Movie Reviews: Sappy Romances Edition

An Affair to Remember (1957)

The quintessential sappy romance, with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.  They fall in love on a cruise ship, despite the fact that they both already have prior relationships waiting for them back home.  They act much too sensibly for a romance and decide not to see each for 6 months after they dock in New York, because they have to end their prior relationships and get their lives in order, and after the 6 months pass they are going to meet at the top of the Empire State Building.  (If that sounds familiar, it’s because Sleepless in Seattle is based all around this concept, too.  This is the movie that Meg Ryan and Rosie O’Donnell keep watching and weeping over and which Rita Wilson recaps so memorably.)

So, as expected, there’s a lot of big drama, and a lot of it is pretty saccharine—there’s even a bunch of singing moppets (Kerr leads a children’s choir)—but Kerr and Grant hit all the right notes, so to speak.  They’re both witty and charming and, since they’re a bit more mature (let’s say) than your typical romance couple, they’re a bit more dignified throughout the proceedings.  A good time, even if you usually don’t care much for sobfests.

Waitress (2007)

A cute flick more than anything else, with Keri Russell as a cute waitress who works in a cute diner making cute pies.  Her husband, Jeremy Sisto—he’s been on Law and Order recently, but to me he’s always Elton from Clueless—makes her life less cute by being weirdly obsessive and abusive.  When he finds out that she’s pregnant, he yells at her that’s it’s a bad idea because she won’t be able to take care of him the way he’s accustomed to being taken care of, and ultimately makes her promise that she’ll always love him more.  I like the recasting of the ‘abusive husband’ role from your basic violent brute to a guy whose worst qualities are actually the result of like, severe insecurity.  So Russell wants to get away, she doesn’t like her life and the new baby is just an anchor holding her there, but then she falls in love with her weirdly charming obstetrician.  Which is also not quite perfect because he’s married, but ultimately Russell learns to sacrifice for what’s important to her, and makes a real and honest choice.

I wish I could watch this movie and appreciate its quirkiness and cuteness, and forget the horrible backstory to the film—how the writer-director, who also plays the shy waitress—was murdered in her apartment very soon before the movie came out.  It was in the news so much they even did an episode of Law and Order about it (though Jeremy Sisto was not in it).  Kind of an unpleasant postscript, sorry about that.

More reviews follow!