The Interestings is a powerful story that sticks with you. A St. Elmo's Fire that begins earlier and ends later.
It begins with a group of teenage camp friends who ironically deem themselves The Interestings at Spirit-in-the-Woods.
It captures a time and place where kids are able to re-invent themselves where even a slight name change, from Julie to Jules, becomes life altering.
The story centers around Jules (nee Julie) Jacobson, a small town girl whose father passes away and is sent to the creative camp in Massachusetts on scholarship.
Ash Wolf, the nice popular blond girl, befriends Jules, who now finds herself as part of the in-group, something that she has never experienced.
The clique consists of Ash, her equally popular brother Goodman, Ethan Figman, Jonah Bay, and Cathy Klipinger.
Except for Jules, who lives in upstate New York, the clique lives in New York City and come from worldly and sophisticated families.
The story follows these group of friends from the teenage years up until their sixties, where the group will couple up, uncouple, make mistakes, discover dark truths about themselves, and ultimately remain entwined with each other throughout the decades.
During the years at camp, Ethan professes his live to Jules, only to have her reject him. Described as thick-bodied and unusually ugly, Ethan comes from a broken home.
Growing up with bickering, and then separated, parents, Ethan creates an alternate world in which to escape. This cartoon world is called Figland, which will eventually become a hit television show making Ethan millions.
Ethan's success story reminds me of the theory that artists can only truly create when there is great suffering. That comedians tend to be really dark people. Only a place of great negativity and suffering creates beauty, while complacency does not push the boundaries.
Like the quote from the Third Man, my fiance's favorite movie, points out: "...in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
As the group grows older, tragedy strikes where Goodman has overstepped his sense of entitlement, splitting up the group of friends. As part of her close, almost obedient, friendship with Ash, Jules is made privy to the Wolf family secrets in protecting Goodman.
Recognizing that her complicity is assumed because of her weakness, Jules remains faithful to Ash, never outgrowing her love (or envy) for Ash.
By their thirties, not only is Ethan worth millions, but also has the perfect wife in Ash. During their marriage and with Ethan's success, Ash is able pursue her career as a play director.
After countless unsuccessful auditions, Jules pursues a more practical professional over acting and becomes a therapist. While she enviously follows the opulent lifestyle of her friends Ethan and Ash, she settles down with Dennis Boyd, a typical small town all-American she meets at a dinner party.
A technician who suffers from depression, Dennis makes a modest living, but is good at what he does. He is reliable, content and balances out Jules' envious and pliable traits.
Goodman, Cathy and Johan will have more troubled experiences as the years go on. Jonah's story ends up being the most colorful and includes joining the Moonies cult, coming out and coming to terms with a truly bizarre childhood experience.
Some quotes from The Interestings that capture phases in life:
"The time period between the ages of, roughly, twenty to thirty was often amazingly fertile. Great work might get done during this ten-year slice of time. Just out of college, they were gearing up, ambitious not in a calculating way, but simply eager, not yet tired."
"...they had entered love and mutual caretaking, which unexpectedly involved feeding and food."
Ash's toast at Jules wedding in their thirties:
"I'm not losing you," said Ash. "Marriage, I don't think, is like that. It's something else. It's a thing in which you get to see your closest friend become more of who she already is."
And then in the forties and beyond:
"What did the Wolf parents tell their kids: You are so special that normal rules don't apply to you? Well, you know what? Everybody's grown-up, everybody's old, and the normal rules do apply."
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