Memoir To Movie

Empty-nester Joan Anderson was shocked and angry when she learned her house had been listed for sale. Her husband, Robin, then told her he was being transferred from New York to Wichita, Kan., so they would buy a house there. 

But would she go with him, would she continue to take care of him — a man who often failed to flush the toilet, who expected her to keep house while also writing her modestly successful children’s books — or would she for once do something rash? Of course she would, or there would have been no bestselling memoir, “Year by the Sea,” and certainly no movie. 

Now playing in only six theaters across the country, the film was given a special premiere at The Millerton Moviehouse on Friday, May 26, with the director, screenwriter and score composer all in one, Alexander Janko, available for questions via Skype. The surprise was how much Janko ignored the book and created his own storyline full of textual metaphors clumsily plonked into the script.

In the book, Anderson retreats to a cottage she and her husband owned in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod. Despite her book royalties, she runs out of money — remember she is trying to be independent — and finds a part-time job in Hatch’s fish market. She also begins making friends. When her hot water heater breaks down and her husband refuses to pay for repairs, she earns that money by digging for clams. All the while she writes about the sea, its beauty and the healing joys of solitude, friendship and independence, in arch, no one-has-ever-felt-this-way prose.

But Janko’s Joan rents a cottage, sight unseen, reachable only by rowboat. (Joan’s metaphor: “I’m a bit like a boat. Nothing to steady me.”) Hilarity ensues: Joan rows in circles, Joan rows in the fog, Joan doesn’t know how to tie sailor’s knots and her boat drifts away from shore. When she wants to see the famous seals, she asks a fisherman, John, to take her to Monomoy Island. He turns out to be the married, 20-years-younger owner of Hatch’s, who teaches her to dig for clams and falls in love with her. (John’s first metaphor: “Real loneliness is not knowing who you are.”)

When Joan meets a quirky neighbor, Joan Erikson — she is married to famous developmental psychologist Erik Erikson — they dance on the beach in flowing clothes and scarves. (Joan Erikson’s metaphor: “We have a friendship to develop.”)

Not everything in “Year by the Sea” is stale. Karen Allen, who plays Joan Anderson, is still a freckle-faced charmer. She is terrific when she is quiet, acting with her body and eyes. Michael Cristofer plays Robin as an offended, whiny husband, whose eventual transformation is signified by a pirate’s head scarf. Yannick Bisson’s John is a hunky fisherman-philosopher (John’s second metaphor: “The heart has its reasons.”) Celia Imrie’s Joan Erikson radiates joy; she steals every scene she is in, but S. Epatha Merkerson as Liz, Anderson’s literary agent, is given too little to say or do.

“Year by the Sea” is Janko’s first directorial outing, and it shows. There is no arc to his storytelling, no atmosphere (not even local Cape Cod residents have accents). The many beautiful shots are like pictorial fillers. The whole effort has a been-there, seen-that quality. Even the soundtrack, which Janko composed or adapted, lives in its own, detached-from-the-movie world.

“Year by the Sea” will be shown at The Moviehouse in Millerton through Thursday, June 1, at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. For tickets and details, go to www.themoviehouse.net.