‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ Review: At Tribeca, a Double Drama of Adultery as Cure for the Midlife Family Blues
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “The Freshly Cut Grass,” there’s a scene that captures how people who’ve been married for a while, and are in the thick of raising children, can snipe at each other in dog-whistle ways that mean nothing and everything.
Pablo (Joaquín Furriel), a professor at an agronomy college (he basically instructs his students about dirt), says that he thinks his teaching job is “shitty.” But his wife, Carla (Romina Peluffo), has no job at all (and is up for an interview), so she takes his comment as an insult.
She snaps at him, then apologizes and lays her head on his shoulder; we think their snit is over. But Pablo doesn’t move a muscle, which leads her to say, “Does it bother you if I touch you?” No, he says, “how could it bother me?” Well, she explains, she wanted a hug.
But there’s a power duel in play, expressed in the job talk and the hug talk. With a worldly flourish, the movie says: This passive-aggressive punching is what too much marital war now looks like.
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