BEFORE: I think I really dropped the ball here, because in addition to a romance theme, the films for the last few days, back to "Legally Blonde", anyway - have all had female central characters. So I should have just declared it "Gal-entine's Week" or something like that, right? Too corny? Sometime's I inadvertently program a theme and I'm so close to it, I don't even see it, like the forest for the trees, as they say. OK, so it's Galentine's Week, right up until Valentine's Day on Monday, and then maybe even after that, who knows?
I'm now 13 films in to the romance chain, but I'm only about 1/3 through this year's mix, so there's still a long way to go. Thankfully I had two episodes of "The Book of Boba Fett" to watch, which helped break things up a little bit.
Kevin Smith, filmmaker and part-time actor, carries over from a cameo as a cab driver calling the phone sex line in "For a Good Time, Call..."
FOLLOW-UP TO: "P.S. I Love You" (Movie #3,152)
THE PLOT: A woman struggles to accept the death of her fiancé and the secrets he kept from her as she rebuilds her life.
AFTER: Kind of like "Feast of Love", this film's a big bummer of sorts - come on, we all KNOW that people die and spouses get left behind and have to find a way to bounce back, but we go to the movies to get away from the cold harsh light of reality. Right? We don't need to wallow in someone else's misery for the next 100 minutes, because we've probably got enough of it in our own life to deal with, or we WILL someday, so there's that. I'm not saying that we have to see a "happily ever after" in every movie, but neither do I need to be reminded that we've all got one foot in the grave, that death is part of life and also the thing that nobody ever tells you when you get married, namely the fact that one day, perhaps many years down the road but also maybe tomorrow, you could become a widow or a widower. And that's if you're the luckier of the two. Umm, I think.
So yeah, that's reality and also the plot of this movie - the day that Gray Wheeler was supposed to be getting married turned out to be the day of her fiancé's funeral instead. Because somebody up there loves irony, or the funeral director wasn't available any other day? I don't know, it sounds like bad planning or a quirk of the calendar, no matter how you slice it. But hey, silver lining, maybe family members were planning to fly into Colorado from out of town for the wedding, so I'm guessing the funeral was well attended? That doesn't seem like much of a consolation prize, I know.
What followed that was a little confusing, as there's a silent montage of Gray packing up the house, loading up a van and moving in with two male friends who live nearby, and their houseguest, who was best friends with the dead guy. Or maybe they were all his friends, this is a bit unclear. But for some reason she couldn't afford the rent on the house after Grady died, I guess that's a possible thing? But she has a job, doesn't she? Wait, does she? I think we see her working at an office like once or twice, but not that often, is she on bereavement leave or something? I couldn't tell you what her job is, though, it's not mentioned, but apparently it doesn't pay her enough to afford the rent herself, which is weird. Couldn't she get a roommate or open up an AirBnB or something? I guess it doesn't matter, because the plot demands that she move into a house with three men so that something else can then happen.
But she also discovers that Grady had a secret bank account, and this quirk of the plot where he died before they got married means that she's got no claim to the money, it's not community property according to Colorado law. But it does raise questions, like where did the money come from (never answered) and why was there a $3,000 payment made every month to a massage therapist in California? The friends determine that maybe Grady was going to tell her about the secret account right after the marriage, but I'm not sure this theory holds water. What other secrets did her dead fiancé have, and how much do his friends know about them?
(A lot of weird connections to yesterday's film, not just about rent and secret bank accounts, but also how relationships change between friends when they move in together, and how important it is to repaint rooms when you move in to a new place - I'm not disagreeing, it's always the first thing I do, too.).
Over time (not that much, I don't think), Gray starts to have feelings for Fritz, her almost-husband's best friend and confidante, despite some HUGE red flags, namely that she spied on him having sex with one of the caterers at her husband's funeral. Yeah, that wasn't cool, and I can't really see how this wasn't a deal-breaker for her. Also, he seemed to know the MOST about her almost-husband's secret life, and OK, he didn't betray that trust, but also, that means he was keeping things from her that she probably should have been informed about, and all that should have happened BEFORE the wedding, not after. The other friend (the one not played by Kevin Smith) eventually reveals that he also has strong feelings for Gray, he's upset about Grady's bad choices have affected her, and I think all in all, he's a stand-up guy. Which of course, means that Gray's not interested in him at all, because love apparently doesn't work that way. Maybe that's her problem, she falls for the bad boys, and she needs to break that cycle.
What bothered me here was the very non-realistic conversations that took place, and across the board every character made nearly everything about ten times more complicated than it needed to be. That'll wear you down as a viewer, sooner or later. Plus there are WAY too many coincidences to be believed, like Grady's mother running into somebody wearing his fishing hat at an outdoor street market, recognizing that hat as having belonged to her dead son (because come on, no two hats in the world could possibly look alike?) and then putting the pieces together about EVERYTHING from just that. Mmm, I don't think so. And then ultimately everybody just sort of pairs up at the end of the movie like it's the easiest thing in the world, just like matching up socks or shuffling cards, but forming partnerships is a much slower, more intricate process, or at least it should be.
Also starring Jennifer Garner (last seen in "Peppermint"), Timothy Olyphant (last seen in "Head Over Heels"), Sam Jaeger (last seen in "Lucky Number Slevin"), Tina Lifford (last seen in "Hostage"), Fiona Shaw (last seen in "The Tree of Life"), Juliette Lewis (last seen in "A Million Little Pieces"), Joshua Friesen, Georgia Craig (last seen in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"), Sonja Bennett (last seen in "The Perfect Score"), Yorgo Constantine (last seen in "Stand Up Guys"), Michael Adamthwaite (last seen in "Horns"), Terence Kelly (last seen in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"), Gabrielle Rose (last seen in "The Sweet Hereafter").
RATING: 4 out of 10 indie rock emo CDs (dumped on the floor)
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