That's All Folks

If personality is merely the choreography of consciousness as it totters around the gaping void left by God's absence, relationships have become our grand pas de deux. A versatile display of majesty and eroticism, they frequently demand more applause than they are worth. Luckily, Inspector Sands deconstruct the variations and coda, picturing the happy couple as infantile misfits, struggling with the enormity of commitment as their relationship has obviously exhausted itself by the entree.

Frances and Daniel are getting married. Mercifully, someone shoots Daniel before he can complete his tedious anecdote about how he met Frances: but the Inspector's detective work unearths the fragmentation of the couple's love. Daniel is rather simplified, a cartoon geek, treating Frances like a business proposal. Frances is just unwinding.

Although the reasons why this pair have accepted marriage are opaque, the company cast a dispassioante eye over their quirks and doubts. By the end, they have resigned themselves, with a smile, to married life: it is never clear why they bothered, as their anxiety seems to come from work and memories of school bullying. Perhaps marriage is just another socially acceptable solution to low esteem.

The laughs are at the expense of the characters, and while Julia Innocenti is brilliant as both therapist and bored intern, it is unclear what light she sheds on the couple's alienation. It's a clear picture of two people in torment, even if it never digs deeply enough to discover the root conflict. Yet is this exactly the problem: skimming the surface, refusing to look deeply might have got them to the altar in the first place.