Romance and Heartache in Washington, DC

With the news this week that President Donald Trump might respond to the crime problem in our nation’s capital through some scheme of federalization, permit me to offer a word of support as a one-time almost-resident of Washington, DC.

Bear with me for a moment.

Having been parked for most of my life in one Ohio suburb or another, I have grown accustomed to expressions of astonishment when I tell strangers that, in the past, I have lived in reasonably close proximity to several major American cities. For much of my youth, my family lived in the suburbs of New Orleans, but in our imaginations (and in our recounting) that was close enough to mean that we were essentially residents of the City That Care Forgot—even if we lived across the lake. Some years later, as a young adult, I called suburban Maryland home, which meant that, for about 10 months, I considered myself an honorary resident of Washington, DC.

I can’t claim that I took full advantage of this opportunity. My main haunts in the area were the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, where I saw The Pink Panther, I Walked With a Zombie, Vertigo, and other cinematic masterpieces; the Tysons Corner shopping mall in Virginia; and, within the city itself, an art-house cinema that I seem to recall being on E Street. Clearly my cultural interests were more consumerist than historical since I never visited the Smithsonian or the Library of Congress, though I do remember encountering the National Cathedral while attending a film festival at a movie theater on Wisconsin Avenue. 

In my defense, I can claim some distant familial link to the area: Although my parents were, like me, dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterners, they, too, had a sojourn somewhere in the general vicinity of the nation’s capital. Some years before I was born, my parents lived in Bethesda. According to my mother, who kept a piece of paper noting all of her addresses going back to the start of her married life, she and my father lived there for a mere six months, which hardly seems possible except when you consider that they once moved to Florida for one day. (There it is in my mother’s handwriting: “Florida—1 day.”) I do have proof of their residency in the form of a photo of my mother standing, in her capacity as a tourist, outside the White House, which was then occupied, I believe, by Jimmy Carter. 

This gave my brief, sort-of-DC adventure something of a nostalgic glow, and it certainly continues to give me an abiding affection for what I humbly propose is the greatest DC-set movie of modern times, Mike Nichols’ 1986 film Heartburn—my real reason for writing this column.

Heartburn stars Meryl Streep as Rachel, a writer in the mold of Nora Ephron, which should come as no surprise because Nora Ephron wrote (and adapted) the book upon which the film was based. Jack Nicholson stars as Mark, Rachel’s charming but unreliable beau who writes a political column in Washington, DC—at a time when such a post conferred instant prestige, credibility, and influence. (I can dream, can’t I?)

After Rachel and Mark get married, the movie makes the move from New York, Rachel’s hometown, to DC, making it that rarest of things: a romantic comedy that unfolds inside the Beltway but does not revolve around elected officials. In many superficial ways, Heartburn resembles the sort of romantic comedy that Woody Allen then specialized in—young well-heeled urbanites contending with romantic woes—except that it is set in DC, not Manhattan. This gives the movie instant sociological interest, especially for someone whose parents spoke fondly of their fleeting time in the District.

The world of Heartburn always struck me as infinitely more provincial than the world of, say, Allen’s Manhattan-based Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters. In Heartburn, Mark and Rachel struggle to extract competent or consistent work from the contractor remodeling their theoretically lovely townhouse. “We got a good price on it because they had a, sort of, fire,” Rachel says in a line that reminds us of Streep’s long-neglected gift for comedic timing. No one here dines at Le Cirque, but there is talk of the Hamburger Hamlet—locations in Bethesda and Georgetown! And when Mark drives Rachel, going into labor, to the hospital to give birth to their child, he speeds down a nearly empty street with the Capitol in the background—something you couldn’t do on Fifth Avenue. 

The city and its leafy suburbs have the patina of importance, but the characters behave as though they are in an episode of Peyton Place. The gossipy gal-about-town played by Catherine O’Hara (brilliant) speculates about a prominent woman of unusual height having an affair—someone jokes it could be with a member of the Washington Bullets—and later says the same woman was spotted having drinks with some important person at the Washington Hilton—and, as Catherine O’Hara says, “nobody has drinks at the Washington Hilton unless something secret’s going on.” 

The Hamburger Hamlet, the Washington Bullets, the Washington Hilton—it’s all ever so slightly small-time, which is part of its cozy charm.

In the end, though, Heartburn portrays DC as a city small enough for rumors and innuendo to circulate, even if they are merely of the romantic variety. In one memorable scene, Rachel pays a visit to her motor-mouthed hairdresser, who, while doing her hair, speaks with a colleague about her own suspicions about the whereabouts of her significant other—but Nichols, the craftiest of directors, pushes the camera in on Rachel, who, while listening to this saga, then realizes that she is in the same predicament vis-à-vis Mark. It’s a beautiful directorial flourish. Rachel then flees to New York.

Yes, I feel I understand all about Washington, DC, thanks to Heartburn, which, in its own way, validates the wisdom attributed to Harry Truman that was recently echoed by Hunter Biden in his hilarious interview with Andrew Callaghan: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

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