Sometimes Your Tastes Change

 

   A few nights ago the movie "An Affair to Remember" was on TV. It was close to the beginning of the movie. Since there was nothing better to watch and C had never seen the movie, we watched it. I had seen the movie many times. In fact I had been obsessed with it thanks to another movie, "Sleepless in Seattle", many years ago. (I also had a small temporary crush on Cary Grant.) It was an interesting experience to watch it again after so many years. 

   If you haven't seen the movie and want to see it, I recommend you stop reading now. Some of what I'm going to write about will give away pieces of the plot. If that kind of thing doesn't bother you, keep reading.

   The movie is about a man and a woman (Nickie and Terry) who fall in love during a cruise from Europe to New York.  Both are involved with other people who have been providing them financial support. They agree to give each other six months to break off their current relationships and start new careers. That seemed so cool to me then and even now I like the way the movie starts. The movie shows both of them starting new careers, his as a painter and hers as a singer.

   Six months later Terry comes to New York and as she is rushing to the tp of the Empire State Building, where they agreed to meet, she is hit by a car. You don't see the accident, but you can hear it. The next scene you see Terry in a hospital bed calling out for Nickie. Kenneth, her former boyfriend, is there and is talking to the doctor. Two things bother me about this scene. The first is that she doesn't look like someone who has been hit by a car and the second is how did Kenneth know she was hit? The scene after that shows Terry lying in bed talking to a priest and Kenneth. She's perfectly made up and still doesn't look like she's been hit by a car. Shouldn't there be an IV bag or something? Maybe some medication on the bedside table? From the conversation it's clear that the accident has left her paralyzed.

   Meanwhile Nickie has been waiting at the top of the Empire State building all day. He doesn't know anything about the accident. He stays there until midnight when he finally leaves brokenhearted.

   Terry doesn't want Nickie to know that she has been injured and can't walk. I don't understand this. Why? I don't get it. If it were me, I'd want him to know. Either he will be supportive and want to help or he will break it off because it's not something he wants to deal with. Either way it is better than leaving him in the dark thinking he has been spurned. (Which is what happens in the movie.) 

   She decides that she will find him when she regains her ability to walk. What if that never happens? What if he finds love someplace else when/if she does walk again? Seems a bit risky if she loves him as much as she seems to.

   There is a scene in the movie that shows Terry working as a music teacher in a school, a job a priest helped her to get. She's rehearsing a song with a choir of children. It's cute until partway through the song when the two African American children in the choir move to the front to tap dance. It's a little jarring to me and more than a little racist. (They do a good job though.)

   The last scene bugs me a bit as well. It's Christmas Eve and she's lying on a couch. Someone has helped get her set up with her needs on a small nearby table. My first thought is, where is her wheelchair? What if she needs to use the bathroom or something. Shouldn't it be nearby so she can get herself in it? Nickie comes to visit her. He found her by looking in the phone book. He said he was looking for the number of a man named McBride, when he found T. McKay. One small problem, McBride comes before McKay in a telephone book. Once he found the number he wanted, there was no need to keep looking.

   He tries to get her to tell him why she didn't show up for their meeting and she keeps evading him. I still don't get it. He's there, why not just tell him the truth? He gives her a shawl that belongs to his grandmother and tells her that he had painted a picture of her in the shawl. It was one of his best painting yet, he couldn't just sell it. The art dealer he works with told him that he gave it to a woman who wanted it but couldn't afford it. Nickie somehow gets an idea and crosses the living room to look in the bedroom where he sees the picture. (A reflection of it is shown in a mirror in the scene.) He figures somehow figures out the accident happened despite the fact that he doesn't see her wheelchair.

   When I fist saw the movie, I thought the ending was so sweet and romantic. Now it just seems a little silly. 

   After the movie was over I wondered what about it was so compelling to me that I watched it over and over again. I have no idea. Maybe my taste in movies has changed.......