Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller is a book I didn’t just love; it’s a book I actually fell in love with. I carried it around with me everywhere, read bits of it aloud to my friends, and chuckled to myself as I re-read it for the umpteenth time while waiting at the bus stop. The movie doesn’t do it justice, fine though its star Judi Dench is; there’s a different ending, for starters. Then again, nuance never translates well to feature films.

So I naturally looked forward to Heller’s latest work, The Believers. As Scandal was partially inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau saga, Joel Litvinoff, the patriarch of The Believers, is clearly inspired by crusading lawyer William Kunstler. Set in New York City, Joel and his family are vociferously proud socialists; but all of them, and their respective beliefs, are thrown into disarray when Joel falls into a coma at the end of chapter one.

Heller has an eye for detail that’s wickedly clever. All the occasions that are usually sources of pleasure—sexual encounters, parties—are here deconstructed into hilariously painful slices of life, heightened by Heller’s keen ear for dialogue. You might be tempted to say Heller is too much of a cynic to find any joy in life, if you weren’t laughing so much. But even the most hardened characters in this book, like the foul-mouthed wife Audrey (though she and her husband would simply call themselves realists), prove to have a soft side if you poke them enough. Need I add I’ve read this book twice already?

SIFF Redux: And speaking of foul-mouthed…. SIFF’s opening night film this year, In The Loop, was the best opening night film they’ve had in years (I honestly can’t think of the last one I really enjoyed… Digby Goes Down? Feh. The Notebook? Bleech).

It’s one of a number of SIFF films that open this month for general consumption. In The Loop is a sharp political satire, set in the U.K., with government aides scrambling to put the best face on events, in this case the U.S. rush to war in the Middle East. The Americans (headed up by James Gandolfini as a general) are mostly various degrees of unpleasant. On the Brit side, the women are generally more competent than the hapless males; though, typically, it doesn’t mean they come out ahead. Towering over everyone is Peter Capaldi’s ranting Press Minister, Malcolm Tucker, who literally can’t speak a sentence without shoving the F-word into it. Add in the rapid-fire speaking, and the various accents, and you’ll probably have to see this more than once to take everything in properly.

Also opening this month is Humpday, the latest entry in the “bromance” genre (i.e., straight male bonding, but no sex—gee, didn’t they used to call those “buddy films”?). This one’s a homegrown effort by Lynn Shelton, who writes, directs, and has a small role in the film. It centers around two friends, Ben and Andrew. Ben is well on the road to adulthood; he’s married, lives in a house, has a job, and is working on starting a family. Then a roadblock arrives in the form of Andrew, a free-wheeling (or so he thinks) itinerant who reminds Ben of his carefree youth.

Symbolizing the pull between Ben’s past and his future, is the guys’ decision to enter “Humpfest,” yes, the Stranger’s amateur porn contest, with a homemade effort that will feature the two of them having sex. After coming up with the idea one drunken night, they can’t readily pull out (so to speak) without losing face. And here’s where Humpday supercedes other bromances in that it looks at the intricacies of relationships, and friendships, without resorting to cheap vulgarities. It’ll be interesting to see how the film fares on the national scene.

Especially as you can compare and contrast it to the reaction a far more conventional modern romance, (500) Days of Summer, will probably receive. It’s a cute story of unrequited love among the twenty-somethings; the gimmick is that it’s told in a non-chronological fashion. Director Marc Webb is a veteran of music videos, and it shows especially in the nifty dance sequence after our hero spends his first night with his lady love.

The Girl From Monaco, on the other hand, is the kind of film no mainstream American studio would think of making. It’s not exactly a black comedy, but does become increasingly sinister as the story progresses. A portly lawyer, Bertrand, arrives in the gambling capital on a case. He’s assigned a hyper-vigilant bodyguard with whom he unexpectedly bonds (another bromance?) then starts an affair with the sexy local weather girl. It’s a sort of love triangle, but handled in a more understated way then they’d do so here, not to mention giving the tale a more unexpected ending. A very adult film, in other words. And it’s French. Very French.