- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 1993
- Country:
- US
- Predominant Genre:
- Comedy
- Director:
- Nora Ephron
- Outstanding Performances:
- Tom Hanks
- Premiss:
- A recently-widowed man’s son calls a radio talk-show in an attempt to find his father a partner.
- Themes:
- Alienation
- Destiny
- Emotional repression
- Loneliness
- Narcissism
- Solipsism
- Political Correctness
- Self-expression
- White culture
- Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
- You’ve Got Mail
- Review Format:
- DVD
It is easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to enjoy this movie
There is no sense here that either Jews or Whites ever look in the mirror to see themselves as they really are. And that simple fact is what makes this movie ultimately depressing and emotionally unmoving.
Self-indulgence and solipsism makes it hard for the characters to live fully and equally hard for the audience to empathize with their plight since this is almost entirely the creation of personalities refusing to face reality. Moreover, there is no comic exploration of the difficulties Whites possess in expressing their emotions - along with the resultant difficulties they face in developing Personal relationships (as opposed to Political ones).
Love is never defined so we never find out why the characters have such a hard time dealing with such fundamental issues as their own emotions. Like Science, this movie deals with the Phenomena of love but not its Noumena; making it a superficial and overly-sentimental trawl through neurotic neediness and self-willed existential despair.
The psychological dishonesty here is only partly-masked by the humor; existing to pretend to a depth of feeling not present in a work that does little more than whine about how only other people are the problem. By pretending talking about love is the same as actually doing it, the movie satirizes Hollywood romantic drama, while being merely another example of it.
Here we have people who have never gotten-over failed love affairs, who then retreat into dishonest sentimentality as solace for their lack of honest sentiment. They waffle-on about statistical probability as a substitute for making individual decisions about the course of their actual lives. They then blame the bad luck they so created because of the fear of facing the attendant consequences and responsibility that making choices inevitably brings. The unwillingness to see others as individuals, rather than as representatives of particular demographics, explains the loneliness here, when the people they actually meet do not conform to such statistical metaphors for real life.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this ethnocentric movie is its implication that love is the only reason to get married - as if compatibility, values or income counted for nothing. An amusing film, but quintessentially empty since it conflates love with Marriage.
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