BEFORE: It's Super Bowl Sunday - it's the first time in 20 years that I don't have to track the game-day commercials for my job, so of course I have to watch the game because the Patriots are playing. But it's also February 1, which means it's time to start my annual romance chain. Considering the track record that the NFL has had of late, plus the common conception that domestic violence increases on Super Bowl day, this seems a bit like watching a Christmas film in the summertime - but hey, I don't make the calendar.
Last year I didn't have enough romance films to fill up February, but I was able to make do by starting the Woody Allen chain, and most of his early films were relationship-y enough to help make the quota. This year I think I had a bit too many, so I knocked off a few in January, like "Hope Springs" and "Keeping the Faith", and I'll probably have a couple left over, but those will link to films later this year, hopefully. So it's a solid 28 (OK, 29) films that are totally (OK, mostly) about all facets of love and romance, the good and the bad, the ups and downs of it all.
Michelle Pfeiffer carries over from "Dangerous Minds" as planned, but after this, things get a little hazy. It's pretty obvious that I meant for the Bruce Willis chain to lead into this, and added the other Pfeiffer films to fill up January. But I think this was at the tail end of my original chain, and then I flipped things around. So I forgot what the lead-out was from this film, or if there ever was one - maybe I meant to come up with one later. I'll deal with that tomorrow.
THE PLOT: Ben and Katie Jordan are a married couple who go through hard times in fifteen years of marriage.
AFTER: Well, at least I'm starting with a film about the ups AND downs. There are references here to the "peaks and valleys" of relationships, as a couple finds themselves stuck in a valley, without the will to climb out, so they decide to separate. If you trace it back, it seems like the problems might have started when Katie accused Ben of having an affair, and even when he said he was just talking to another woman, that was bad enough, like an emotional affair.
Wait, that can't be right - there are so many flashbacks in this film that it's hard to get the timeline in order, and you know how much that bothers me. I must have gotten it wrong, because that would mean that a woman reacted irrationally to an innocent situation, made a false accusation, and that's just crazy talk, right? I mean, that could never happen. Women are, of course, extremely rational creatures and not driven by their emotions at all.
The biggest problem this couple faces, once they agree to separate, seems to be how to tell the kids. No discussion of legal matters, no dispute over who owns the record collection or who's going to keep living in the house, so that all seems a bit too easy. Plus the kids are away at camp while Mom & Dad sort this all out, so that's pretty convenient, too. Almost like the screenwriter couldn't bear to think of parents fighting in front of their kids, yet we all know that probably happens in some marriages.
The excessive flashbackery gets really bad at the end - to the point where I thought maybe the characters had become un-stuck in time like Billy Pilgrim in "Slaughterhouse Five" and were living their lives non-linearly. This is a clear case where someone probably wrote the story in a linear way and then realized how depressing it was to watch two people slowly separate, so they had to mix it up - "Hey, remember that time we went to Italy?" But putting scenes of happier times in between scenes where the couple is living apart just makes the story seem bi-polar.
Also, there's no explanation as to how they manage to get out of the valley, what motivates them to eventually climb the next peak together. Using their history as a rationale to continue on together isn't really enough, because that's just inertia. There should have been some change represented here, either a change in someone's attitude or a change in situation that prompted reconciliation, or else they're likely to find themselves back in the same place again, having the same arguments. "I want to stay with you because we've been together so long." Nope, not enough, not for a movie, anyway.
In the end, it might seem like they've spun on a dime and made an emotional decision about their marriage, rather than a logical one. But it only seems that way because that's what happens. And the ending suggests that women are only motivated by their emotions, and not logic, which as I said before, is quite ridiculous.
Also starring Bruce Willis (last seen in "The Last Boy Scout"), Rob Reiner (last seen in "Postcards From the Edge"), Rita Wilson (last seen in "Volunteers"), Tim Matheson (last seen in "Divorce American Style"), Paul Reiser (last seen in "Funny People"), Julie Hagerty, with cameos from Betty White, Red Buttons, Tom Poston, Jayne Meadows, Ken Lerner, Albert Hague.
RATING: 4 out of 10 crossword puzzles
No comments:
Post a Comment