayward tongue, Madison reappeared with his beer.
“Y’all need anything else?” she asked.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn she shot me a warning look.
“We’re fine,” I said, answering for the both of us.
But she waited until Gabe nodded, waving his hand at her.
“We’re fine,” he echoed. “Chani here is just raking me over the coals.”
Even tipsy, he could still get that perfect ch at the beginning of my name.
“He’s a good man,” Madison said.
I hadn’t been imagining it—that had been a warning look.
“I’m sure he is,” I said.
“It’s fine,” Gabe said, grinning at both of us, definitely sauced.
He took another long drink.
“It’s fine,” he said again, this time to Madison, his voice soft.
“Okay,” she said, and walked away, but not before tossing her beautiful hair over her shoulder in a very pointed manner.
“They’re protective of you here,” I said once she had left.
Gabe shrugged.
“You and Oliver…” I tried again.
“Are. Friends,” Gabe said, and then crossed his arms as if he was a child about to throw a tantrum.
It was clear he wasn’t going to say any more—not even drunk. I was disappointed but not defeated. I changed tactics.
“You’re working with a dialect coach,” I said. “Have you decided what kind of accent you’ll be using?”
“A posh British one,” he said. “With a hint of Scottish. A little homage to my favorite Bond.”
“Connery.”
“Connery,” he confirmed.
“Is that the biggest challenge with a role like this?” I asked. “The accent?”
He looked at me and drank his beer. He took his time.
“The biggest challenge with a role like this is doing it even when you know you don’t deserve it.”
Film Fans
TOMMY JACKS REVIEW
[excerpt]
By David Anderson
World War II films are a dime a dozen. Every director seems to think that the shortcut to an Academy Award is making a movie where handsome young men in period clothes and dirty faces stare up at a sky full of enemy planes and then run through a muddy field as shells explode around them.
Annoyingly, most of these directors are correct. These movies are, without a doubt, Oscar-bait. If they are actually deserving of the award, however, remains to be seen.
Tommy Jacks has all the trappings of such a film. You have the handsome young men, you have the dirty faces, and the running through the mud. There’s the requisite love story between an earnest soldier and his blushing bride-to-be. There’s enough patriotism to make an American flag cry.
And if those were the only things it had, it would be as cliché and forgettable as most of its brothers-in-film.
But Tommy Jacks has something that those other movies don’t have. It has Oliver Matthias.
As the titular Tommy, Matthias wants out of the small town, a place where he is constantly butting up against his family’s expectations. It’s clear, immediately, that he’s too clever for his own good—that he believes he’s destined for better things.
Gabe Parker plays his younger brother, his opposite in every way. He’s not smart; in fact, he dropped out of high school to join the family dairy farm, where he apparently spends his days shirtless and glistening in the golden-lit fields behind the house. He joins the army because “I think I might be able to make a small sort of difference.”
There’s a love triangle—I know, I know, but trust me, please—with the two brothers in love with the same girl. She lets Matthias’s character romance her with poetry and promises of a life outside their podunk town, but she accepts Parker’s ring before they ship out, because, as she says, “He ain’t much to think about, but he sure is a lot to look at.”
It’s clear that this has always been the case—Matthias’s Tommy is too intense, too intelligent, too much for everyone—while his sweet, simpleminded brother might not be the right choice, but he’s the easy one.
Of course, that means he has to be sacrificed at the altar of war.