Director Amy Grappell digs deep in to her childhood and touches upon a part of her young life that normally might hurt others or inspire discomfort. In 1969, Amy Grappell moves from Brooklyn to Long Island with her mother and further. Both parents were struggling with their own marriage and were working hard to stay together. After meeting another couple at a local beach club, both her mother and father Paul and Deanna eventually found kindred spirits in Eleanor and Robert, both of whom were also struggling with their own marriage at the time.
What began as a strong friendship turned in to a sexual affair that would transform in to a very unusual tale of resentment and anger. Mom Deanna recalls how she gradually fell in love with then friend Robert, prompting Paul to also begin a relationship with his wife. It’s obvious the way the documentary is framed that there is still a lot of scars between both Paul and Deanna, as director Grappell interviews both parents separately. She frames their interviews side by side to where their accounts mix in to one another, allowing for insight in how both individuals viewed their four way relationship, and how they felt about attempting to live life in a four way marriage.
“Quadrangle” is a very interesting and sad tale about desperately trying to maintain the base of a relationship that is doomed to crumble. Though the four adults in the documentary indulge in a very unorthodox new relationship, it eventually just becomes a band aid for a larger problem that deteriorates eventually. It’s also, in a sense, a look at some of the more silly philosophies bred from the sixties that were never as revolutionary that many assumed, and often times contradicted pure common sense, altogether. “Quadrangle” is a fascinating and compelling glimpse in to the prolonging of the inevitable. It’s a very important message worth heeding.
Available to view for free on shortoftheweek.com beginning January 14th 11am EST.