The Meaning of Life in Movies by Michael Lister

Author:Michael Lister [Michael Lister]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-888146-88-2
Publisher: Pulpwood Press
Published: 2012-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Can love truly change a person?

Romance movies in general, and The Proposal in particular, beg the question.

(Before we go any further, I’d like to suggest that you listen to Tracy Chapman’s song “Change” as you read—or at least when you finish reading.)

In The Proposal, Sandra Bullock plays high-powered book editor Margaret Tate, who is facing deportation back to Canada. The quick-thinking exec declares that she’s actually engaged to her unsuspecting put-upon assistant, Andrew Paxton (played by Ryan Reynolds), who she’s tormented for years.

He agrees to participate in the charade, but with a few conditions of his own. The unlikely couple heads to Alaska to meet his quirky family, and the always-in-control city girl finds herself in one comedic fish-out-of-water situation after another. With an impromptu wedding in the works and an immigration official on their heels, Margaret and Andrew reluctantly vow to stick to the plan despite the precarious consequences.

Sandra Bullock is a beautiful, charming, funny actress who has seldom found (or chosen) material equal to her abilities—and The Proposal is no different.

The movie’s not bad as romantic comedies go, but it’s not great, doesn’t take advantage of many opportunities and situations, lacks chemistry, and never really gets going before it’s over—though Betty White is a bright spot (as usual).

The premise of the The Proposal is that Andrew’s and his family’s love for Margaret (and her love for him and them) can change her.

It’s a nice notion—one I happen to subscribe to, but not in a heady weekend-whirlwind-wedding way.

Romances claim that finding the right person and “falling” in love is life changing. They are often trite, cliché-ridden, and involve far more attraction and infatuation than actual love, but beneath their shallow surface and behind their enduring popularity is the notion that love changes things—and might just change everything.

Does love change a person? Does anything else?

Love changes us when we let it, when we open ourselves up to it, remove any blockages in our lives so that it might flow to and then through us.

I’m convinced love changes us—that nothing determines the people we are more than love or its absence. Not the “falling in love” of romances, which is, in part, the euphoria of illusion, but the unconditional love that comes from God—love as a choice, love as an experience, love as a lifestyle, love as a philosophy, love as a religion, love as compassion (feeling what others feel) that motivates us to extend ourselves on the behalf of others, love that, unlike “romantic love,” which is all about attraction and desire (largely self-centered stuff), is not based on the beloved (his or her qualities, attractiveness, or worthiness).

There’s a lot of wisdom in separating love from like, from desire and attraction and infatuation. There are so many things we call love that just aren’t.

Love as illusion, as infatuation, as the projection of perfection onto a person can change us temporarily, but love as a choice made every moment, as an end of illusions, as an act of generosity, as accepting someone the way they are, has the greatest chance of changing us no less than those we love.

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