With Love, Hollywood

Good afternoon, ladies. So, without much ado, I’d like to introduce a new occasional series on Keep Him or Dump Him. We’ll be reviewing movies and TV shows, with a focus on relationships as they are presented on screen.

Let’s start with “Date Night,”* a story about a case of mistaken identity that plays like a caper but is rooted in relationship dynamics. Tina Fey and Steve Carell play Claire and Phil Foster, a couple so entrenched in routine and roles, they are desperate for something different.

The best thing about “Date Night” is that it takes relationships, with all their blessings and misfires, seriously. The point of the movie is that this couple loves each other enough to put in the effort toward making their doldrums less … doldrums-y. There are many, many movies and subplots that joke about tedium in relationships, but the solutions offered by Hollywood thus far are usually disastrous. Affairs, breaks, flirtations with addictions, calling the guy a doofus and making him the butt of all jokes, and the like are weeds in real relationships. “Date Night” offers the opposite.

The Fosters choose to work on their relationship.

OK. I admit it. I hate to hear that relationships take work, don’t you? I want a relationship that is easy. After all, it’s hardly romantic to say your sons and daughters, “Someday, when you grow up, you’ll get to try to love someone well. And with enough hard work, you might actually make it.”

No way. We like to say that love is magic – and in some ways, it is – and that it is not just the stuff of fairy tales. We want our little girls to sing “Someday, My Prince Will Come” and then he’ll gallop by on his noble steed and join in perfect harmony. We want our boys to learn how to sweep a girl off her feet (after a full day’s adventure, of course) with roses and poetry.

The truth is, that stuff is all romance – and let me be clear, I’m totally in favor of romance. But love is the stuff that happens after the song is over, after the roses wilt – or, at least, in between the songs and flowers. And that, friends, takes effort. And the toughest part is, you have to choose it. You have to choose an uphill climb. (Exciting so far, no?)

The Fosters have it right. They had a weekly date night that felt bland. Instead of taking the temperature of their relationship and calling the whole thing off, they choose to mend what’s broken. They had friendship, but they needed more – communication, spark, fun. So they built in just one new thing (in this case, a change of venue and fashion to fix the “fun” part) and the rest began to follow.

In the midst of flying bullets and car chases, the Fosters had meaningful conversation about the roots of their problems.

I believe that we were created to want to be known. This why so many of us spend so much time in relationships, good and bad. There is much comfort in being around someone who wants to know us.

When the Fosters begin to communicate about their lives, their dreams, their fears, it is transforming. They were willing to fight for each other long before this moment, but after this, they knew exactly what they were fighting to protect.

Which brings me back to my point about longing to be known. There is effort involved in discovery – or, at least, in landing on new ground. We didn’t happen upon the moon, after all. First, we gazed. Then, we hoped. We studied. We trained. We charted a course. We built rockets. It took time, planning, trial and error – essentially, work. But we got there. And the thing I have spent so little time thinking about is simply this: The discovery wasn’t solely in the rocket’s landing; it happened all along the way.

“Date Night” is empowering for women in relationships, but it is a kind of empowerment that is completely different from what’s currently in the fray – stuff like “Single Ladies” or anything offered by a host of pop artists. (There is definitely a blog post on that coming soon.)

Instead, what we learn from Claire Foster is that we can and should work on love. We can and should communicate our needs and desires – and it shouldn’t take a life-threatening situation to make this happen. We can and should fight for our man. We can and should fight alongside him.

And that is how love is like magic. It transforms, it creates, and it wows.

*Caveat: “Date Night” is incredibly raunchy. There’s tons of objectionable stuff in this film, and there is a pretty accurate description of the problems with this movie over at Plugged In. The focus of this blog is relationships, which is why I am not offering a full review of the movie. Instead, for all Keep Him or Dump Him reviews, I will spend my time looking at films with a sort of tunnel vision, a sole focus on relationships as they are presented on screen.

~Tamara

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