| Review:
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Going for the intimated sexual politics play on words
of the title with perverse determination, An American Affair
combines those two classic questions: where were you when
JFK was assassinated, and also when you lost your virginity.
If that peculiar juxtaposition of incongruous ideas seems
a bit on the flaky though somewhat fascinating side, you've
already figured out the tenor of this movie.***
Directed by Swedish born first time filmmaker William
Sten Olsson, An American Affair is marked by the kind of
youthful outsider looking in point of view that can convey
a best and worst of both worlds more candid, unflinching
scrutiny of the hot topic distant history at hand. But while
suffering on the other hand from an unfamiliarity with a
deeply embedded social sensibility.***
And what gives Olsson a somewhat but no means complete
pass in these matters of cultural precision, is the fact
that the protagonist is an impressionable thirteen year
old, barely making sense himself of the acceleration of
current events taking place during the Cold War era Bay
Of Pigs CIA orchestrated invasion of communist Cuba, and
the subsequent assassination of JFK. Cameron Bright is Adam,
a rebellious DC Catholic school boy from a comfortable upper
middle class family of full time mom 'n pop journalists
and part time parents. Prone to getting into fist fights
at school in an era where looming social tensions are already
palpable, the voyeuristic latchkey kid also starts obsessing
about a mysterious, glamorous new neighbor across the way.***
Catherine (Gretchen Mol), it turns out, is a party hard
socialite divorced from a CIA company man, and who is visited
under cover of night for sexual encounters, by none other
than JFK. But rather than discouraging the boy from now
complicated further pursuit of his infatuation with this
seductive older woman, his raging hormones are set into
high gear. And he insinuates himself into her life by convincing
the amused when not annoyed femme fatale to hire him to
do chores around her property, while spying through her
windows and secretly reading her mail.***
Eventually all sorts of narrative strands become inextricably
tangled, as DC seems to turns into a city populated with
multiple stalkers, underage and otherwise, some motivated
by sex, others by politics, and still most others by both.
There's also a diary Adam snatches from the distressed hottie,
revealing disturbing clues leading up to the JFK assassination
and who may be implicated. No wonder an observation is made
that the communists must be having more fun.***
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