Is love where it should be?
Rarely. And that's an answer that John Logan gives us very subtly in Penny Dreadful, more specifically in my favorite episode, 1X04 "Demimonde".
Let's set the stage: at the Grand Guignol.
There are sailors, retired elderly people, couples...in fact on the right we see a young couple in love: Ethan Chandler and Brona Croft.
Suddenly, among the people a single woman emerges, with black hair and a slender figure, with a somewhat grave and hypnotizing voice, it is Vanessa Ives, who asks for a brandy.
This brief essay arises from the idea of making a small visual development of a reality that I think I glimpse more and more in today's society.
And it is that no other movie or series that at least I, and only I have seen, shows in such a crude way as John Logan does in this scene, how many couples are together to be, perhaps for multiple reasons, but that they live together without feeling true love, or even worse, with one of the two components in love with another person.
I have previously developed my POV of Ethan Chandler's behavior in this scene according to Brona, who is one of the quieter characters in Penny Dreadful before becoming the formidable Lily.
Like every beginning of any couple, Ethan should really be in love with Brona Croft.
And he is not.
Plain and simple, he's cheating on her.
He appreciates her very much, and he is her lover, but just for the gratification of sex and company?
The answer is yes, it underlies here.
And Ethan & Brona embody more than half of today's established couples, couples who even have children, or are married.
Everything is fine between Ethan & Brona until Vanessa greets Ethan, like a happy friend seeing an acquaintance in a play or maybe real computations at the movies, at a cultural event, recital, museum... or other places but of course always linked to the art, not the mundane, this is John Logan writing, when he was really inspired and he was serious about it, not like when he wrote that horrendous Penny Dreadful in Los Angeles and he was so naughty giving us that trash as a possible heir to this first masterpiece.
Well, Vanessa Ives here is not herself, but brought to reality that distorting element that makes the partner who is not really in love wake up from her disgusting lethargy, and makes him know what are you doing with that person? What is that useless and barren life that you lead with her, making her believe that you love her/him, when you are bored?
You want something else...
You want someone else.
Ethan's expression when he sees Vanessa goes from surprise to joy, from joy to complete hypnosis, looking at Vanessa instead of Brona when he is introducing them saying "Brona, Miss Ives ...."
What he really cares about is in that room.
Brona spare, she bores him.
Sadly, every day I see hundreds of couples who are bored, prey to a routine that binds them more than handcuffs, more than glue.
And they are people who are wasting their best years and those of the loved one, because there is only one way to waste life: to let the best years go by to love, no matter how old you are without having someone you really love.
And what's worse: desperate people in the face of resounding loneliness who don't know how to wait or look for love, who don't give fate a chance and settle for the first right or wrong person who crosses their path.
Vanessa is the right person for Ethan, and he knows it.
In the case of today's women and men who hate being alone, there are even today elements that seal their possible "hunt" for someone who is called to fill this void they suffer from being alone and that they mistakenly call "love" .
The hallmark is usually a pregnancy, wanted or not.
Or maybe a wedding, the purchase of a property, or a long trip.
In any case something that binds them, and that is a cruel game of the subconscious.
Because no matter how many children a couple of these characteristics have, no matter how many joint plans, companies or jobs, real estate or businesses, life insurance or therapies... sooner or later that distorting element will appear that will wake up the one who is not in love, and It will make you see the barren life that you are living next to that man/woman you appreciate, but who you do not really love.
And is that distorting element always a person?
The answer is no, absolutely and emphatically no.
It may or may not.
Sometimes it's a job, a simple movie, a call, a visit, a vase that falls to the ground or a situation in daily life that pushes us to the limit....it's that clear and simple.
The distorting element here in this scene is Vanessa drinking her brandy in the camera shot that picks up the kiss between Ethan and Brona.
Vanessa's image is in the middle, a reference by Logan to the fact that she was called to break this relationship if Brona had not died.
One of the things I've loved most in my life about Penny Dreadful is how current it is, being based on the principles of the Victorian era that it represents.
It is as if Logan has worked them to reflect current situations. The dramatic psychology of the characters is so recurrently new, unconscious and current.
Logan answers himself, love is, and exists.
But not where it should.
The wrong couples fly by every place, and there are more and more. The worrying number of them intensifies when we become aware of it as here.
Thank you Ethan Chandler.
And many more to you, Logan, again another exciting point of reflection for the convulsive current times and the hypocrisy of many of those who we think are perfect couples, when they are just a big mistake, and they know it.
And lucky are those who really love each other, who are soulmates.
But Ethan & Brona weren´t one of those last.
