How to Save a Life

John Q

Director: Nick Cassavettes

Cast: Denzel Washington, Robert DuVall, James Woods, Kimberly Elise, Anne Heche, Ray Liotta

Released: February 15, 2002

I assume this movie was overlooked by many because it came out during the middle of the Oscars campaign when Denzel was nominated (and won) for Training Day which came out in late 2001. While there are super cheesy moments that make me feel like I was watching a made for TV movie at times (the music, the slow motion), I thought this was pretty entertaining (but when has Denzel ever let us down?) and it has to be the most exciting movie I've ever seen about health insurance!

John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington) is a man who is trying to make ends meet, but it is hard for him and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise). He works at a factory where he's supposed to be full time but because they don't need him that much, his hours have been reduced to only twenty a week, and she works at a supermarket and has to wear the ugliest brown and yellow uniform. We are introduced to them on the morning their car is being repossessed, but despite that, they seem to be in good spirits. But the day is still young. While at their nine-year-old (??) son's baseball game, the young boy collapses while running from one base to the other. Michael's parents rush him to Hope Memorial Hospital in Chicago and are told by doctors that his heart is three times larger than what it should be (sounds like the opposite of the Grinch's heart!) and not enough blood is being pumped into it, thus making it work too hard. They have put him on a monitor for now where his blood pressure is at 88, when it should be above 90. If it goes below 70, that means heart failure. It's probably not a big surprise to hear that before this movie is over, it will go down to 68.

The hospital administrator supervisor, Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche), and Dr. Turner (James Woods), inform the Archibalds that their son's heart is useless and needs a transplant, otherwise he may only have weeks to live. The decision seems to be easy for the parents (by the way, stellar acting from Denzel here...tears are running down his face, while he's trying to remain composed as he's having the conversation): of course they want their son's name to be put on the donor list and get the transplant as soon as possible. Rebecca tells them that his insurance doesn't cover the procedure and if they do want the procedure, they have to treat it as a "cash account" which means it will cost $250,000 and will require a down payment of $75,000 before they can put Michael's name on the transplant list. This is horrifying news for parents of a dying child who only have a little over a thousand dollars in savings. As Payne coldly states, "It costs money to provide health care."

The next part of the movie focuses on the parents doing anything they can do to change the fate of their son. John talks to his boss about his insurance and is informed they recently changed carriers from a PPO to HMO (my eyes usually glaze over when any type of insurance is being discussed, so I really don't know the differences). As a non-management part time employee such as he is, John only qualifies for "second tier" catastrophic coverage, which only has a max payout of only $20,000. (Can you tell I was taking notes? No way I can remember all this! Though I actually take notes for all of my movie reviews). John argues that he was hired as full time, but is only getting part time hours because work is slow and his boss replies that the coverage is based on hours worked. He regretfully tells him there's nothing he can do, but John can file an appeal which will take seven working days to process. 

The parents talk to someone at State Services who tells them she can't help them because they already have medical insurance and that they should be on welfare, which surprises Denise because they both already have jobs. They next go somewhere for financial aid and they end up in the wrong line (which was already long to begin with) and had to enter another long line. I really felt for them in that moment. They're in a cramped, crowded room. They have other things they could be doing to progress things and standing in a line for hours probably makes them feel like they are not getting anything done. Worst of all, when they do finally talk to someone to see if they can get financial aid, the answer they get is, "No, you don't qualify." A defeated and angry John replies "My son is dying. I'm broke. If I don't qualify who the hell does?" 

The next week he gets back a reply to the appeal he filed and things are starting to look a little better until after he shows it to Payne and she tells him that he filed the wrong paperwork. The one he filed was an appeal for an already existing claim when he should have filed a grievance that will take a month to get. Oh, man, if I were him, I would have been so tempted to reach across the desk and slap her! Maybe tell these poor people what they need to do! 

We next see a montage of them raising money, and their church and neighbors, despite not having much money either, pitch in and raise money for them. (If ever there was a time for a Go Fund Me, this would be it, but unfortunately they were living in the archaic times of two thousand and two!) One of Denise's friends, who is a waitress, gives her tips to her. John goes to a pawn shop where he sells his wife's engagement ring and they have a garage sale where they sell their TV and car among other things. In the end, they come up with $22,000, which is pretty impressive, but still a long way off from the $75,000 they need.

Unfortunately, the hospital can't wait any more and decide they're going to release Michael. I wasn't quite sure how much time had elapsed since Michael was first admitted to the hospital, maybe a month? John isn't there when this decision is made, so his wife calls him from a pay phone (yes, they were still using pay phones in 2002!) to tell him what's going on and hisses at him to "Do something." Now I'm sure when she told him this, she didn't mean for her husband to take an emergency room hostage (spoiler alert!), but rather try to talk some sense in the doctors and see if they can show a little compassion. To be fair, he does try to talk to the doctor first before he takes a drastic turn. He tells Dr. Turner that he did some research and found out the hospital does 300 surgeries every year which are $250,000 each and that comes out to $75 million and he doesn't understand why they can't perform the surgery on his son in good faith and promises him he will pay the rest of the money back. When the doctor apologizes and tells him he can't do this, John pulls a gun out of his jacket and tells him, "I'm not asking anymore; I'm telling you, you are going to give my son a new heart, do you understand me?" You can tell he really hasn't thought this plan through (or has never done anything like this before!) because he is nervous and doesn't exactly know what to do. The doctor tells him, "If you do this you are on an irreversible course of action."

John ends up bringing him to an emergency room where he locks the doors, breaks the security camera and tells the security guard (played by Ethan Suplee) to shut down the elevators. We get the first great Denzel line of the movie: "Hospital's under new management now: from now on, free health care for everybody."

Along with the doctor and security guard, there's also another young doctor (played by Kevin Connelly), a guy with a bleeding hand, an abusive boyfriend and his girlfriend, a Spanish-speaking mother with her baby, and a pregnant woman and her husband. He also lets a gunshot victim in and lets the young doctor work on him.

Word quickly gets out what is happening at the hospital and a team is quickly assembled outside. Robert DuVall plays Frank Grimes, the hostage negotiator who gets in touch with John. When he asks him if anybody is hurt, John replies, "It's an emergency room; everyone's hurt." When Grimes asks him his name, this is when we get the movie's title as he tells him to call him "John Q". (Can't give away his full name, though, let's be honest, they're going to find out!) John tells Grimes to find Rebecca Payne and to tell her to put his son's name on the donor list. He adds that if his son's name isn't on that list by 4:15, somebody will die. I think that gives them an hour.

John agrees to let a few hostages go and releases the mother and her baby and the pregnant wife and her husband (honestly, I'm surprised he let the husband go, but as we will soon find out, John Q is a stand up guy). When they are released, they tell news crews (by this time there's a whole crowd outside the hospital) that John Q is a "very good man" and they praise him for letting in the man with the gunshot or else he would have died. 

Ray Liotta plays Gus Monroe, the Chief of Police, and he wants to take more drastic measures, despite the fact that John seems to be cooperating with them and Grimes doesn't agree with his tactics. He wants to put a sniper in through the air ducts so he can take a shot at John. Payne is also brought onto the scene and tells Grimes and Monroe, "If you give in to this guy, there's gonna be guns in every hospital." She decides that she's going to lie and tell John's wife that she has decided to put Michael's name on the list and the hospital will pay for everything. Then Denise will tell her husband and he'll let the hostages go.

Of course Denise (who is with her son) is thrilled to hear this (and I think this may be the first time she hears about what her husband is doing?), she calls him to tell him Michael's name is on the list. Somehow, the local news is able to get live video feed of John talking to his wife, then to his son. (And the swarmy news guy says, "This is my white Bronco.") Rebecca is so touched when she sees this that she changes her mind and gives permission for the young boy to actually have his name on the list. This kind of surprised me that she changed her mind as she was portrayed as a cold corporate bitch who wasn't budging one bit...until she was moved to tears. Meanwhile, while John is distracted talking on the phone, the sniper Monroe has sent through the vents takes his aim at an unarmed John, who see's he's on TV right before he gets shot in the arm. He pulls the sniper down and punches him several times. I'm not sure how long it's been since he first took the ER hostage, but I love that he started as a bumbling everyday guy who didn't know what he was doing and now he's this bad ass who's also quickly becoming a hero as we will soon see when he brings out the sniper who he has duct taped his hands behind his back.

Grimes tells him, "Nobody wants to kill you" and an angry John yells "What is this?" and throws the sniper's rifle towards the lieutenant. By this time an even bigger crowd has gathered and they are cheering for John. They cheer in the right spots and they boo in the right spots (like when John shows the gun after Grimes tells him they're not trying to kill him.) We get a little foreshadowing as Grimes tells hm, "There's only two ways out for you: jail or dead." Without spoiling too much (or maybe I'm spoiling a lot!), one of those two things will happen. We then get what is perhaps the most Denzeliest line from this film, which was in all the trailers: before he lets the sniper go, he declares, "I am NOT going to bury my son; my son is going to bury ME!" I mean, even if you've never seen this movie, I'm sure you can hear Denzel say it. That line reminds me when he says, "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us!" in Malcolm X. Probably because it has a similar structure and it's another iconic Denzel line that's said in a very Denzel-ish way. (I mean, if anyone can say their lines in the most Denzel-ish way, it's Denzel Washington!)

John's demands are that he want his son brought to the ER and he will let the hostages go. This is agreed upon and they prepare to receive the young boy. When John said he wanted his son to bury him, he was thinking the next day, apparently, because his plan is to kill himself and have his heart be given to his son. Dude, that's very noble, but a TERRIBLE idea. As the two doctors tell him, there are too many risk factors like bloody type, chest cavity measurements, and both blood tissues must be compatible. John tells them that they're both B positive, their tissues match, and his heart should fit since his son's heart is three times the normal size. I still think this is a terrible idea and there's still the slight chance his heart won't be compatible for his son and then he will have died for nothing. This is when the hostages find out that John's gun only had one bullet in it and he was never planning on killing anyone except for himself (interesting he had that suicide plan all along, but I guess it makes sense because he had to make sure his son got a heart one way or the other).

So John is lying down (not sure why), ready to shoot himself, but he first decides he's thirsty and needs a drink of water. Really, what does it matter if he's thirsty if he's going to be dead in a few minutes? Obviously, they're trying to prolong the moment and make it as dramatic as possible because while this is going on, the doctor who was staying with Michael receives a fax that a brand new heart that fits the criteria for Michael perfectly has just been harvested from a young woman who died in a car accident. I should back up here and say this is how the movie opens: we see a young, well-to-do woman driving her fancy BMW in Montana, I think. She's driving super fast through the curvy, mountainous roads and at one point she passes a truck in an obvious no-passing zone and while she's passing him, surprise, surprise, another truck appears in the view. Now this moron had plenty of time to pass the truck and get back in her lane and hopefully learn her lesson that it's not a good idea to pass cars on roads like these. Oh, she will learn her lesson, all right, but just more in the deadly way. I think she is able to pass the truck, but barely and her car gets clipped and spins in the other lane and she is hit by the oncoming semi. I don't mean to be callous or anything, but the dumb bitch kinda deserved it. Also, where is she going that she's in a hurry to get to? And why is she so dressed up? She appears to be in the middle of Nowhere, USA. I was very confused when I was watching this scene; I had no idea how she was internal to the plot, but once she was hit, I figured it out. I don't think you need this scene; especially not as the opening to the movie!

When Denise is informed about the heart, she calls her husband on the walkie, telling him she needs to talk to him, but he doesn't want to respond because he doesn't want to change his mind. I'm yelling at the screen, "Tell him you found a heart!!!" I found it a little bit weird that nobody is trying to stop him while he's "preparing" to kill himself. While there are people who don't agree with what he's doing, nobody is actively trying to stop him. In a very, very tense moment, he pulls the trigger with the gun pointed to his head, but oops-a-daisy! The safety is on. I mean, whew, right?

We see his wife outside the building and she's screaming something (presumably they found a heart), then in the very next scene we see a bunch of doctors, including John who is dressed up in scrubs. It's a weird scene because we don't see his reaction when he learns that 1), a heart has been found for his son, and 2), he doesn't have to kill himself after all. I guess they wanted it to be a surprise for the audience to see if he had pulled the trigger before it was too late. I personally would have rather seen his reaction as I figured he wasn't going to die. It didn't seem like that kind of movie; this is a guy you're rooting for, after all, they're not going to kill off the hero in such a horrible way.

The surgery is performed and the organ fits Michael perfectly so he now has a healthy heart. The ending of the movie shows John in court. We see all his hostages who are there to support him and most most likely gave witness statements. He is found not guilty of attempted murder and armed criminal action, but is found guilty of kidnapping and false imprisonment. I'm not sure what the sentence is, but his lawyer tells him she will try to get it down to two years. I'm thinking since everyone is on his side, it will be even less than that. But I guess they gotta show that he needs to do the time as he did commit a crime cuz you just can't hold everyone at gunpoint in a hospital even if your intentions are noble.

I'm not sure how realistic this movie is (something tells me not very) and it definitely is very emotionally manipulative, but it's a fun throwback early 2000s Denzel movie to watch.

Speaking of 2000s Denzel movies, I will be reviewing a few more this week, so I hope you enjoy those! I guarantee you will like them! 

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

Waiting to Exhale
Director: Forest Whitaker
Cast: Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, Dennis Haysbert, Gregory Hines, Donald Faison, Wesley Snipes
Released: December 22, 1995

It's always frustrating when you're about to watch a movie with four women as the leads and the only thing they talk about with each other is men and their relationships with men. This is one of those movies and they literally talk about nothing else. Sometimes you think they're going to talk about their jobs or something else, but the conversation will always veer back to men and how much men suck. I read the book right before I saw the movie and it's probably even worse because there's more of it. At least with the movie there are a few parts they took out for time. I had to laugh at one scene in the book where two characters are talking about (what else?) men and one of them says something like, "Can we please change the topic? We always talk about men" and I'm thinking, yeah, no sh*t, you really do, and then what happens? They go back to talking about men! :::bangs head against the table::: If I were friends with these women, I would be like, Please, for the love of God, please stop talking about your sh*tty boyfriends and the sh*tty men who want to date you! Don't you have any other interests? Apparently not.

So let me go through each character. We'll start with Bernadine who is played by Angela Bassett. She'll start out with long hair, but will get her hair cut pretty early in the film. It's kind of funny because her hair dresser friend, Gloria, doesn't want to cut her hair, so Bernadine cuts it herself and she ends up looking fabulous! She looks much better with short hair than she did with long hair. Of all the characters, she has the right to be the angriest at the man who screwed her over. Her storyline is her and her husband, John, are going through a nasty divorce. When we first meet her, she's getting ready to go to a New Year's party at her husband's office. When he suggests that they don't go, she looks relieved because she'd rather stay home, but then he tells her that HE is still going, but just with HER, meaning his secretary that he's having an affair with. Now she seemed to know who he meant so I was a little unclear of how long this affair had been going on and how long she had known about it. Were they going through with the divorce at this time, but were trying to keep up appearances for their kids' sake? I wasn't really sure about that. All we know is that he's leaving his wife of eleven years for a white woman. In the book, not only she is white, but she's supposed to be much younger, like mid-twenties. She's played by Kelly Preston in a cameo role who isn't that much younger than Angela Bassett in real life. It is made into a very big deal (especially more so in the book) that he is leaving her for a white woman. He even asks her if it would be better if he was leaving her for a black woman, to which she says no. I'm guessing they put that in because in the book I was kind of wondering the same thing. They almost make it seem (in both the movie and the book) that interracial relationships are much worse than, you know, cheating on your spouse. Three out of the four women in this commit adultery - yikes! And only one feels like she's doing something wrong. Besides cheating on his wife, John is just not a good guy. We learn a lot about him through exposition (done pretty obviously) when Bernadine is tossing a bunch of his clothes and other belongings in his car which she will set on fire. He is very successful with his own business (I don't really remember the specifics) that Bernadine helped him start and is a big reason of the success of it, even though he never acknowledges that. We learn in a throw away line that she wants to start her own catering business (even though we never see her cook and she never, ever talks about it with any of her friends), but John never allowed her to because he needed her to help with his company. Even though John is super successful which is evident from the house they live in, it turns out he has a lot more money that he was hiding from his wife. Not only that, but we find out, along with Bernadine, that he also owns an apartment building (!), 200 acres of farmland in California (!!), and a vineyard in Arizona (!!!).  She is finding this out for the first time, despite being married him for eleven years! He tells her to sell the house for money and offers to give her $300,000 on the spot, which seems like a lot, but she knows she can get more than that. She will find out that everything he purchased in the last ten years is in his name only, including the business that she helped build. Yeah, this guy is a douche bag and it makes me wonder if he was always this awful throughout their whole marriage or if she is just figuring this out. We're just kind of thrown into their marital problems so we don't really know about why they were together for so long. Bernadine comes off as very strong and confident, it really doesn't make sense why she was ever with this guy. She is also supposed to be super business-savvy, so the scene where she's having a garage sale and selling all of her husband's things (the stuff she didn't burn!) for one dollar each (including skis, golf clubs, and a CAR of all things) doesn't make any sense. This guy has some pretty nice stuff; WHY is she selling it only for a dollar? She could have been making a nice mini fortune, instead of getting, like, fifty dollars at the end of the day. I know, I know, it's supposed to be a statement that she's selling all his nice stuff so cheaply, but I don't think she really thought it through.

So now that John is trying to cheat Bernadine out of her fair share of their money, what does she do? Does she throw all of her anger into creating her catering business she has always wanted to started? Nope, she goes out with the girls one night at a club and starts dancing with a handsome man named Herbert who's an ex-football player and now is a sportscaster. Oh, and he's MARRIED. And it's not like she's just "friendly" dancing with him, no, she is all over him. She even tells her friends, "His wife's at home, he better watch out for me." She does end up sleeping with him. Um, does she even remember when she slapped the woman her husband is sleeping with? So by every right, Herbert's wife should be able to slap her. But as far as the movie is concerned, Mrs. Herbert never finds out. I guess Bernadine thinks it's okay to sleep with him since it doesn't mean anything, while her husband's adultery feels like more betrayal since he is leaving her to marry the other woman? :::shrug::: It sounds like she only slept with Herbert once (while in the book, it's way more than once), but he is calling and paging (hehe, how' 90s!) at "all hours of the night" and even showed up to her house unannounced. Geeze, this guy fell for her fast and hard.

While having a drink at a hotel bar (don't ask me why she was there), a man hits on her so obviously it's down-right cringey. Even she is not impressed. This man, named James (played by Wesley Snipes in an uncredited role) is not only married, but he's married to a white woman. (I mean, what are the odds for Bernadine to be hit on by a black guy who is with a white woman?) But guys, it's okay that he's blatantly hitting on Bernadine even though he is married because his wife is dying of breast cancer. (Haha, so in my notes, it says breath cancer, but I'm pretty sure that's not a thing!) I mean, dude, at least wait until your wife is GONE before you start looking for your next wife. They go up to his room to get it on and he tells her he hasn't had sex in over a year because his wife stopped wanting to. They don't have sex, but just spoon on the bed. Maybe it was because Bernadine felt guilty because the guy's wife was on her deathbed or maybe, unlike Herbert, she made a connection with James and actually liked him and didn't want to start their relationship being an adulterer. She does hear from James later in the movie via a letter he sends her. It is implied they will get together after all is said and done.

At the settlement, Bernadine wins big when she is rewarded 1.5 million dollars, $500,000 in stocks and bonds, a Mercedes station wagon, the house, and another house in Acapulco, Mexico. Hmmm, I almost think her husband cheating on her is the best thing that could ever happen to her! I'm sure there's a throwaway line about her starting her catering business, but I could be thinking about the book.

Next, we'll discuss Savannah, played by Whitney Houston. Now if you just watched the movie without having read the book, you might miss the part where she is moving from Denver to Phoenix, where the movie is set. In a very quick scene, you see her driving a car and in a voiceover she says she's moving because "all the men are dead" in Denver. Savannah, we all know you're moving to Phoenix because you got a job there. Also, because your friend, Bernadine, lives there. So in the book, she is introduced to the two other women (and is extremely judgmental of them, especially Robin, my God!), but in the movie, she's never introduced to them. We just see her interacting with them as though she's known them all her life. It almost feels like she used to live in Phoenix, moved to Denver, then moved back to Phoenix. They really just should have had this character be from Phoenix the entire time. One of the things that drove me f***king crazy in the book is that all the characters kept bitching about how boring Phoenix was and how much they hated it there. And it wasn't like it was one line, no, it was often repeated. Y'all are f**king fictional characters; you can live anywhere you want; STFU and just MOVE!  Thankfully they took all that out in the movie.

So Savannah gets to say the title of the movie. Of course she does since she's played by Whitney Houston (btw, there is a scene in the book where that character is listening to Whitney Houston...super weird!) It comes super early. She's at a New Year's Eve party slow dancing with a man named Lionel who she's met at the party as a blind date set up. You could say she wants to dance with somebody, she wants to feel the heat with somebody, yeah, she wants to dance with somebody - with somebody who loves her. Anyway, in a super cheesy voiceover, she says, "And then I did it....I closed my eyes and I exhaled and pretended the man was mine and he was everything I dreamed of." Okay, so technically she didn't say the actual title, but she got to exhale after waiting so long for a good man to come along. Now don't get too excited. We're not even ten minutes into the movie; there's no way this is the man she's been waiting all her life for. In fact, right after their dance, another woman comes up to them and tells Lionel he hasn't danced with her yet and Lionel introduced her to Savannah as "his friend". Yeah, whatever.

We do find out that Lionel called Savannah after their date and they end up going out and sleeping together. We also learn that Savannah finds out she doesn't even like the guy, but is so desperate to get laid, she just deals with the stuff that irritates her about him which includes finding out he has no income (yep, that's a deal breaker!), he chain smokes (she smokes too; but she seems to be more of a social smoker...I was kind of surprised that three out of the four women smoke in this!); brags about being a vegetarian, but inhaled three hots dogs (dude, you're not a vegetarian, then!) and she gave him twenty dollars for gas which only cost $7.18 (for gas, can you imagine! Oh, to be living in 1995 (much better than 2020, am I right?!?!) and he didn't even give her any change.

He quickly disappears and Savannah's ex, Kenneth, calls her out of the blue, telling her he's coming to Phoenix for a conference and would like to see her. On paper, Kenneth seems like a great catch. He's good-looking, well educated, I want to say he's a doctor, maybe? He's also going to be the POTUS in a few years and fight some terrorism alongside Jack Bauer cuz he's played by Dennis Haysbert aka President David Palmer aka the All State guy. Unfortunately, Savannah was NOT in good hands with him! (I can't take credit for that joke!) The man is married, for one thing, and has a seven-year-old daughter. He tells Savannah that he married his wife when she was five months pregnant. I'm not really sure why they broke up in the first place. He tells Savannah that she is the only woman he's ever loved (so he married a woman he didn't even love? Yes, I realize it's complicated cuz there's a child involved). We get a super cheesy sex scene between them with lots of slow motion and a slow song.

Savannah calls one of her friends, asking, "How will I know if he really loves me? I'm asking you cuz you know about these things." Kenneth calls his wife, telling her he's going to have to probably visit Phoenix a few more times for more "conferences", uh-huh. He keeps telling Savannah he's going to divorce his wife for her, but of course, he never does and she soon realizes it's never going to happen. The real kicker is when he tells her she's going to have to wait a little bit longer because his wife is having a baby. It's like, dude, are you serious?

Guess who my least favorite character in this movie is. You'd think it would be one of the many loser men that these women keep finding themselves attracting, but nope, it was Savannah's mother. This woman....ugh. First of all, she's the one who gave Kenneth Savannah's number even though she knew the man was married. When Savannah mentions this, she says, "How happy can he be if he went and found me to get to you?" She tells her, "Every woman needs a man", which is not only extremely sexist and setting feminism back about fifty years, but also a little bit homophobic, no? I'm just saying if Savannah told her mom she was with a woman, I don't think she'd take it very well. After Savannah tells Kenneth once and for all to get out of her life for good, her mother calls her to tell her that Kenneth called her, crying, and tells her, "Men don't cry over woman unless they love them" and asks her how she could be so insensitive. Why is Savannah's mother taking this man's side over her own daughter's? I feel like she's the one who's being insensitive! Savannah tells her, "I am sick of you telling me how I should live my life, who you think I should love, marry. I'm sick of it!" I'm all, Yes! You tell her, Savannah! And then her mom has the gall to say, "It isn't too late! He's begging on his knees and you're letting him get away." Again, why is her mother not listening to her? Savannah tells her, "I have a job. I have friends. I have interests you don't even ask about. (She does?) Only one thing counts with you, Mama."  She tells her mom that she should be proud that she'd rather live alone then crawl up behind some two timing loser like Kenneth. This woman keeps defending Kenneth! She tells her daughter "He's a good man, he's just in a bad situation right now and trying to get out of it." Savannah snaps at her "Why don't you f**king marry him, then?" and hangs up on her. Oooooh, burn! She does call her back to apologize because the movie has established that they do have a good relationship even though her mother sucks. She tells her she didn't mean to disrespect her, but she meant what she said about her life. He mom tells her she just doesn't want her to end up alone like her. What happened with her and her husband? I don't know. But maybe stop trying to set up your daughter with married men.

I should probably mention the theme song since Whitney Houston (duh, obviously) sings it. It's played in the movie for about sixty seconds when she's about to meet Kenneth and then we never hear it again. It's possible it's played during the ending credits after "Count on Me" which is the first song that's played as the credits roll, but I didn't watch all the credits to find out. I like the song just fine, but I feel like when it was written, they couldn't think of any lyrics during the "Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop de doop" part so they just made up words and just forgot to go back and put in actual words.

Now let's talk about Robin played by Lela Rochan. She's dating a married man (of course) named Russell who she's very attracted to. Well, I don't know if "dating" is the right word because he's the one who decides when they're going to meet and when it's most convenient for him. She is trying to meet other men so we see her in her bedroom with Michael, a man she works with at an insurance company where he's been promoted to her marketing team. I don't know if they've been on a couple dates before or if she works this fast. Something tells me it's the latter because she is clearly not attracted to him. He is a little bit overweight and has an extremely annoying personality. They have sex even though she is clearly not enjoying it. Why is she sleeping with a man she's not attracted to or even likes? I don't know. Because she's stupid. It's a good thing she's pretty. They're trying to make it a hilarious scene, but really, it's just awkward and uncomfortable. There's a moment when she thinks, "I could have had a V8". She'd rather have a blended vegetable drink than have sex with that man. Again, why are you sleeping with him?? These are the moments when I really hate this movie. Afterwards, Robin has this stone cold look on her face and Michael asks her how it was for her. Dude, read the f**king room! He tells her, "Tell me what you want, what you need. Because whatever it is, I'm gonna see you have it." The things she says do make sense, but the way this speech is said is a bit odd. Let me list each point she makes:
-First she says she wants a house in Scottsdale and Michael tells her he has a house there. Okay, that's fine.
-Next, she says she wants to get married and have kids, again, which is fine.
-Then, she says she wants to eat out 2-3 times a WEEK! At first, I thought she was going to say a month, but no, A WEEK! What the actual f**k? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone? She's not going to be able to maintain her figure if she goes out to eat that many times a week! Why does she need to eat out that many times in a week? Why is this the third thing she lists?
-Then she tells him she wants to have babies. Um, you mentioned this already in your first point when she said you wanted kids. Same thing.
-Then she mentions she would like to go away for long weekends. Okay, fair enough.
-Then, AGAIN, for the THIRD time, she says she wants to have a family. We get it! You want to get married and have kids. You've already told him this like five seconds ago!!
-Then she ends that she wants to be happy which is a good way to end this terrible speech. I mean, seriously, where were the editors for this screenplay? Did they not realize she was being super redundant in this? Also the whole eating out thing was weird. Yes, it's in the book, but we don't always have to keep everything from the book. She only mentions wanting kids once, though, in the book.

Michael tells her he can give her all that, plus more, and they have much better sex. However, their relationship doesn't go anywhere. She ends up firing him because he challenges her or something. I wasn't quite clear, but they break up. When she's out with her friends at a club and sees him entering with another woman, she looks super jealous.

She starts dating another guy, Troy, who she picked up at a grocery store and who she's much more attracted to. They've known each other for only three days and I don't know which is more surprising:  a) that he wants her to meet his mother already, or b) that he takes her to a coke party. And I'm not talking about the drink. It's funny because he's smoking as they're driving to the drug party and we hear her voiceover say, "I wish he didn't smoke, but I can live with one bad habit." Oh, you have no idea, honey. Run far, far, away from this one. When she finds out there are drugs at the party, she just wants to go home and eventually they do leave. She figures since this is the first time a man has asked her to meet his mother, "maybe he's not into this stuff all that much and maybe if we got to know each other better, I might be a good influence on him." Uh-huh, keep dreaming, honey.  In the end, Robin decides not to meet his mother.  He comes to pick her up two hours later, higher than a kite, wearing jeans and a black leather vest (in Phoenix in the summer!) and complaining how hot it is. He also mentions he has a thirteen-year-old son that she didn't know about.

So we get an interesting phone call between Robin and Savannah, who seems to know an awful lot about cocaine and the people who use it. This is a bit unfortunate; history was not kind to this scene. Robin tells Savannah she can't find her wallet and Savannah predicts that Troy took it. Robin gets another call from Russell, the man she's trying to break away from because she's just his mistress and he's never going to leave his wife, but when he asks her if she wants some company, she answers yes right away, explaining why he has her wrapped around his finger. This woman is so desperate, it's really quite nauseating. We get an explanation from Robin, telling us the last time she was with Russell, he told he he wanted to spend the whole night, except he had to take his mother to church the next morning. Please tell me she did not fall for this bs lie!

While taking to Savannah (for some reason there were quite a few scenes with just Savannah and Robin, even though Savannah was closest to Bernadine; they also matched up Bernadine and Gloria often), we learn that Robin had an abortion. After Savannah tells her about Kenneth, Robin says, "There was a woman in your same situation. This man kept saying he was going to leave, too. Quit her job, moved to the city he lived in. Found out she was three months pregnant. Dumped the woman because he didn't want to hurt his kids." Then Savannah asks her, "What show was this on?" because she thinks Robin is talking about a segment she saw on a daytime talk show. Doesn't she realize Robin is talking about herself? DUHHHH. Robin replies with, "I've never been on Oprah."

Robin, who has always wanted a baby, is pregnant with Russell's baby (again), but this time she's going to keep it and tells him she doesn't want anything from him.

Last, but not least, is Gloria, played by Loretta Devine. She is my favorite of the four women because she has the least drama. She is a hairdresser who has her own salon, but they should have made her the one with a catering company. They probably didn't do this because they didn't want to make the "fat" one of the group the one who likes to cook (even though she likes to cook). I get the feeling she's supposed to be a lot bigger in the book, maybe to the point of being obese. She has a heart attack (they took it out in the movie) and Savannah being the total judgmental bitch that she is has the gall to tell Gloria that she could probably get a man if she lost some weight. Luckily they kept this out of the movie.

Gloria has a teen son named Tarik (played by Donald Faison, who was also in Clueless the same year), who instead of going to college where he has been accepted to Arizona University, wants to travel to Spain to play the saxophone in the Up with People International Choir.

Tarik's father, David, who was never married to his mother, is coming to visit, but he doesn't want to see him because they don't have a very close relationship. He's also mad that his mother slept with him the last time he visited and she is planning on doing so again because Tarik is spending the night at a friend's. David, who is, er, was, bi-sexual, tells her he is now just gay so he has no interest in spending the night with her. When I was looking at the cast list for this movie, I saw Giancarlo Esposito's name in this and I was racking my brain, thinking of who he played, but he was David! He looked so different! I guess I'm used to seeing him as Gus Fringe in a yellow button down shirt and being super menacing. Also, after watching him in many episodes of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul; it's weird when he doesn't have an accent!

Gloria has a new neighbor, Marvin (Gregory Hines) who she introduces herself to. There's this super weird moment where the camera lingers on his crotch and butt and he's wearing super baggy jeans. I should mention this movie was the directorial debut of Forrest Whitaker and let's just say he should stick to acting. There was some weird choices, this one included. There was just too much '90s cheese on this. Marvin, who is a widower, tells Gloria that he "likes women with a little meat on her bones" and mentions that his wife was a "big woman" which is an adjective I'm sure every woman loves to be called.

Gloria invites him over for dinner, telling him, "It's just leftovers: collard greens, corn bread, candied yams, potato salad, fried chicken ham, and peach cobbler." We see one of the meals she made; I think it was friend chicken with biscuits and cole slaw and it looked delicious; this is why she should have been the caterer. Where is Bernadine's mouth watering food? Oh, right, we never see her make anything! I do love that Gloria is the only one to end up with a man; good for her. Oh, well I guess Bernadine also ends up with a man.

One of the very few scenes where the four women are together is Gloria's birthday. We see this amazing cake, that looks like it came from a bakery, but it's possible she made it. This scene would be the perfect opportunity for them to talk about anything but men, but guess what they talk about? I'll give you one guess (because you're going to guess it correctly!) Savannah mentions that none of them have a man. Who the f**k cares? Then she says, "I'm 33 and I still look good." (FYI: she's 36 or 37 in the book). WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K??????????? What is that supposed to mean? Thirty-three is not that old; damn, I would hope you still look good at the age of 33 or else you have a huge f**king problem!! Then we get some huge whiplash from Bernadine. One minute she's about to angry call her husband's new girlfriend, then she's crying, then she's giggling and laughing as they dance to "Creep" by TLC (great song). This all happens in the span of about ninety seconds.

Another scene where all four of them are together is at the end when they're headed to a New Year's party, so we've just spent an entire year with these women. The last shot is the four of them by a bonfire and there's a weird super slow motion of them hugging. Okay, I'm done with this review...I can now exhale!

One Day

The Sun is Also a Star
Director: Ry Russo-Young
Cast: Yara Shahidi, Charles Melton, John Leguizamo
Released: May 17, 2019

This is a movie based on a young adult book by Nicola Yoon, who also wrote Everything, Everything; another movie I also reviewed (and read the book). Even though Everything, Everything is her first novel, I read The Sun is Also a Star first and since I liked it a lot, I read her first book, but didn't really care for it (or the movie). The movie version of The Sun.... is not as good as the book, but it's better than Everything, Everything. I think the actors portraying the romantic couple in it have more chemistry than the two actors portraying the romantic couple in Everything, Everything. But I could just be biased since I liked that story better.

I read The Sun is Also a Star in the summer of 2018. I was a little worried I wouldn't have enough time to read it because I had checked out three or four other books from the library at the time and by the time I got to it, it was due in two days! Usually you can re-check a book three of four times! Now it is possible I did recheck this one at least once, but I noticed there were a few people waiting for it and if there's a certain amount of people waiting for a book, they don't let you re-check it. You have to return it so those people get a chance to read it. True, I could had just returned it, then checked it out again, but I decided to see how much of it I could read before I had to return it to the library. The book is 384 pages, which is quite a lot! But luckily for me, it read very fast and I was able to finish it in in time. The POV switches back and forth from the two main characters and a few other characters. The book is definitely better than the movie, but that's not surprising. This is a story that takes places in a day. You have 384 pages of the book to get to know these characters and read their story while you only get almost two hours for the movie. While you get to spend a day with these characters in the book and the movie, the day they spend together in the movie is truncated.

The day begins with seventeen-year-old Natasha (played by Yara Shahidi; she's the oldest daughter on Black-ish) going to an immigration office because her family is being deported to Jamaica tomorrow. She has lived in New York City since she was eight and is trying to find a way to be able to stay. Her parents have Jamaican accents, but she has a very American accent. I assume her younger brother, who moved to the U.S. when he was four, does too, but I honestly can't remember if he even has any lines. We will find out later that her dad works in a kitchen at a restaurant and he was there when ICE did a random raid and that is why they're being deported. I do not know when this happened, but they are scheduled to leave the country tomorrow. In the book, her father was pulled over for drunk driving and that is when it is revealed his visa had expired. (I admit I had to look this up because I didn't remember everything since I read the book a year and a half ago!) It was not clear in the movie if the family had a visa and it had expired or they had been in the country illegally all that time. I suspect they didn't want the negative aspect of the father driving drunk so they changed that. And that they didn't have time to really focus on the parents like they do in the book. The guy tells her there's nothing he can do, but she's going to be okay because she's going to Jamaica (cue Beach Boys song here) and not some godforsaken place like Syria or Afghanistan. She is not happy by this and tells him she's sick of people telling her it's going to be okay, so that is what her parents must keep telling her. He gives her the number of an immigration lawyer, Jeremy Martinez, who does pro bono work and if there's anyone who can help her, it would be him. She calls the number and his secretary tells her he's extremely busy today. After begging, the secretary tells her she can have fifteen minutes with him at noon, during his lunch break, and Natasha is satisfied with that. Throughout the movie we will see her keeping in touch with her parents via texts and phone calls. They want her home so she can start packing, but it will be awhile before she actually goes home.

Then we are introduced to our main character, Daniel (played by Charles Melton; he plays Reggie on Riverdale, a show I have never seen. I figured since I've seen The Vampire Diaries, I'm good and I don't need to see this show. I don't know why I'm comparing those shows together; I just feel like they're probably pretty similar....there's probably vampires and witches in Riverdale, right?? IDK! I do know the Reggie character because I know the theme song to the animated show: "Archie's here, Betty's here, Veronica too; Reggie's here...") Anyhoo...Daniel is a seventeen-year-old Korean-American who has an interview with Dartmouth College later on that day, except it's not really affiliated with the college, so it's kind of confusing, but I'll come back to that when we get there. His parents, who came to New York from South Korea, think it's very important that he become a doctor and that he do well at his interview. He has an older brother, Charlie, who's a bit of a douche and a bully. While they try to give him somewhat of an important role, he is much more fleshed out in the book. I had to laugh when he pronounces Dartmouth as "Dart Mouth." It reminded me of that episode of Boy Meets World where Eric pronounces Yale as "Yah-lay" (and poor Mr. Feeny is just giving him an exasperated look!). Of course, Charlie was just being facetious while dumb-ass Eric legitimately thought that was how Yale was pronounced!

Daniel's appointment isn't until later, so he's just going to chill with his friend for now. I don't know. They're on the subway, which Natasha is also on, listening to her headphones, but at the moment neither of them are aware of the other. The subway suddenly stops and the motorman comes over the intercom to calm everyone and tell them a story. He tells them he usually takes his daughter to school every morning and one day he was late because he was talking to his friend and they missed the train. While he's saying this part, everyone looks pretty irritated or impatient as they look at the time on their phones and just want the train to get fixed and be on their way. You know, typical New Yorkers. One guy says, "Shut up, a**hole" which makes Daniel and his friend crack up. But when the motorman reveals the day they were late happened to be 9/11 (THE 9/11), everyone looks super solemn and/or guilty for having the reactions they did. The guy who called him an a**hole looks super guilty; Daniel and his friend immediately wipe the smirks off their face. And of course it is revealed that the guy's friend worked at the World Trade Center and because he missed the subway, he missed work, and thus he survived a day he otherwise probably would have died. There's a moral to his story as he tells them, "Don't panic because of you being late. You never know why you were meant to be here at this time." Now if the train being late had caused Daniel to meet Natasha because perhaps she was on a different train and now they ran into each other because of it, that would make sense, but they're both on the same train and they don't even meet at this moment, but whatever, I'm just being finicky. The motorman ends with what sounds like a fortune you would find in a fortune cookie: "Always remember to open up your heart to destiny." It's probably not more than five minutes later when Daniel will repeat this line to his friend who doesn't even remember what he's talking about and therefore Daniel has to remind him (and the audience, I'm sure) it's the last thing the motorman said.

So what happens is that Daniel and his friend (can you tell I don't remember his friend's name? It's probably because after this scene we will never see, hear, or speak of him again!) are on the upper level of Grand Central Station people-watching the patrons below them. This is when Daniel notices Natasha who is looking up. She's not looking at them, but I guess there are images of the constellations at GCS that she was staring at. He notices her and thinks she's very pretty and likes that she took the time to look up, because most people don't look up. (Well, duh, why would they?) When she turns around, he notices the back of her jacket says "Deus ex Machina", the exact same phrase he had written down in his journal that very morning. Dun, dun, dun! This is when he repeats the "Always remember to open up your heart to destiny" line. He thinks this is a sign and has to meet this girl. They go downstairs, but since this is Grand Central Station, it's super crowded and she has seemed to vanish into thin air. Rejected, he gets on the subway after parting ways with his friend and who does he see on the next car? Yep, Natasha. Now I don't know if he was originally going to get off at the same stop that she does, but something tells me no because he is running fast after her to make sure he doesn't lose her in the crowd. I do find it a little problematic that at this point he's basically following her. He will notice that she's about to cross a street and get run over by a car that's going crazy fast and because she's lost in thought listening to her headphones (probably listening to Nirvana because in the book she's a Kurt Cobain fan), she's not paying attention and he runs and pulls her back to safety. So basically she has no idea that he was actually following her. The car scene does happen in the book, but I don't think he was following her, but maybe I just don't remember. This whole thing is about chance meetings and fate and destiny (think of this as Serendipity for teens), so wouldn't it have been better if they both got off at the stop and he never saw her on the subway? Honestly, this just makes him look like a total creeper. And that's not good.

After he pulls her back on the sidewalk, she takes off her headphones and says the super cliched line, "You saved my life. Thank you." They introduce each other then sit down to talk in a nearby park because I guess you're required to sit and talk with your life saver? IDK! For their first conversation, the topic is pretty heavy: love. Natasha asks him what he has in his notebook and he tells her he writes poems, mostly about love. So...a) what modern teenager carries around a notebook? None, I'm sure, and b) What modern teenager wants to be a poet? Now this will make sense in the course of the movie and will come full circle, but I don't buy that "I want to be a poet" crap. Because nobody wants to be a poet. Like, for an actual career. Maybe for a hobby sure, but this dude wants to make a career out of it. Give me a break. Daniel quickly learns that Natasha might not be as romantic as he hoped. She tells him that she doesn't believe in love, saying, "If you can't use a scientific method on it, then it's not real." When he questions her, she tells him what people are feeling when they feel love are hormones and says, "We just call it "love" so that we have something grand to live for. Otherwise, life seems really mundane and a random series of events that you have no control over until you die." Cue the violin opening to "Bitter Sweet Symphony". This is when he gets up, tells her it was nice meeting her, and goes on his merry way. No, that doesn't happen, but it would be pretty amusing (and a short movie!) if it did. No, instead Daniel is up to the challenge and tells her he can get her to fall in love with him if she gives him one day. If I were Natasha, I would have laughed in his face, but instead she tells him she doesn't have a day. When he asks her if she has an hour (an hour! Good Lord, not even Romeo and Juliet fell in love within an hour!) she decides to humor him.

They go to a small eatery called Caffe Reggio where they have lunch. Natasha's mom calls to tell her she wants her home to start packing and she tells her she will come home after her appointment at noon. Daniel gets a call from his interview asking him if they can reschedule it for tomorrow morning and he is happy to oblige so he can spend time with Natasha. While they eat lunch, Daniel tells Natasha about a study where researchers put a bunch of couples in a lab and had them ask each other thirty-six intimate questions. Natasha's reply is, "Sounds ridiculous." Really? Is it really that ridiculous? What is so ridiculous about it? This girl would irritate me in real life, I think. He asks her a few random ones, starting with "Where are the five key ingredients to falling in love?" The nerdy girl has a very nerdy answer: "Mutual self-interest and socioeconomic compatibility." Apparently she doesn't know how to count because she doesn't give three more. But, yikes! Those aren't terrible things, but they seem pretty pedestrian. Daniel's answers are a little better. Well, most of them, anyway: "Friendship and chemistry, some sort of moral compass, common interests, and the X factor." When Natasha asks what the X factor is (yes I'd like to know that, too), Daniel replies with, "Don't worry. We've got it." My eyes rolled at that. Such lazy writing. They've known each other less than a hour and he's claiming they have "The X factor?"

They talk about their futures and what they want to do. Natasha tells Daniel that she wants to be a data scientist (such a nerd!), someone who "takes large amounts of data and strategizes on how to apply it practically." Daniel tells her about the interview he has with Dartmouth and how his parents want him to be a doctor and how important it it to them he become one. But he would rather be a poet and his parents don't approve of that. 

Natasha's appointment is soon and they walk to it together. Daniel recognizes it is as the same place his interview will take place tomorrow (but was originally scheduled for the same time as her appointment) and tells her, "You have to admit this proves my point: fate is real." Natasha says it was just a coincidence. When she goes in for her appointment, Mr. Martinez's secretary tells her that he was hit by a car when he was biking to work (the very same car that almost hit Natasha, in fact, Daniel sees him clip a guy on a bike first, then realizes he's about to hit Natasha) and won't be in until 4:30 since he's at the hospital. Daniel is waiting for her in the lobby and is thrilled when he realizes they have four more hours to spend together, but Natasha tells him she has to go home because her parents are expecting her. When she tells him it takes about an hour to get home and another hour to return, he points out that doesn't make sense to be wasting all that time and she agrees with him, so she calls her parents to let them know she won't be coming home until later.

Daniel needs to drop off something for his father at his parents' store which sells black hair care products. Natasha is incredulous that his parents own a black hair care store, but he explains to her that it's really not that uncommon for Koreans. She doesn't get the best first impression from his family, unfortunately. She and Daniel share a moment where they're about to kiss right in the middle of an aisle, but Charlie, his douchey brother, interrupts them and accuses Natasha of being a shoplifter. When Daniel introduces Natasha to his dad, Mr. Bae offers her a relaxer for her hair so it won't be so big and she tells him she likes her hair. I mean, I think the girl wouldn't have it that way if she didn't like it! Of course Daniel is just cringing during this whole exchange. Unwoke parents can be the worst!

To kill the rest of the time, they go to a planetarium (Natasha's idea, of course) and hold hands as they look up at the screen. This is when they start to become touchy-feel-y and when they're on the subway, she has her head on his shoulder and she's playing with his hair. They have a conversation about poetry and Natasha complains that whenever she reads a poem it's usually about one of three things: love, sex, or the stars. This is when we get our film's title (well, sort of) when she says, "Why not more poems about the sun? The sun's also a star." Yep. She used a contraction. The title is The Sun IS Also a Star; not The Sun's Also a Star. I mean, really, you think they would have the actress say the actual title right! Also, I'm pretty sure if you looked hard enough, there are plenty of poems about the sun out there. If I really cared, I would try to find a few, but I don't really care that much to look for poetry.

They next go to Korean karaoke which is called Noraebang and is a bit different from the karaoke most people are used to as they have their own private room. I'm pretty sure this is a challenge they've done on The Amazing Race when they've been in Seoul. I remember contestants having to memorize a song in Korean, then having to perform it. I get having a private room if you're a small group, but with two people? That's just super weird. I do remember this scene in the book when Daniel sings Abba's "Take a Chance On Me", a super corny song choice and a bit on the nose. They must have thought the same thing when they were making the movie because he sings "Crimson and Clover" instead. As he's singing the song, we see flash forwards of Natasha imagining what their life could be like if she is able to stay in New York. We see them dating, getting married, having children, the whole she-bang. I would be super embarrassed if some guy I just met that day was singing to me in this intense way, but she is eating it up. In fact, when he's done singing, they just go at it and start making out. Now it makes sense why they need a private venue! She freaks out when her phone beeps, alerting her that her appointment is in half an hour and she is brought back down to reality and runs out. Daniel runs after her, asking her what's wrong. She drops the big bomb, telling him she will probably never see him again because she wasn't born in this country and her family is being deported tomorrow.

They part ways and Natasha goes to her immigration appointment with Jeremy Martinez who is played by John Leguizamo, easily the biggest name in the movie. He gives her a glimmer of hope when he tells her he had a chance to review her file and he's going to see the judge who issued the removal order. He knows that judge and think he might be able to file a motion to reopen the case so she won't have to leave tomorrow. He's playing it close with time because he won't have an answer from the judge until the next morning and wants to meet her again at ten. If everything works out, he will ask for a new trial and submit a petition for permanent resident status for her and her family.

With a new burst of hope in her, Natasha wants to reconnect with Daniel, but doesn't have his number, so she goes back to his parents' store where Charlie is at the cash register. She asks him for his brother's number and while he gives her a bit of crap, he easily gives it to her. So she calls Daniel and apologizes and they meet up again. They hang out some more and talk some more and kiss some more. They end up going to Roosevelt Island where they end up spending the night in a park which doesn't seem like a very safe thing to do. Also, I'm surprised nobody noticed they were roughing it outside.

They wake up  the next morning a little after seven and they need to hurry because Daniel's interview is at eight. This dude spent the night outside, is wearing the same outfit he wore yesterday, and hasn't taken a shower in god knows how long. You know he reeks. And he's going to an important interview that will determine his future. So get this...it turns out his interview is with Jeremy Martinez. Why is an immigration lawyer giving an interview with a kid who wants to attend Dartmouth? Why is the interview being held at this place? I really have no idea. I mean, it will be for the sake of the story because Natasha will barge in later, wanting to know if her family can stay and they (Daniel and Natasha) will just stare at each other and take it as another sign that they're meant to be together. But yeah, it makes no sense the same guy who is giving Natasha legal advice is also a Dartmouth rep. Unfortunately he tells Natasha that her family is unable to stay and of course this makes her upset. She puts the blame on Daniel telling him, "You promised this wasn't going to happen." Yeah, he did say that to her. Pretty stupid thing to say.

It's only now that Natasha realizes that she should probably call her parents to tell therm she's okay and on her way home. She hasn't been in touch with them since yesterday; maybe right before they went to Roosevelt Island, I can't exactly remember the last time we saw her contact them. She must have turned off her phone because surely her parents have been trying to get in touch with her. She brings Daniel with her and naturally her parents are upset with her. Daniel tries to intervene and tell them it's his fault, but her dad shuts it down. Yeah, I'd be pretty annoyed if my kid was out all night when they were supposed to be home packing and then have the gall to bring some random kid home with them and call them their "guest".

Earlier in the movie when Daniel was telling Natasha about the experiment scientists did with couples that she called "ridiculous", after they had asked and answered their questions, they were supposed to stare into each other's eyes for four minutes so that's what they do outside the airport. (Guess Natasha's parents were cool that he tagged along!) If I saw two people outside an airport holding hands and staring into each other's eyes without saying anything, I would probably roll my own eyes. Thankfully we don't have to see the full four minutes. Instead we see flash forwards of what their lives actually turn out to be: Natasha looks to be an astronomy teacher (I thought she wanted to be a data scientist?) and Daniel is a poet. At the end of the four minutes she tells Daniel that she loves him and he tells her that the experiment worked. Well, it did and it didn't.

The movie fast forwards five years later and we see Natasha back at Caffe Reggio listening to live music. She is meeting Mr. Martinez there and we learn her student visa came through for her to attend grad school at Berekely where she will be flying out the next day. She asks Martinez if she remembers Daniel Bae and if he knows any way of contacting him because she can't find him online and it's almost like he vanished. Okay. Hold the phone. In what world, in this century, in this year, would a twenty-something not have some form of social media? It would be odd for a thirty, forty, of even fifty something not to have some kind of social media or email address. I call total BS on this. I can't remember exactly how this happened in the book, because they do lose touch with each other after Natasha goes to Jamaica. If the two young girls from Beaches in the late '50s can keep a correspondence with each other, then there's no excuse two teens from the twenty-teens can't stay in touch with each other!

Well, wouldn't you know, when Natasha is about to leave, we see Daniel, who works at the cafe, take off his apron (I guess he was on his break when Natasha ordered?) and tell the audience he's going to read a poem about the sun. The very first poem ever written about the sun, apparently! Natasha turns around and they see each other and smile at each other, then kiss, which is super weird. If I haven't seen somebody in five years who I only spent one day with, I certainly wouldn't just start making out with them. I guess neither of them are in relationships at that moment. Natasha tells him she only has one day and he replies he only needs one day. We never hear his poem about the sun. In the book, ten year passes and they're both on the same airplane and there's no reunion kiss.

If you've read the book, you might enjoy the movie, but just know the book is much better. 

J-Lo vs J-Fo

Monster-in-Law
Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan, Wanda Sykes, Elaine Stritch
Released: May 13, 2005
Viewed in theaters: May 17, 2005

This is not a very good movie that was lucky enough to get two big stars in J-Lo and Jane Fonda. (J. Fo?) I was surprised when I read that this was Jane Fonda's first movie in 15 years - the last movie she did prior to this was in 1990.

The movie wastes no time getting Charlie (J-Lo (wait, is it J-Lo or J. Lo? Now I'm second guessing myself...)) together with Kevin (Michael Vartan) because they want to quickly introduce us to Kevin's mother, Viola (Jane Fonda) who will soon make Charlie's life a living hell. When we are introduced to Charlie, we learn that she lives with her gay roommate and friend, Remy (Adam Scott, who along with J-Lo's other friend, has nothing to do) and she has a lot of jobs as she works at a temp agency. Her many jobs (from the past and present) include: a dog walker (like you couldn't get a teenager to do that? That's an actual job that temps get?), a receptionist at a doctor's office, a yoga instructor, a caterer, a waitress for parties that her friend caters, and a Little League coach which just seems out of left field, no pun intended. She must be a terrible dog walker because we see her pick up two dobermans from a rich lady and the next scene later she's walking five dogs on the beach...and there are no dobermans in sight! Where did they go? She takes a break on the beach to read her horoscope and it says she's going to find love today. I don't even remember if her sign is mentioned, but I really don't think that matters. At that moment, an attractive shirtless man runs across the beach and catches her eye. The next day, Charlie will be at a coffee shop (ordering coffee; I'm surprised she doesn't work there!) and she will run into the same man on her way out. He says hello to her, but she just gets flustered and runs out after replying hello to him. Then she will see him the next night when she's helping her friend at a party she's catering. Of course, he is Kevin, the man with the overbearing mother that she will eventually start dating. They try to throw a wrench in their relationship by having another woman, Fiona, try to come between them which seems redundant because don't we already have that with Kevin's mother? I guess Fiona works with Kevin (who's a surgeon) which explains why she was at the party and they once dated, but while Fiona is still into him, Kevin doesn't have any feelings for her. She ends up telling Charlie not to get too attached to Kevin because he's gay and says he's getting married in December to another doctor (played by Will Arnett). Charlie sees them sitting together, talking and laughing, so she automatically assumes it must be true, despite the fact that Kevin was smiling and flirting with her all night. Oh, and he also asked for her number so he calls her, but Charlie doesn't answer. He catches her on the beach and she tells him, "I don't know why you called me. I'm a woman." This baffles him, then he realizes she thinks he is gay, and tells her he isn't. He asks her out on a date and after giving her a poetic answer about what color her eyes are, she is smitten. Their relationship will be smooth sailing from here on out aside from Kevin's mother and the random woman, Fiona.

We are introduced to Viola Fields the same day she will be losing her job and she doesn't take it so well. She is a daytime talk show host, akin to Oprah, who has interviewed some pretty prominent people (and has met Oprah!) and has won five Emmys. She is being replaced by someone younger because the show is trying to appeal to a younger demographic. Unfortunately, for Viola, her last guest will be a 17-year-old pop star singer who is obviously supposed to be Britney Spears-esque. After singing a terrible, manufactured song, Viola interviews her and the young woman tells her she likes watching "old" movies and rattles off Grease, Benji, The Little Mermaid, Free Willy, and Legally Blonde as examples. As she is going through her list, Viola looks livid. Okay, let's talk this through. This movie takes place in "present day" 2005, which means the pop star (I'm sure they said what her name is, but I don't remember, or more accurately, don't care enough to remember) was born in 1988. Grease and Benji came out in the '70s, so it makes sense she would consider them old. The Little Mermaid ('89) and Free Willy ('93), both came out after she was born, so if she thinks those movies are old, then does she think she is old at 17? But I understand that's part of the joke. The kicker for me is that she considers Legally Blonde an "old" movie. Remember, this is 2005. That means Legally Blonde is only four years old in this timeline! I understood the joke after I looked up the director of this movie, Robert Luketic. He also directed Legally Blonde (a MUCH better movie than this), so I guess that was just a little inside joke.

Viola ends up physically attacking the girl because she says something asinine and they're trying to go to commercial break during this physical altercation, but it's too late and everybody who is watching has already seen what has happened (I guess this must be a live show!) After taking a four month hiatus from life in general, she finds out that her son has been dating someone for that entire time, but doesn't think it's serious. It's a little intimidating for Charlie because she knows how close Kevin is to his mother (she calls him like four times a day which is a bit extreme!) and she lives in this huge mansion. Kevin is also a little nervous about his two favorite women meeting, but they get along just grandly, laughing and chatting as they're having tea and cake in the garden. Kevin is so thrilled that he proposes to Charlie right there...while his mother is sitting next to her. Not the most romantic move, there. Then we see Viola hugging Charlie, then slamming her face in the cake, but it was just her imagining that happening. (The slamming her face in the cake part, she did actually hug her, although how genuine it was, that remains to be seen!)


While this is going on, Viola's (very loyal and very patient) assistant, Ruby (Wanda Skyes) is observing the whole thing from a distance and is muttering under her breath for Charlie to say no because she knows Viola is not taking this news very well. But, of course, Charlie says yes. Earlier, Ruby had told Viola, who is a bit of a lush, that she had locked up all the alcohol and liquor after she returned from her four-moth hiatus, so Viola is rummaging through the bathroom medicine cabinet and finds mouth wash that has 14% alcohol and that's good enough for her. She comes to the conclusion that Charlie must be pregnant and that's why Kevin wants to marry her. When she brings this up, they tell her that Charlie is not pregnant. This still baffles Viola and she tells them, "Call me old-fashioned, marriage is a sacred union that should only be entered into with the utmost care." Charlie gets a stab back at her, asking her, "Weren't you married four times?" To which Viola replies, "Yes, which would make me an expert don't you think?" We know that her first husband is Kevin's dad, her second marriage was to a TV exec who got her her first on-air job, and her third marriage was to an actor who turned out to be gay and had an affair with her second husband. There's a bit of an on-going joke that she seems to be attracted to gay men. I don't remember any information about her fourth husband. Viola just can't get it through her head that her son, a "brilliant surgeon" is going to marry a "temp". She figures that Charlie is a gold digger and she's going to make it her "project" to create a wedge between her son and his fiancee.

Viola's first order of business it to embarrass her daughter-in-law to be at a engagement party she's hosting at her house. Both Kevin and Charlie show up wearing casual clothes (Charlie is wearing a white linen dress so it's not like she's super casual) because they were under the assumption Viola was throwing a BBQ with close family friends. Has Kevin ever met his mother? She doesn't seem like the type of woman who would have a BBQ or even know how to barbecue! Instead, it turns out to be a fancy black tie party where Viola has invited many dignitaries. She does this to embarrass Charlie because she immediately starts introducing her to a prince, the man who introduced the Euro to the global market, the poet laureate, and the Secretary of Commerce and after introducing each of them to Charlie, she tells them that Charlie is a "temp".

She tells Kevin and Charlie that she has more appropriate attire for them in the house. I was thinking the dress she had picked out for Charlie would be hideous, but it was this beautiful vintage dress that Charlie was excited to wear. The only hitch was that it was too small and she could barely get it over her hips. Viola invites Fiona to flirt with Kevin and she comes onto him and of course Charlie sees them kissing and huffs away. I was surprised when Fiona tells her that she was just giving him a "congratulatory kiss." Kevin is able to placate her and they go home and everything is okay with them once again, because, let's face it, Fiona isn't a problem. I really don't know why she's needed in this movie.

Viola has Ruby looking up anything she can find on Charlie, but she comes with nothing. Charlie has no criminal record, no debt, got decent grades in school, went to design school, and has had a string of odd jobs. When Viola asks her about drugs or promiscuity, Ruby replies, "She's had fewer lovers in her lifetime than you did at closing day of Woodstock." I don't know how she found out about all of her past boyfriends, but this line did make me laugh. And wow, Viola must have been a ho back in her day...yikes!

It becomes Viola's mission to not only drive Charlie crazy, but also drive her away from her son as well. As she tells Ruby, "Every woman knows when you marry a man, you also marry his mother." I feel like she has very outdated (even for 2005!) views on marriage. She invites Charlie out to lunch (by the way, J-Lo has some very enviable outfits in this movie, this one included) where she just pretty much starts planning their wedding with doves and horse-drawn carriages and other things Charlie isn't into. She also presents her with a frilly pink wedding planner book. Charlie puts her foot down and firmly tells her thanks, but no thanks, that they don't want any of her input. This causes Viola to faint on the outside patio where they're eating lunch, causing a scene. A woman nearby asks if she's dead and Charlie tells her no, then under her breath, she mutters, "It can't be that easy." Okay. That was funny. This movie isn't that great, but there were a few funny moments, this one included. It turns out that Viola had an anxiety attack and Kevin tells Charlie that his mother told him that Charlie was yelling at her about not being able to plan the wedding, which Charlie admits to.

The doctor tells Viola she needs no stress, so Kevin and Charlie agree (well, Charlie reluctantly agrees!) that Viola should live with them until she feels better. Oh, I should probably mention that Charlie has moved in with Kevin, but that makes sense since they're engaged. I'm not really sure why living with her son and her son's fiancee would give her less stress when she has that nice mansion she can lounge around in, but whatever. This is all part of Viola's evil plan.

Kevin has to go out of town the first few days after Viola moves in, so it's just Charlie and her future mother-in-law. Like that's not awkward at all! The first night, Viola keeps Charlie up all night because she's crying. She forgot to take her pills and asks Charlie to get them for her, then when Charlie returns with them, she needs water, then she needs ice in her water, and so on. Even after all that, she tells Charlie she doesn't want to be alone and wants Charlie to spend the night with her. I definitely would have put my foot down at that! But Charlie obliges and pretty much gets beat up because Viola is thrashing all over the place while she's sleeping and hits her in the face a few times. A little extreme on Viola's part.

The next day, Viola tells Charlie she called her lawyer to update her will because she wanted to include her and has some questions she needs to ask which include are there any hereditary illness in her family and is she an illegal alien? (I mean, she seems pretty American to me!) Charlie gets suspicious when Viola asks her how many men has she been sexually active with and Charlie wants to know why would they want to know that and Viola winks at her and says "That many, huh?"  She also asks Charlie if she would be willing to sign a prenuptial agreement. When Charlie questions that, Viola pretends to be outraged and says, "I know, they're such nosy bastards! It's none of the business! Okay, this scene was pretty funny, thanks to Jane Fonda's reactions to J-Lo's incredulousness. Much like the scene where we see Viola imaging herself smashing Charlie's head into a cake, Charlie has a fantasy of slapping Viola across the face with a pan and knocking her off the stool she's sitting on. 

When Charlie invites her two friends over (when Viola is gone), Remy tells her he found out Viola has been investigating Charlie. I did like the line when he said "I was upstairs in her room, minding my own business..." Charlie discovers she has her high school transcripts and super up close photos of her taken at the beach and wonders when they were even taken. She also discovers that the anti anxiety pills Viola's been taking are actually chewable vitamin Cs. The hilarious part is that she had to get that confirmed by one of the doctors at the office where she works at a part time receptionist. I feel like if you saw a chewable ("chewable" being the operative word), you would be able to tell that's what it was). 

Charlie gets her worst revenge on Viola when she brings home a bunch of dogs she's been walking. One of the dobermans we saw her walking earlier in the movie growls at Viola when she comes home and she calls to Charlie to help her. When Charlie comes out, she's been in the kitchen cooking what looks to be spaghetti sauce. She still has the spoon in her hand and when she tells the dog to back down, she flings the spoon and end up flinging sauce on Viola's white pantsuit. Charlie apologizes and asks if it was expensive and Viola replies, "It was." She then goes up to her room and that's when the audience, along with Viola, discover a pack of dogs in her room, including the other doberman. There are dogs on her bed, dogs on the carpet, dogs ripping up pillows, dogs ripping up bedsheets, dogs just ruining everything in sight. Yeah, I would be pretty ticked off too! Although, if you think about it, this is Kevin's house, so why is Charlie letting the dogs ruin the carpet, bed, and other furniture in the room if all this stuff is his? We never do see his reaction to this. How convenient.

The night before the wedding, there's a small wedding party gathering and Viola ends up putting nuts in the gravy because Charlie is allergic. The two of them keep going back and forth with their antics, it's hard to remember the score. Ruby tells her not to do that and Viola decides that's even a bit too extreme for her. But while they are chatting, another guest brings out the gravy boat that has the nuts (which are pretty big so you think everyone would notice that there are nuts in the gravy!) and Charlie ends up having some and her face swells up and she has these humongous lips. Lucky for her, on the day of the wedding, she wakes up to her perfectly beautiful face again. 

Charlie has asked Viola to be her Maid of Honor (I don't care if you even get along great with your mother-in-law; that's a weird person to ask to be your MoH!) It seems she's only doing it to embarrass her because she has this hideous peach colored (Viola's favorite color) dress for her to wear. It is the day of the wedding and these two are still going at it. There was a scene a few days earlier where they are both eating lunch and Viola makes a snide remark at Charlie, saying, "Just so you know, Kevin likes his girls thin" after Charlie tells her she wants the dress to fit her and not the other way around. Yes, Charlie is curvy, but sheesh, she's not fat. 

Charlie's friend (the one who isn't Adam Scott, the female friend...she really has nothing to do and I literally cannot remember her name or care to remember) tells her she spoke to the priest and confirmed with him that he's going to skip over the part where he says, "If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace." You know, I've been to a handful of weddings in my life and I don't think I've ever heard that during a wedding ceremony. It could be I just don't remember because nobody said anything when it was said, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly used for movies and TV shows for the drama.

Viola shows up to the wedding wearing a white dress and that just about sends Charlie over the edge. When Kevin's paternal grandmother, Gertrude (Elaine Stritch) shows up, we find out that she and Viola have a relationship not unlike Viola and Charlie where they're always going back and forth and sniping at each other. I had to laugh when Gertrude exclaims, "My grandson is marrying an exotic Latina!", because, again, she seems very American and non-exotic to me.

It doesn't take long for the two older women to start squabbling and Gertrude accuses Viola of killing her son. As she tells her, "All the doctors agree - my son died of terminal disappointment!" Her first husband must have died pretty young if she was able to get married three more times, or either those marriages didn't last very long. Viola snaps back that Gertrude killed her son because she smothered him to death and that nobody was ever good enough for him. Obviously these two women have a lot in common. After Gertrude leaves the room, Charlie tells Viola that she realizes in thirty years, they will be doing the exact same thing and while she wants to marry Kevin because they make each other happy, but because Viola's not going to let that happen (her plan is to move to the same neighborhood as Kevin and Charlie), she decides to call the wedding off.

When she goes to find Kevin, I checked to see how much time was left. There was ten minutes remaining so I knew this had to be wrapped up soon. And it was. Before Charlie can say anything to Kevin, Viola stops her, telling her she needs to talk to her. She apologizes to Charlie and tells her she wants her to get married to her son because he makes her happy and she promises she'll butt out of their lives, but Charlie tells her she wants her to be involved with her grandchildren when she and Kevin start having kids. Yay, everyone loves each other, yay.