Love in times of fear

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2005)

Howard Hughes obtains every girl he can desire easily (if he has any time left amid lathering, aeronautic designing and movie producing), but he discovers a surprising affinity with Katherine Hepburn.
For Hepburn this man is not "too much mad for me" as Ava Gardner will tell him later- because Katherine suffers also from some kind of disorder. Both little conventional young of slim elegance, an innate ambition and highest professional achievements, find in each other a companion with features that are not abundant in their respective environments. The similarity between these two protagonists is one of the keys for this film, but few have found it. The main personality resemblance being the predominance of a neurotic tendency. Is attraction or necessity what unites them? A nature dominated by anxiety seems to adapt defectively to other neurotic, although the expression of the anxiety are quite different; he suffers a phobic and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and in Kate although resulting in a less handicapping way- we can guess she is an eccentric person, in constant need for control and easily stressed when feeling that she is not as much loved as she aspires to. Both reach that point in which one interferes with another ("fame is my territory" tells him, when some of the photographers turn their cameras away from her and aim them to him), but this would not be enough reason for breaking up as she will leave him for another notorious star that could also overshadow her (Spencer Tracy, her definitive love). The true reason is Hughes was not able to satisfy her necessity for security as Tracy would do (anyone that has seen Tracy's movies knows he is the kind of man that was born to give confidence). Neither Kate can render any aid to Hugh (when he is attacked by her family with wounding remarks she does not assist him: who is asking for help is not ready to hear others when asking the same).
Two very similar people rarely could complement each other, but living together is impossible when their main feature is an under-laying fear, that arises constantly from childhood time. The need for a mate in this kind of people derives from the necessity of a truce in the sense of fear, and both will look for that relief in each other at the same time.
I intended to deal only about one of the many aspects of the story.