BEFORE: Maddie Corman carries over from "Begin Again", and this is it, the LAST film in my romance chain for 2024, which I started on February 1. That was 44 days ago, and this themed section of the chain was 43 films that were (mostly) relevant to this topic. Sure, films about love and relationships are all around, and they may pop up again later this year, like in a film related to Mother's Day or if I have a really tough linking jam to get out of - it's not a hard and fast rule that ALL films about relationships need to be watched in February or the first half of March, because there are some films that just don't link to others well, so for those it's catch-as-catch-can. Me, I'm just happy to watch a movie about anything else right now, and knowing that "Oppenheimer" is on the horizon is a big help.
Watching 43 films about love and relationship IN A ROW is for sure not medically recommended, I see the world right now through rosy-colored glasses and care must be taken to not let that affect my own relationship, because life's very often not like the movies, or the flip-side of that is that rom-com movies may not be an accurate representation of real-life love. As always, your mileage may vary.
I've had my eye on birthdays, every night there seem to be people in each cast with March birthdays, but they never seem to quite match up right. Maybe I should just do the whole month at once, it would be easier. Happy Birthday to Lake Bell from "Man Up" (March 24), Paul Reiser from "I Do...Until I Don't" (March 30), Harley Cross from "Stanley & Iris" (March 31), Mykelti Williamson from "Waiting to Exhale" (March 4), Leon from "Waiting to Exhale" (March 8), Sharon Stone from "Beauty" and "All I Wish" (March 10), Alfred Lutter from "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (March 21), Valerie Curtin from the same film (March 31), Jon Hamm from "Nostalgia" (March 10), Catherine Keener from "Nostalgia" and "Begin Again" (March 26), Mikey Madison from "Nostalgia" (March 25), Arye Gross from "Nostalgia" (March 17), Keira Knightley from "Begin Again" (March 26), Adam Levine from "Begin Again" (March 18), and TODAY, March 15 is the birthday of Frances Conroy, who's in today's movie, so a special SHOUT-out to her! But also, Malachy McCourt is in this film, and he died four days ago, on March 11 - so you've got to take the bad with the good, I guess.
THE PLOT: A hastily married couple quickly devolve into a life of affairs, meddling parents, and therapy.
AFTER: Well, since it's the last film in the 2024 romance chain, let's go over what we've learned in the past 44 days, OK? Surely there MUST be some over-arching takeaways that we can all share, so much insight into the state of relationships today and by extension, the human condition.
LESSON 1: Don't get married in Vegas ("Think Like a Man Too"), don't have your bachelor party in Vegas ("You People"), and for that matter, don't have a destination wedding on a beautiful island ("Shotgun Wedding"). Your guests will hate you, and your wedding will be ruined by pirates, strippers or both. Don't say I didn't warn you. For that matter, don't have a bachelor party at all ("A Guy Thing") because there's a non-zero chance that you'll wake up in bed with one of the dancers who may turn out to be your fiancée's cousin. Then again, maybe at your bachelor party you will form a better relationship with one of the dancers then you have with your fiancée ("The Wedding Ringer") but come on, that's a real longshot.
LESSON 2: Any time spent pursuing the hot, seemingly unattainable person at your school or work or whatever is wasted effort, because even if you take them to the carnival and make progress in wooing them, you will eventually realized that the more perfect partner was/is your best friend, who's been right there for you, all along, only you weren't thinking of them that way, were you? ("Whatever It Takes", "Your Place or Mine", "Boys and Girls", "LOL")
LESSON 3: If you're widowed or divorced, your life is not over. Life will give you a second chance or even a third ("I Could Never Be Your Woman", "Moonlight and Valentino", "Stanley & Iris") only you must try to date a different sort of person, or you'll just end up back where you were ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore").
LESSON 4: Marriage is a social construct, and perhaps an outdated concept, if you believe filmmakers ("I Do...Until I Don't) and perhaps it's time to re-think it, only people are still getting married, it still seems to be quite popular. You can also get back together with your ex, it might not be too late ("Begin Again") or even your anonymous sperm donor ("Made in America"), stranger things have happened.
LESSON 5: Sometimes the best thing to do is just act on impulse, like who's to say how long two people need to spend together before they get married or commit to something? It could be as little as a day ("Man Up") or you could just marry someone from the crowd at your concert ("Marry Me") - the reasoning being, half of marriages end in divorce anyway, so what's the big deal if you don't look before you leap, you can always just get a do-over, right?
A lot of that plays into the themes explored in "Ira & Abby", where the two main characters meet when Ira (recently cut free from his therapist for not making progress) tries to join a gym, and instead falls for the sales agent for the gym, who, after spending just a few short hours with him, proposes that they have sex and get married, in some order. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Seriously, though, they make a cute couple, and when you know, you know, you don't really need to overthink it, because maybe it's time to just GO FOR IT, whatever that "IT" turns out to be. Just maybe make a call and break up with your on-again, off-again, long-time girlfriend of nine years before the wedding.
There will be time for second thoughts (and third, and fourth...) later - but perhaps if you don't act on impulse and faith, then nothing will ever happen. Neither Ira or Abby could possibly have seen so many moves ahead in this game of relationships, what twists and turns their quickie relationship would take. Meeting your fiancées parents is a big step, but you know what, get it over with, rip off that band-aid, come on, the clock's ticking. If you guys aren't compatible or your families don't get along, isn't it best to find that out early?
The problem here is, the couple's families get along a little TOO well - to the point where HIS mother starts having an affair with HER father, and that has a domino effect that throws THREE relationships into question. Also, it doesn't help that Abby had been married one (or two...) times before, and neglected to tell Ira that before they tied the knot. It shouldn't matter, no, not at all, but then again, it's a lie of omission and surely there must be a REASON that nobody mentioned this. And there is...
Suddenly Ira is unsure of his relationship with Abby (Gee, and they had such a great three weeks together...) and they get an annulment, and then he's back in therapy, trying to figure out what it all means. Surprise, it's got everything to do with his overbearing mother and his doormat father, because the mistakes our parents made in their relationship have a tendency to come back and haunt the next generation. That's just the way it is, and the fact that Ira's parents are BOTH analysts (not therapists, there's a difference, apparently) might also have something to do with it. Ira doesn't just have emotional baggage, he's got the full matching luggage set.
Things get really out of control during a roundtable meeting with Ira, Abby, their four parents, and an additional six therapists - it seems like that opera mentioned in "Amadeus" when Mozart keeps wanting to add more and more characters on stage, all singing at the same time. What happens when you get 12 people in a room to work out all of these relationship issues, and 9 of them are therapists or analysts? It's a very comic moment, but also there's a lot to unpack in terms of psychology and the way adult humans interact with each other, and why they can't help having affairs when the road gets a little rocky or they feel old and unattractive. Sure, it may not be the BEST approach, but at least it feels good for a time.
Good news, Ira and Abby get re-married, to each other, but then that's not the end of the story, either, they've still got some jealousy issues and self-confidence issues to work out. Oh, well, back to therapy, I guess. It's too bad, because as the characters said during their first day together, they learned more about each other and their feelings on relationships in ONE DAY then most people do in four years of dating someone. Maybe it's not worth taking a leap of faith into a new relationship if you're going to spend the next few years second-guessing yourself. Except you're going to do that anyway, aren't you? So then maybe just going for it is the best plan after all. At least you'll be having sex regularly and a permanent date every Saturday night and on holidays.
LESSON #6: I saw Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern in successive movies ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "Nostalgia") and tonight's film had Jennifer Westfeldt starring with her then-partner Jon Hamm in a supporting role (playing, ironically, one of her ex-husbands). Westfeldt and Hamm were together for 18 years, but split up in 2015. Sometimes I wonder, if the famous and beautiful people can't make things work out, what chance do the rest of us really have? Or am I looking at things from the wrong angle?
Also starring Chris Messina (last seen in "Devil"), Jennifer Westfeldt (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Frances Conroy (last seen in "The Power of the Dog"), Judith Light (last seen in "The Menu"), Jason Alexander (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Robert Klein (last seen in "The Back-Up Plan"), Fred Willard (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), David Margulies (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Kali Rocha (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Brad Bellamy, Marylouise Burke (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Michael McGrath (last seen in "The Interpreter"), Malachy McCourt (last seen in "Green Card"), Ramon Rodriguez (last seen in "The One and Only Ivan"), Ed Blank, Matthew del Negro (last seen in "Wind River"), Chris Parnell (last seen in "The Ladies Man"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "Nostalgia"), Asa Somers, Peter Hirsch, Ilana Levine (last seen in "Failure to Launch"), Darrell Hammond (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Donna Murphy (last seen in "The Astronaut's Wife"), Modi, Ken Barnett (last seen in "People Like Us"), Gregory Jbara (last seen in "Broken City"), Robert Bagnell (last seen in "We Were Soldiers")
with cameos from Joe Buck (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), Kevin Sussman (last seen in "Made of Honor"), BD Wong (last seen in "Jurassic World Dominion")
and archive footage of Richard Burton (last seen in "Becoming Mike Nichols"), Ron Howard (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Robert Preston (last seen in "Narrowsburg"), James Stewart (last seen in "De Palma") and Elizabeth Taylor (last seen in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom")
RATING: 7 out of 10 marriage couseling sessions with Dr. Saperstein
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