Been on a movie watching spree this week…I guess it all started with “Blood Diamond”...(..which was excellent by the way! That Leo sure has grown up!) …then saw a Meryl Streep/Robert De Niro feature called “Falling in Love”…followed by a superb tale of tall tales and myth by Tim Burton, “Big Fish” (…definitely going on my top 100 movies so far list..) and finally, “The Holiday” a Nancy Meyers flick about women and love and falling in love and broken hearts and other stuff such... (eeeeyyeew! I’m generally all for romance…so it pains me to admit that I was thoroughly disappointed! This is the same woman who wrote and directed “What Women Want” & more recently, “Something’s Gotta Give”! Needless to say, I expected sooo much more! A girl can only take this much mush!) Got me three more movies to watch over the remainder of this weekend, ”The Big Lebowski”, “ Diner” & “Dogma”. So it promises to be interesting! J
But I need to deliberate ...for posterity. I need to type out silly nothings on the subject of great loves…(..THE most popular and gratifying theme for most movies…and a topic made especially sweet by the onset of St. Valentine’s Day..(..who I’m sure must be spinning in his grave for all the ludicrous cards I had the abject horror of browsing at the mall yesterday) ). Must it be so tiring? Must it be…as Kate Winslet in the afore mentioned Holiday, chose to repeatedly and interminably launch into monologues about …. so exhausting? And what if this great love, once found and culminated, chose to fade away..(..it has been known to happen you know, to more people than will admit it..)? What then? Do we start afresh and look for the next big thing? Do we walk out on the people we once swore undying faith to and move on to greener pastures? And if that happens once, what are the chances that it will not reoccur? When is it time to hang up your gloves and bow out gracefully?
One part of me, the eternal optimist, says never! It’s never too late! As it shouldn’t ever be! Love is a connection...a simpatico. It is a meeting of minds, bodies, smells, desires …a crossing of paths, fates, ambitions… an amalgamation of destinies! Ahhh…that many splendoured thing that is often the crux of most women’s lives and sometimes the (..if some poor woman is lucky) “flavour du jour” of a mans. If you choose, at this point, to debate the validity if the previous statement, let me warn you…it would not be wise. This is not to say men do not love as much as women do, or to even undermine the extent of their affections…it is merely an observation of the general trend…one to which I will adhere. We’re just wired differently…or as my very wise and generally all-knowing boyfriend will attest... boy will be boys and women will be suckers! As a sex, we women are wired to look for different qualities in men than they are in us. Simple.
The Big Fish was absolutely brilliant! I’ve always loved Tim Burton. Since the time I saw “Beetlegeuse” and learnt the lyrics of the “Banana Boat Song” by replaying that bit so often it was a but a blur on my dads vhs (..no google then people…we sure are getting on in years aren’t we!), he’s been one of my favourite directors. And this movie would not have been the same without that touch of the whimsical that only he can bring to a production. It is the story of a mans life as told to his son. What I loved about the movie was the narrator’s ability to transform ordinary sentiment into grand passion…an ability I can but aspire to attain. The cast was riveting…Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny DeVito, Steve Buscemi…sigh! While the central theme of the movie was a father/son relationship, the circumstantial afflictions were handled with compassion and due respect. The movie was about individual perceptions and accepting the people we love for who they are..(..it’s Tim Burton people and he does not preach…the moral’s there…only if you choose to see it!) …and I think that is something we all could use a liberal dose of!
Getting back from that reverie to the general rantings… I was once told (..by one very dear co-couch philosopher..) that a lot of relationships these days fail because of a lack of trying. While that maybe a very objective view…and one that can be backed up by many a flagrant example…I believe there’s more to it than just that. A relationship is a very individual and often reticent bond between two people, the boundaries of which can only be really set by the parties in question. It’s a game really…and as with most games it has its rules and regulations, almost all of which may be over-ruled or dismissed if both the players unanimously decide that they should be. But as with most games, it has to constantly stimulate the players. One must advance stages, increase difficulty levels and gather new skills, failing which can lead to a very dissatisfied ensemble indeed! With me so far? But wait…there’s more..
Take for example, the Meryl Streep/ Robert DeNiro movie, “Falling in Love”. Yes it is a romance…yes, it is a beautiful sentiment…yes, we love the cast!!! Yet I don’t understand…they meet in a train…they’ve got their own lives, families, children. And yet they choose to give up all of that to be with each other. Were they Indian? Cos that would explain the scenario…you know…arranged marriages…didn’t really choose who they married to begin with and then found the love of their lives! But they weren’t. They were people who’d made their choices, found their own partners (…partners who were not cheating on them, were understanding of their feeling and most of all partners who did not see this coming!) and didn’t stand by them. Very strong allegations…I know, but someone has to ask the questions! Do we, as committed loving spouses, need to worry about each and every individual social interaction our partners have, turning into something more? As Chandler says to Joey in an episode of Friends from one of the early seasons, (…don’t I just looove to quote lines from that effervescent sit-com…hehehhee) “I'd like to believe that when the right woman comes along, you will have the courage and the guts to say "No thanks, I'm married."”
Which brings me to my final query…what is the correct thing to do? I know of successful relationships that are based on mutual understanding and a working empathy that have gone on to celebrate their 50 anniversaries…hey we all do! Is love… that mystical, magical sentiment… just plain over-rated?
