Love in Sheep's Clothing

So, I like bad movies. I love romantic comedies and I can certainly stomach the occasional terribly predictable plot. I thought that a mindless night filled with a partially nude Jack Gyllenhaal would do wonders for my brain dead spirit. I quickly discovered that a story filled with not only a partially nude Jake Gyllenhall, a totally nude Anne Hathaway and a horribly depressing yet not fully extended plot sidetrack featuring Parkinson's disease was not something I had taken into account nor care to ever again.

Love and Other Drugs was not the whimsical jaunt through a casual sex comedy I had pictured. Actually, I'm not sure what I pictured. But gratuitous sex scenes with Hathaway's unabashed breasts and the feeling that at any moment someone was going to mention Parkinson's disease was a bit more than I cared to handle.

For any great sexual dramedy, you've got the basics down:
-Attractive Protagonists Wherein One Doesn't Want the Other
-Annoying Jonah Hill-esque Sidekick
-Enough Conflict to At Least Get You to Act Three
-An Insurmountable Feat That Can Only Be Pursued By the Power of Love
-One Good Chase Scene That Ends With An Expression of Already-Revealed Feelings

This was a normal love story in sheep's clothing : Parkinson's clothing. I feel like this is what every single love story is trying to tell these days but trying to do it in some drastically new and different way. Can we all agree that it just doesn't work anymore? We need a new story!

I don't care how many social issues you tack on or how many gratuitous sex scenes with hot co-stars you try to illuminate, we are very very bored.*

*These stories can and should, however, include a few more scenes with a partially nude Jake Gyllenhall. That part, sure, you can keep.

"The Better To Eat You With."

With my nuptials only a few months away, I've taken it upon myself to revisit several films focused on the issue of marriage. Surprisingly, there does not exist a high percentage of positive stories on the position of forever and ever.

I remember seeing Prelude to a Kiss when I was younger and recall my eleven year old brain attempting to expand twice its size. It's a tricky concept, this notion of forever and ever. A story about a man and a woman having their lives turned upside down on the day of their wedding by a pesky episode of the wife and a stranger switching bodies makes this a little complicated.

No matter how you slice it, marriage gets a bad rap in film. Whether it's a tale of a couple not making it down the aisle because of their feelings of a long last love. A familiar tale of boy meets girl, boy falls out of love with girl. A marriage that falls apart years and years later... Marriage seems to carry a rain cloud over head.

Prelude to a Kiss seemed to be a slight exception. What starts as a common theme takes a delightful twist that leaves you with an unfamiliar feeling.

We meet Rita and Peter, (Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin) in the blissful throes of that first stage of attraction. They meet, fall head over heels and soon make their way down the aisle. Yet during their reception, an odd elderly man stumbles in an appears out of place. He and the nervous bride exchange a silent moment before engaging in a congratulatory wedding kiss. The sky turns black and immediately we know that they have switched souls. What follows is an unfortunate string of events that clue Peter in to the fact that he does not know who he has married.

We've all seen movies portraying the switching of bodies and how it works for the protagonist to gain knowledge about themselves and the world around them. But I felt like Prelude to a Kiss was one of the greatest exceptions due to the exquisite way the characters interact after this event takes place.

To me it was more of a metaphor for how most couples can have that uneasy feeling surrounding this business of ever after. What if this person changes? What if this person isn't who I think they are? What if one day that thing they do with their fork sends me through the roof? Really, who is this person after all? What better way to highlight those questions than the physical switching of personalities and souls.

Baldwin's character feels the disappearance of his bride and the pang of loneliness in the days following this evident loss. That lively, vivacious woman he once loved seemed to have the light fade behind her eyes. The way she chewed her food, the way she sat in a chair, the way she didn't get his jokes. Everything was gone and he was in exquisite despair.

What the couple learns in the end is important and real. I can only hope that on the day of my wedding, I don't need to switch souls with anyone to learn this lesson. Hopefully I'll learn this lesson the old fashioned way....twenty years from now.

"You have a nice personality and you know sweaters."

If I were to draw up a list of some of my favorite Woody Allen films, the ones that would take the cake would be Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, Sleeper and Annie Hall. I had forgotten all about the often overlooked 1990 gem Alice.

After re-watching this film, I'd go out on a limb and say that it's quickly climbed into my top three Allen films. What captures me most about this story, is the painfully funny way he chooses to create his latest Mia Farrow heroine. Farrow's character, Alice, is almost a walking parody of every modern day housewife who finds herself in a state of confusion over the course of her life. Only on drugs!

Alice Tate finds that after sixteen years of marriage to her husband Doug, (played by the fantastic William Hurt) she is oddly drawn to a stranger at her children's school. She questions her marriage, her life and the unmovable position that she's settled into. The love she feels for her husband has turned into what I so often dread about most of Allen's films after a time. It's a love that has turned into a monotonous, tired, lackluster affection that has sullied the protagonists' place in their world. While I don't often enjoy the message that Woody Allen pretends to tell differently in every film, I will say that things were quite different in Alice.

Alice seeks the medical attention of a highly recommended doctor in China Town. After a brief hypnosis, he suggests that it is not her back pain that is the problem, but in her mind. He gives her the first of what would be many exotic herbs with little explanation of its effect. Alice quickly discovers that these remedies allow her to step outside of herself in physical and metaphorical ways. What follows is a fun jog through several hilarious episodes that Alice finds herself involved in. Her life begins to change, not so much in a 'You will be visited by three ghosts' way, (unless you count the ghost of Alec Baldwin who decides to fly her around a moonlit Manhattan). 

You can often tell a well-crafted Woody Allen movie apart by the way he chooses to end the story. So often, I'm left wishing it didn't have the trademark stamp at the end credits -- that familiar feeling that you've been cheated into being spoon fed his sad take on relationships. (Yes, I am an enormous Woody Allen fan, but I can still be jilted!) Alice is the exception. The credits roll and you feel like you've invested your time wisely in this story. You're left happy for the characters and pleased that you still have your sense of humor intact. 

For an uplifting take on life, I'd revisit Alice anytime.

Nobody, Baby But You and Me

Since its premiere, the mere mention of the film Blue Valentine has become synonymous with the phrase: "Don't see it if you're in a relationship." I had to wonder what could possibly drive most of the people I know to repeatedly turn this phrase. What could possibly be so heart breaking and so challenging to get through in less than two hours of cinema?

After finally sitting down to watch the film, I think I'd only edit the phrase by saying: "Don't see it if you're in a bad relationship." Or perhaps, more directly: "Don't see it if you live in rural Pennsylvania and marry someone with little life ambition while you slowly become more heartless and unaffected."

Of course it's sad. Hell, it's devastating. The irony is, I haven't seen in a movie in a long time that created the believable structure of a relationship as well it's destruction. In most stories, you only get one or the other and quite honestly, I've never believed either. When telling the tale of two people falling in love, you don't really see the tiny pieces that get them there.

Blue Valentine did an amazing job stretching out the infinitesimal reasons why people can fall into a state of such perfect, undeniable love and attraction as well as how those things can begin to disintegrate over time. It's real, it's honest and it's terribly depressing.

Over the course of an average lifespan, you're going to be able to relate in a small way to how relationships can fall apart. That first love that broke your heart, that guy you realized was your best friend, the hot guy who you had nothing in common with... We can all relate to how something that seems so straight forward in the beginning can somehow diverge into levels upon levels of complications. People are difficult to relate to. People change over their lifetime and the trick is, to find someone that can accept you at different stages.

The only thing that made me ache over Blue Valentine was the empathy I felt for these characters and how heartbreaking it is when something that was once so beautiful can end so tragically. So, basically...the whole movie.

If you want to skip the heartbreak and simply take away the good parts, I urge you to go download the movie's title song: "You and Me" by Penny and the Quarters. It's been on repeat for last three weeks on my ipod.