Incredibly lame spoiler warning...
At the end of The Family Stone everybody's paired up. The father's wife is dead but she still watches over her happy family from a picture frame as they all come into the room hand in hand in their happy Christmas coupledom. Except for the youngest daughter, who's about 12. I don't know why she hasn't shown up with some motorcycle driving high schooler by now. What the hell is her problem?
It's like these are the only people in the world and they just shift each other around until the pieces fit. Nobody has to end up alone because dear god, that would be a tragedy. In fact, aside from the apparently socially inept preteen, nobody in this film has to spend ten seconds alone except the teenage daughter who is clearly a miserable bitch because she doesn't have a man in her life. But then they find her one and she's instantly a better person.
Ugh. That movie makes me want to hurl my Edith Wharton books at the TV.
On Grey's Anatomy this week - also spoiler warning - we had two accepted marriage proposals. One from a man who just lost his father and is looking for any way to numb the pain, and the other from a man who just got over a life-altering injury and spent weeks not talking to his girlfriend because then he would lose the mind game they were playing.
And Meridith is finally happy because she found a good boyfriend.
Izzie made some mistakes, but at least she's smart enough to spend some time healing on her own before running off to disguise her pain with sex.
Meredith's mother is a megabitch, but she has a point. Why isn't Meredith happy because she's a good surgeon? Why is everybody out to fill some deficiency in themselves by running off and finding the most available lover they can stand?
I worry about Addison. She almost had it right by staying away from all the men until she got her head on straight. Then she fell into Eric Dane again. Not that I totally blame her. Have you seen that guy?
I'm not suggesting we don't put happy couples in our scripts. I know a bunch of you are happily married, but far too many people get married for the wrong reasons. I know. I almost did it.
Society - and by that I'm including us the writers - keeps telling everybody they have to get paired up. Dermot Mulroney doesn't work for you? His brother Luke Wilson is pretty hot. He'll do in a pinch. Lonely? Get married to the first person who thinks you're swell. That will fix all your problems.
I see more bad movies written by men than I do women, but as far as romantic comedy, which is so difficult to execute well, I think women may tend to write the fairy tale, whereas men tell it like it is.
ReplyDeleteNeither one is necessarily good or bad, but I believe J.F. Lawton's original draft of Pretty Woman was a hard take on the life of a prostitute, and the rewrites by Barbara Benedek moved the film into the much softer focus that millions now adore worldwide.
I'll never know who wrote Family Stone because I'm not going to see it. Thanks for the review, Emily (rent Manhattan).