Movie Moment: Safe Haven

Few havens feed a hungry heart as well as a house made of candy.  Although perhaps better suited to a movie like Hansel and Gretel, this gumdrop of a graphic struck the right note with me in terms of introducing Safe Haven.  Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name, this Valentine's Day weekend box office darling held no surprises for me.  Fortunately, the familiarity only deepened its charm.

Katie (Julianne Hough) is running from something.  Saddled with a backstory that is perhaps darker than any other in the Sparks canon, her shadowed past serves as the ideal foil for sleepy Southport, the North Carolina beach hamlet where she takes refuge.  Katie sets tentative roots by renting a cottage, waitressing at the local cafe, and becoming a regular at the general store.  A quaint, near-ramshackle of a place that sells light groceries (and on a good day) paint, it's run by Alex, a widowed father of the hunky, aw-shucks variety whose flirting style is as awkward as Katie's is avoidant.  The fledgling courtship that flowers between them is made even more fragile by Katie's secret.  Idyllic walks and beach scenes continue to be undercut by Katie's flashbacks of her old life in Boston.  Everything about the city is dark, right down to Katie's clothes and hair, serving as a contrast to the breezily bright and beachy Southport where she begins a new chapter.  What lies in the balance is a classic tale of fate and true love.  Hardly groundbreaking stuff, as Sparks-slaying critics are happy to say.  But it's this homespun simplicity that makes Safe Haven so universally poignant and so human.

Indeed, it's a cold customer who doesn't eke out a tear at the end.

Movie Moment: New Year's Eve

Like Valentine's Day, Garry Marshall's other holiday-themed, star-studded extravaganza, New Year's Eve features eight intersecting vignettes about people searching for hope, and yes, in most cases, love. 

Here's the rundown.  (I'm not going to bother using character names; when a movie has as many celebrities as this one, they become sort of superfluous.)  Josh Duhamel is hoping to meet the "extraordinary" woman he met last New Year's Eve by chance at a pizza place.  Michelle Pfeiffer is a bored office worker who hires bike messenger Zac Efron to make her New Year's resolutions come true.  Jessica Biel and Seth Meyers are competing with Sarah Paulson and Til Schweiger for the $25,000 awarded to the first baby born in the new year.  Hilary Swank is orchestrating the Times Square ball drop and encounters technical difficulties that can be solved by only eccentric electrician Hector Elizondo.  Sarah Jessica Parker is a single mom trying to prevent her teenage daughter, Abigail Breslin, from spending midnight in Times Square with a boy.  Wise guy Ashton Kutcher and perky Lea Michele get stuck in an elevator.  High-profile caterer Katherine Heigl, whose sous chef is Sophia Vergara, has her heart broken by rock star Jon Bon Jovi (who, oddly, does not quite play himself).  Robert De Niro is dying in a hospital, and Halle Berry is his nurse.  All of this drama is sprinkled by wise words from Ludacris, who plays a cop and, ostensibly, Hilary Swank's work husband.

Although the plot (or, rather, plots) moved a little slowly at first, New Year's Eve is ultimately fun and frothy, spiked with the kind of gentle twists that you (okay, I) loved in Valentine's Day.  High points included commentary on Sarah Jessica Parker's shoes, Seth Myers's comic timing, Sofia Vergara's silliness, and an appearance by recent "Project Accessory" contestant Shea Curry.  Oh, and the Christmas decorations backlit by the glitz of Times Square.  As always, the flashier the better.       

Movie Moment: Life as We Know It

Against my better judgment, I rented Life as We Know It. You know, the one with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel that was out last fall. The bf and I were meant to be seeing Just Go With It, but the movie theater parking lot was full, what with it being the movie's opening weekend and Valentine's Day weekend to boot, so we turned around and went home. I immediately began surfing through On Demand's movie menu, on the lookout for a romantic comedy. Any romantic comedy. Even one about two people who hate each other being forced to raise someone else's baby.

The first scene takes place a few years earlier than the rest of the movie. Straitlaced Holly (Heigl) and bad boy Messer (Duhamel) (Yes, that's his name. His last name. But still.) are set up on a blind date by their mutual best friends. Messer thunders up to Holly's apartment on his motorcycle an hour late, then takes a call to arrange a date with another woman. Outraged, Holly tells him to forget it, and he agrees, saying she can do whatever it is she likes to do on a Saturday night. You could read a book, he suggests, or blog. You look like you blog. (That one wormed a chuckle out of me.) Holly responds by throwing him out of her smart car, and that's that.

At least it is until the two of them become the guardians of one-year-old Sophie after their friends are killed in a car accident. Of course, this turns their lives upside down, pitting their discordant personalities against each other. A cook who owns her own shop, Holly is responsible, efficient, and looking to hook up with a gorgeous doctor who has purchased exactly thirty-seven of her sandwiches. Which is to say that she's the classic Heigl heroine, a together woman looking for a together man who ends up being tossed into the arms of one who's anything but. As a basketball director who's used to women buying him drinks, Messer fits the bill as her dud-in-shining-armor. Watching all of this, I don't like him. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say I don't want to like him. But witnessing him and Holly struggle with Slumdog Millionaire-smelling diapers (their words), mounting bills, nosy neighbors, and a meddling caseworker, even I can't deny that they're growing inevitably closer. The movie is sneaky this way, manipulating my sympathies to be in favor of the wayward Messer. After all, as plenty of bimbos in the movie demonstrate, women are unable to resist a man pushing a stroller. I don't appreciate such manipulation and try to fight it. But the writers' plot is stronger than my resolve. So, when Holly lands a date with the good doctor (who just happens to be Sophie's pediatrician), I'm a bit torn. But I don't have long to suffer, because she soon ends up in bed with Messer, her relationship with the doctor over before it begins.

The new couple continues on happily, despite the disapproval of their caseworker, who can tell they've slept together just by listening to the give-and-take of their conversation. But then disaster strikes in the form of a boilerplate romantic comedy conflict. Messer accepts a job across the country. He doesn't want to leave Holly and Sophie, but it's his dream, yada, yada, yada. So, Holly reconciles with the doctor. This turn of events makes me wonder what she told him before and just how he came back so willingly (neither is clear). But it hardly matters, as Holly kindly dumps him after a blowout with Messer over Thanksgiving dinner. He takes it well - too well, in my opinion - and slinks off, freeing Holly to embark upon a tried-and-true, stop-him-at-the-airport mission to reclaim Messer. He isn't there. But that's only because he's waiting at home in that twist-on-an-old-cliché that's been pressed into service so often it's become a cliché itself.

Sure, it was cheesy. And I still think the doctor is nicer than Messer. But I accept that this just isn't the kind of story where the that type of guy gets the girl. Ever notice how there are two formulas for the guy getting the girl? As in, 1) nice nerdy guy and cool jerky guy battle for girl and nice guy finally gets her and 2) nice [in this case a euphemism for pompous] polo-shirt-wearing guy who makes lots of money and rough-around-the-edges-but-secretly-sweet guy battle for girl and secretly-sweet finally guy gets her. In this case, I think of the doctor as the nice guy nerd and crusty Messer as the heartbreaking threat (even though the movie's writers see things otherwise). I like to think that this says more about my soft spot for nerds than it does about a hidden gold-digging yen for doctors.

All of that having been said, I yammered on for quite a while about a movie I allegedly didn't enjoy. I guess in my own warped way I liked it after all. :)