This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Serendipity
Plot Overview
A man goes to college to get
a degree, a woman to get a husband. Bea (Sydney Sweeney,) in her
twenties, withdraws from BU
Law School after finding it too hard. Finding herself a husband
was all too easy. Eligible Ben (Glen Powell,) 29 (“Nobody's
twenty-nine,”) pretended to be hers in a local bistro to justify
sharing w/her his place in line and with it the key to the rest room,
which she desperately needed. But it was one step forward and two
steps back.
Ben & Bea
frequent a busy Boston bar but ignore each other there. When Ben's
pal Halle (Hadley Robinson) who's Bea's younger sister is having a
gay wedding at the girls' parents' home in Adelaide, everyone
they know is invited to come stay with them. These helicopter
folks have surreptitiously invited Bea's ex: Jonathan (Darren
Barnet) hoping they get back together. When that looks unlikely, they
change plans and try, with others, to make a match between Bea and
Ben. It's in Bea's best interests to pretend it's working in order
to get them off her back, and Ben will go along with it to make his
ex: Margaret (Charlee Fraser) jealous enough to lose the Aussie surfer
she's been flirting with. As expected this pretend love is on a most
slippery slope, and it's not without its pitfalls along the way.
Ideology
It helps to set this plot within a panoramic historical framework. Jesus defined marriage as God having made it heterosexual in the beginning, (Matt. 19:4-5) “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” Marriage was the first human institution God made, before there was any America or Australia, before there was any civil authority or state of any kind.
By and by we get to a definition of marriage,
from Dr. Ide: “The
Contemporary Christian standard was defined not
by the bible but generated by Roman law as defined by the
jurist Modestinus who argued that marriage was ‘consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani
iuris communicatio: a life-long partnership,
and a sharing of civil and religious rights’” (83–5).
The religious rights occur in the context of what Catholics and Orthodox
call a domestic church, the civil rights within the domestic
partnership of the civil union. The latter conveys benefits like
access to the rest room key as legally argued by Bea with her
“husband” in the coffee shop. The domestic church sanctifies
sex within its dynamic, to wit (1Cor. 7:2) “to avoid fornication, let
every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband.” Bea and Ben bedded together the same day they met, which
wasn't against any civil statute but would violate Christian morals.
America's equality does not conflate the church with the state; we have
separation.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) the German church reformer introduced the concept of “companionate marriage” that was observable even in a Catholic church. It has caught on in cultures worldwide; that's how we generally regard it everywhere. It has allowed the political issue of redefining marriage to be couched in terms of it not mattering whom we love, although in the case of homos, the Bible calls their love “vile affections.”
Then we come to trend-setting America. According to cultural historian David Hackett Fischer, the Puritans had “a cultural idea of marriage that was unique to the Puritan colonies. … The Puritans of New England rejected all the Anglican ideas. They believed that marriage was not a religious but a civil contract” (77). In the New England states—& NY & DC—the civil contract was the whole kit and caboodle, so once laws against sodomy were abolished it was a simple matter of equal rights to open (civil) marriage to homosexuals. The rest of the states did not abide such a redefinition, but the courts stepped in to force acceptance of same-sex marriage. What is now called marriage for homos used to be domestic partnership, but that's all it is now anyway.
Bea's and Halle's parents announce from down under, Halle and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp)'s upcoming nuptials as an impending “holy matrimony.” The word matrimony comes from Latin roots mater meaning mother, and monium meaning state of; matrimony being the state in which it is permitted (in Catholicism, say) for a woman to enter motherhood. Since a lesbian couple cannot produce a baby themselves, strictly speaking the word cannot apply to them; its use here was a malapropism. Once the guests started arriving from Boston and its environs, the Puritan culture exerted its influence and we hear no more mention of “matrimony.”
The gathering together of the clan catching up on their foibles could provide an anthropologist rich grist for the mill. Consulting scientist Marvin Harris on What is Marriage? we read:
One of the problems with the proposition that the nuclear family is the basic building block of all domestic groups is that it rests on the assumption that widely different forms of matings can be called “marriage.” Yet in order to cover the extraordinary diversity of mating behavior characteristic of the human species, the definition of marriage has to be made so broad as to be confusing. —Since the term marriage is too useful to drop altogether, a more narrow definition seems appropriate: Marriage denotes the behavior, sentiments, and rules concerned with coresident heterosexual mating and reproduction in domestic contexts.
To avoid offending people by using marriage exclusively for coresident heterosexual domestic mates, a simple expedient is available. Let such other relationships be designated as “noncoresident marriages”, “man-man marriages”, “woman-woman marriages,” or by any other appropriate specific nomenclature. It is clear that these matings have different ecological, demographic, economic, and ideological implications, so nothing is to be gained by arguing about whether they are “real” marriages. (317–18)
In ABY the parents Leo (Dermot Mulroney) and Innie (Rachel Griffiths) are a “coresident heterosexual domestic mating.” Their dynamic included producing a fine, well-balanced daughter for which they were complimented.
Ben and Bea from the bistro were a “noncoresident heterosexual opportunistic mating.” It was wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. It's reminiscent of an art gallery in a Paul Auster novel:
After a period of deep reflection, he decided to call his gallery Dunkel Frères. Harry had no brothers, but he felt the name leant a certain Old World quality to the enterprise, hinting at a long family tradition in the business of buying and selling art. As he saw it, the marriage between the German proper noun and the French modifier would create an arresting, altogether agreeable confusion in the minds of his customers. (40)
The word marriage can embrace the “blending of languages” (ibid.) In the coffee shop it would cover the blending of ingredients. It's a flexible word that need not reference religion.
Ben and Bea discussed their togetherness ruse, that they were not “together together”; they were “situationally together.” It was Halle and Claudia who were together together in their Lesbo love. Ben and Bea were following the ancient dynamic of arranged marriages: a first meeting where they could initially accept one another, followed by a long togetherness in which they grew on each other and eventually found love. This was not the same dynamic as love marriages, hetero or homo. It was, however, similar to a dynamic in Auster:
“But Honey, I'm not in love with you. I hardly even know you.”“You will.”
“Will what?”
“First, you'll get to know me. And then you'll start to love me.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes. Just like that.” She paused for a moment and smiled— (239)
By the middle of October … Tom and Honey were married (241)
Honey announced that she was pregnant. Tom put his arm around her, then leaned across the table and asked me if I would be the godfather. “You're our only choice,” he said, “for … prodding your wounded comrade to stand on his feet and enter into this conjugal union.” (282–3)
Halle and Claudia had a different dynamic as in Auster:
“No, you don't understand. I mean, I really love her. And she loves me back.”“Of course she does. Nancy is one of the most affectionate people I've ever known.”
“You still don't get it. What I'm trying to say is that we're in love. Nancy and I are lovers.” (291–2)
Ben and Bea's dynamic followed her
serenity song that kept popping up throughout the movie. The serenity
of the group had first place in their arrangement. For Halle and Claudia
it was individual love. What they lacked in convention, tradition,
religion, and kinship ties, they made up for in pageantry. The epitome
of their wedding was the huge wedding cake — that got whacked
by a small dog. The dog also bore the ring that denoted by Roman custom
a connection from finger to heart. The orchestra ensemble was three
fiddles and a base fiddle, homogeneous instruments. They did
get a sunny day for their outside ceremony, God making his sun
to shine on the evil and on the good. God bless 'em.
Production Values
“” (2023) was directed by Will Gluck. Writers Ilana Wolpert and Will Gluck incorporated themes from Shakespeare's classic, “Much Ado About Nothing.” It starred Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. The acting left me unimpressed. Shakespeare would be rolling over in his grave.
MPAA rated it R
for language throughout, sexual content and brief graphic nudity.
Profanities include ripper cunt (an Aussie slang compliment),
a couple bitch-words (applied to a deserving gent), two
g.d.'s, four sh!t's, and innumerable
f-words. The physical humor was cartoonish. The chess game was sped
up to accommodate a motion picture. The spider scene was
entertaining. One audience member remarked, “That was the
only funny part of the whole show.”
The script was in serious need of a rewrite. Where is Shakespeare when you need him? The music soundtrack was decent but some of the effects were out of sync. The scenery was gorgeous while it could have stood more exposure. The cinematography was polished. The wardrobes were creative. The editing was haphazard but there wasn't anything missing. There were too many writers for coherence. Runtime is 1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Christian references were avoided to spare the main event that's
in disfavor with the faithful. Instead, they seemed to be New Agers,
burning sage for cleansing. Unfortunately for them, same-sex marriage is
substandard in many other religions as well. When one of the brides
included in her love vows, “You're the Yin to my Yang,”
the many hetero couples or pairings in view spoke of a Yin–Yang
that the two lesbians couldn't touch.
This one didn't ring my bell. Maybe I'm just the wrong audience because it seemed a decent enough film if it matched the viewer's tastes.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: For select audiences. Suspense: Predictable. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
Auster, Paul. The Brooklyn Follies. Copyright © 2006 by Paul Auster. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2006. Print.
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1989. Print, Web.
Harris, Marvin. CULTURE, PEOPLE, NATURE: An Introduction to General Anthropology fifth edition. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org