The short story “Zetland: By a Character Witness” offers a title character who, for sure, maintains a life of the mind. Coming from Saul Bellow, this is no surprise. It is also a love story, though. Zetland, or Zet, a philosophy student, meets and marries—is “delightfully married” to—Lottie. Initially having “no interest in surface phenomena,” he comes to appreciate the lot of a knowing but content man. “Ah, Lottie, I’ve been starving on symbolic logic,” Zet says. There is much to be said for surface phenomena.

Contrary to what some might suspect, “Zetland” is not too cerebral. It is a rather casual serio-comedy.

With her penetrating eyes Sonja Richter gives not a good but a great performance in Open Hearts (2002), from Denmark, as a woman whose fiance is shockingly injured by a passing car before she is all but flatly rejected by the bitter man. The woman finds solace in the supportive doctor (an effective Mads Mikkelsen) whose wife, it so happens, was driving the deadly car. (She is played thoughtfully and interestingly by Paprika Steen). An affair begins between Richter’s character and the doctor.

Harrowing contingency, the fight against one’s own vulnerability, generosity in love—these are the themes of this well-wrought movie directed and co-written by Susanne Bier. Open Hearts is not its proper title, however. The Danish title, Elsker Dig For Evigt, means “Love You Forever.” Okay. But I cannot avoid asking a question: Here, who loves who forever?

(In Danish with English subtitles)

Cover of The Onion Field

Based on a true story chronicled by Joseph Wambaugh in a book, The Onion Field (1979) is a very good Law and Order episode.

Sensibly directed by Harold Becker, it concerns two thieving criminals, Greg Powell and Jimmy Smith, who unintentionally encounter two plainclothes policemen who are suspicious of them.  To get them out of the way, the crooks kidnap the officers—Hettinger (John Savage) and Campbell (Ted Danson)—with Powell soon thinking they will have to be killed because, mistakenly, he deems the kidnapping of cops a death-penalty offense.  Consequently, out in an onion field, Powell shoots Campbell (does Smith do so?), but Hettinger frantically escapes.

By and by the criminals are caught, and exhausting trials get underway.  Officer Campbell is dead, and Hettinger eventually starts wishing he was too:  The precinct holds that he was wrong to surrender his gun to the culprits, and tormenting memories of the homicide keep afflicting him.  Finally he resigns from the force.

A fascinating narrative is served up here (script by Wambaugh), and it effectively makes a sensitive person think.  Protesting that he has never killed anyone, Smith claims he is only a thief.  To my mind, here the film imparts that a man is a fool to commit a felonious crime because it is too highly possible he will sooner or later commit an even worse one.  Franklyn Seales plays Smith with tautness, with sympathy-inducing verity.  James Woods is an evil but human Powell, a man of evident wits and dementedness.  These men and honor among thieves are not exactly simpatico.  Although the film has its defects, I myself am pretty simpatico with The Onion Field. 

Cover of The Onion Field

Based on a true story chronicled by Joseph Wambaugh in a book, The Onion Field (1979) is a very good Law and Order episode.

Sensibly directed by Harold Becker, it concerns two thieving criminals, Greg Powell and Jimmy Smith, who unintentionally encounter two plainclothes policemen who are suspicious of them.  To get them out of the way, the crooks kidnap the officers—Hettinger (John Savage) and Campbell (Ted Danson)—with Powell soon thinking they will have to be killed because, mistakenly, he deems the kidnapping of cops a death-penalty offense.  Consequently, out in an onion field, Powell shoots Campbell (does Smith do so?), but Hettinger frantically escapes.

By and by the criminals are caught, and exhausting trials get underway.  Officer Campbell is dead, and Hettinger eventually starts wishing he was too:  The precinct holds that he was wrong to surrender his gun to the culprits, and tormenting memories of the homicide keep afflicting him.  Finally he resigns from the force.

A fascinating narrative is served up here (script by Wambaugh), and it effectively makes a sensitive person think.  Protesting that he has never killed anyone, Smith claims he is only a thief.  To my mind, here the film imparts that a man is a fool to commit a felonious crime because it is too highly possible he will sooner or later commit an even worse one.  Franklyn Seales plays Smith with tautness, with sympathy-inducing verity.  James Woods is an evil but human Powell, a man of evident wits and dementedness.  These men and honor among thieves are not exactly simpatico.  Although the film has its defects, I myself am pretty simpatico with The Onion Field. 

In the first-person narrative of the novel Loner (2016), by Teddy Wayne, David Federman does not seem like a true loner, even a sexually deprived one. An 18-year-old Harvard student, he seems conventional and straight-thinking until . . . his preoccupation with beautiful Veronica, a fellow student, is all that concerns him; and, yes, his friends appear no longer to be around. Tenuously involved with two other guys, Veronica is all but dismissive of the “beta” David while also giving him mild encouragement. David plans and schemes, sometimes repulsively.

Craving the girl, our hero never says he loves her. Veronica, for her part, objectifies David. Both are probably too young to know better (or not), albeit the loner proves capable of a serious offense—and doesn’t care about it.

Loner is like Alissa Nutting’s Tampa: a relatively short, serious novel that is not very profound but is a page-turner. And it’s intelligently written. I recommend it.