BEFORE: Rose Byrne carries over from "Adam", and this is the first of those films I mentioned that WAS on Netflix when I put this chain together, but now is no longer available there. So I've decided to forge ahead with the chain as I initially conceived it, even though that means I'll have to pay $2.99 or $3.99 here and there to rent these films on iTunes. Yes, it still seems odd that so many romances would disappear just as February, the month of romance, came rolling around. So either they had to make room for a bunch of films to celebrate Black History Month, or (more likely, I think), these films were added to Netflix in anticipation of Valentine's Day, 2 years ago. That means their contract terms would be up just before the holiday this year, right? So that's probably what happened. I just didn't find these films there until recently, and didn't realize they could help with my linking until even MORE recently, but my saving them for February just proved to be a bad idea. My Netflix list is down to 122 titles right now, but if I keep watching what I can, both romances and stand-up specials, I think I can get that number down before the end of the month.
What I should be focusing on right now is what happens AFTER the romance chain ends in March - I can for sure get to "Captain Marvel" but so far I've been unable to figure out the best path between that film and "Avengers: Endgame", which comes out a little over a month later. There must be a thousand different paths between them, but I haven't landed on one that I like yet. I've got a tentative one that goes through "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", but I have no access to that film - probably because it might still be released in theaters in March, or April. Reports are spotty right now, and with Terry Gilliam's recent track record, who knows if that film will make it to theaters, or if it opens, how long it will be on the big screen. I can't rely on that, so I probably should come up with a different plan.
Speaking of plans, here's the TCM schedule for Day 10 of the "31 Days of Oscar", Sunday, February 10. I've giving you advance notice so if you've always wanted to see "Around the World in 80 Days", the good one, before they re-made it with Jackie Chan, here's your chance. Block out about 3 hours for that one, though. Don't miss "Royal Wedding", either, that's the one with Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in one number, thanks to the magic of practical visual effects.
The main topic for tomorrow is "See the World", followed by the "yap" battle of "Favorite Movie Dog: Lassie vs. Asta" and your choice of "William Wyler Best Picture Winners". I pick Asta over Lassie, but the other battle's more of a wash:
4:15 am "Romance on the High Seas" (1948)
6:00 am "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (1961)
8:00 am "Travels With My Aunt" (1972)
10:00 am "A Little Romance" (1979)
12:00 pm "A Passage to India" (1982)
3:00 pm "Royal Wedding" (1951)
4:45 pm "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)
8:00 pm "Lassie Come Home" (1943)
9:45 pm "The Thin Man" (1934)
11:30 pm "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)
2:00 pm "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
Thanks to the length of these films, they could only fit 11 films into this programming day - and that works to my advantage, since I'm hitting for 6 out of those 11: "A Passage to India", "Royal Wedding", "Around the World in 80 Days", "The Thin Man", "Mrs. Miniver" and "The Best Years of Our Lives". The new total of 52 seen out of 114 brings me back up to 45.6%.
THE PLOT: Newlywed couple Nat and Josh are deliriously happy despite their differences, though friends and family aren't convinced that they can last. With their first anniversary approaching and attractive alternatives in the mix, can they last?
AFTER: Yesterday's film had Rose Byrne in it, and tomorrow's will too - so I could have just skipped this one once I found out it wasn't on Netflix any more, and just closed the gap. But now I'm glad that I didn't, because even though this starts out like a typical romance film, it sure doesn't end like one. I'll try to explain without giving too much away.
It starts with a wedding, and a lot of things go wrong at the wedding, like a terribly uncomfortable speech by the best man, and then some horrible dance routine. This is all pretty standard for a romance film, I've already seen this stuff several times this year, and we're only 10 days in to the romance chain! Ha ha, something caught on fire at the reception - wake me up when it's over. Due to the very short courtship that Nat and Josh had, several guests at the wedding doubt that the marriage will last very long, which of course leads back to the title of the film. After a flash forward (or was the marriage scene a flashback, it's hard to tell...) to the happy couple in a counseling session, and it seems that whatever happened in the months after their wedding, it wasn't all that positive.
Sometimes it takes two people living together to determine that they're incompatible - I wish they could have dug a little deeper here and not fallen back on such simple stereotypes, like "men don't want to take the garbage out" and "women sing the wrong words to classic rock songs", but it is what it is. Learning to put up with each other's faults is all part of the process. But then Josh's ex-girlfriend comes back from Africa and works side-by-side with him, and Nat conveniently forgets to mention to a new client that she's married, and flirts with him to win his business, and so there seem to be new potential partners for them, just when their marriage is still new and they're trying to sort it all out.
Classic British humor seems to be based on avoiding embarrassment - just look at "Fawlty Towers", or "Are You Being Served", or (I'm guessing) any of the other ones. When someone can't bring themselves to admit something slightly embarrassing, they don't say what needs to be said, and then it's too late to say it, and things spiral out of control from there. There's some of that here, but also there's Josh's best man/best friend, who's just the opposite - he says whatever's on his mind, it's always at the wrong time and he seems incapable of being embarrassed, and his conversations just make everyone in the room uncomfortable. Jeez, does he have Asperger's or something? Why didn't anyone tell him to SHUT UP during the wedding speech, or in any scene after that, because he was saying such wildly inappropriate things? I thought British people were all supposed to be stuffy and reserved, but this character (played by Stephen Merchant) was the opposite of that. His crude humor often went too far, though, so unlike the awkward nerdy guy he played in "Table 19", here he just came off like a total arsehole.
The counseling sessions prove mostly unhelpful, partially because the therapist "expert" has to interrupt their session to have a screaming match over the phone with her husband, which is a bad sign. "I Think I Love My Wife" did a similar bit, when Chris Rock's character noticed that their marriage counselor wasn't even married, so what could she possibly know? That's just approaching the same joke from a different angle, but it works either way. But here the therapist gives the couple a goal, something to shoot for - try to overlook each other's faults and make it to their one-year anniversary. Place your bets...
But then, just when you think you might know how this film is going to resolve the love quadrangle, the film that started off like SO many other romantic comedies pulls off some things in the last half hour that I've never seen before, not in any movie. And I liked it, not just because some writer was thinking outside of the usual formulas, but also because doing what they did felt real, it felt more honest, and I could believe in it, and I can't say that about a lot of romances - and think about how many I've seen at this point.
Maybe I'm just projecting here, because I've been married, divorced and married again, and I know that feeling when things are NOT working out, and you've tried everything to make it work, and you just want to give up and stop trying because you're sure that, while it will be difficult to go forward alone, you're also going to feel this great sense of relief that you're not going to keep trying to force that square peg into a round hole any more. Umm, so to speak. When you feel like you're a bear with its arm caught in a trap, and the only thing you can do is bite off the arm and go forward in life with just three legs, just to feel free again, that's a pretty clear sign. Is it better to stay in a relationship that isn't working and be miserable all the time, just to be able to say that you're still married? That's an important question to ask in these modern times. Sure, occasionally you still hear about a couple that got married young and stayed together 50 or 60 years, but aren't they the exceptions? The vast majority of people in their 60's have been through two, three or more long-term relationships, it's just the way it goes.
Also starring Rafe Spall (last seen in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"), Anna Faris (last heard in "The Emoji Movie"), Simon Baker (last seen in "The Devil Wears Prada"), Stephen Merchant (last seen in "Table 19"), Minnie Driver (last seen in "Owning Mahowny"), Jason Flemyng (last seen in "The Red Violin"), Olivia Colman (last seen in "The Lobster"), Jane Asher (last seen in "It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond"), Terence Harvey (last seen in "Johnny English"), Nigel Planer, Clare Higgins (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Sue Wallace, Tim Key.
RATING: 6 out of 10 honeymoon photos
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