Love Again

Last night I saw the movie Love Again with my wife. I had no idea what this movie was, but it was something she wanted to see, Tuesday night is free popcorn and matinee prices, so what the heck, I guess. It bills itself as a romantic comedy-drama, but I'll suggest that there was precious little comedy. It's just a somewhat sappy romance. As such... it's not bad, I suppose. Arguably better in some respects than your typical Hallmark movie. But there were two things that I didn't like about it at all. I actually didn't tell this to my wife, because I don't think she'd really understand. Or, more honestly, she probably would understand, but her denial and defensiveness would kick in and she'd attempt to argue with me that I shouldn't feel this way.

The first problem is that while the movie takes place in America, none of the main characters are American. Three supporting characters are American, yet ironically, they aren't played by American actors. The leading man is Scottish. The leading lady is Indian. (As is her sister, which is probably obvious.) The gay guy and Halfrican co-workers of the Scot are supposed to be American, but are actually British and half Irish half African respectively. The dead boyfriend from the sad backstory of the Indian lady is supposed to be black "American" but is actually an African raised in Britain. The Scot's boss is British. And Celine Dion plays herself in a prominent role, but of course everyone knows that she's French-Canadian. Nick Jonas makes a cameo, mainly because he's married in real life to the Indian actress, but it's a minor role, and he's the only American in the film featured with any prominence whatsoever. 

I've become increasingly less blasé about foreigners tramping about my country acting like they have as much right to be here as Americans do, but this was particularly egregious. Literally nobody in an American movie set in America is American? If this had taken place in London instead of NYC, I would have been significantly less put off by it. But it does take place in NYC, and one of the characters makes a subtextual point of talking about how they love the fact that Americans don't exist; America is just a place where anyone can come and get what they want, not the country that belongs to an actual nation and actual people. I don't know why they literally couldn't cast Americans to play the three American characters, but the fact that they didn't or wouldn't means that it comes across as deliberate spite.

Secondly, the premise is that the two main characters are sad. The girl had a serious boyfriend who was about to propose to her when he was killed in front her eyes by a drunk driver while walking on the street two years earlier, and the guy was jilted a week before getting married and is sad and broken about that too. When the boss hands out new work cell phones, he reluctantly takes one that has the same number as the Indian girls' dead boyfriend's old phone. She begins texting the number as if it were him, talking about her sadness and vulnerability, and Scottish guy is intrigued and actually starts to fall for the girl on the other end because of her emotional whatever. He ends up seeking her out, they hit it off, but he doesn't tell her immediately about the cell phone and the texts. 

When she predictably finds out, she is extremely offended, and acts as if she is an aggrieved victim. The cucky white guy, of course, acts as if this is perfectly reasonable. She talks about him lying to her, which he never did. 

Now, granted, he should have told her before she found out. Maybe not on the first or even second date, but at some point, he should have said it. It's pretty predictable that she'd feel embarrassed and even humiliated by the situation, especially if she found out about it on her own. But then to continue to double down and continue to blame him for the situation was super entitled and unlikeable, and his cringy, cucky acceptance of her entitlement as justified really rubbed me the wrong way. He should have told her earlier, and she should have gotten over herself and not tried to punish him for her feeling humiliated by her own actions that he was in no way whatsoever responsible for. And he could have helped her by telling her that he understood how she felt and why, but that the texts were a significant part of why he was attracted to her, because they spoke in a way to his own sadness and pain at a time when he was really struggling himself.  (Actually, ideally, he shouldn't have fallen for sad, sappy text messages. That's kind of cringy and super beta. It could have been an interesting way to "meet cute" if he wasn't so beta about it, but because he was, the meet cute wasn't actually very cute.) But no; in romances, people can't act reasonable. And because romances are largely written by women and for women, they also can't ever suggest that women should get over themselves and be reasonable themselves. They're always justified in whatever emotional trainwreck that they're experiencing. Of course, /sarc. 

Sigh. Not that I expected much of this movie, of course. I literally knew nothing about it until I got to the theater. I see a lot of movies that I otherwise wouldn't see because my wife really likes to go out and see movies. It's kind of been our thing for literally decades. But it's getting harder and harder to enjoy it more and more often now. Nobody expects every movie to be a winner, but now it seems like it's hard to expect to even find a winner at all. Even she knows this, although she's kind of stubborn and likes to pretend like the proliferation of sucky movies is just bad luck or something.

My son says that the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie is pretty good. Actually, it seems nearly everyone is saying that it's pretty good. But... it's Marvel. It's Disney. It's James Gunn. We'll see it in a couple of weeks when it qualifies for the free tickets that we have. I don't know how the accounting works when we spend free tickets; Disney probably gets some kind of cut and the theater itself takes it on the chin as a cost for promotions. But if we don't actually spend any money, and we don't trigger anything until three weeks after the movie's out and the narrative about its success or failure is already pretty much told, then I don't have to feel guilty about contributing. 

Random older movie hot take: Hidden Figures, positing that black women rather than white men did the math on which the moon landing's success was based, is among the stronger arguments that suggest that the moon landing was a hoax after all.