Six or seven years ago, my mother went to Great Britain for a several-week-long study program. For some reason, she had to fly into Philadelphia on 4th of July weekend (which, aside from the night of a late-season Eagles home game, might be the worst possible time to visit Philadelphia). There were flight delays, total rental car blackout, emergency bookings on Expedia/Hotwire etc., and an extremely long cab ride to Pennsylvania's only vacant motel. But here's the thing: my mother slept in a bed that night, and she still made it to London the next day.
HBO seems to be cycling through movies I haven't seen in 10 years. They played the 1999 romantic comedy "Forces of Nature" one day last week, and right now it's on again. As my mother's travel horror story reminded me, it's a bad movie... and I love it. Let's explore.
Basics:
Ben Affleck, still in his post-"Good Will Hunting" career-building phase, is - wait for it - Ben, an uptight "jacket copy-writer" living in New York. He's going to be married in a few days time to Maura Tierney, who's way too awesome for him, but he appreciates that so I approve. But right before Ben and Maura are supposed to head to Savannah, where the wedding's taking place, his grandfather has an unfortunate bachelor party-related heart attack, and Ben has to wait and travel later. He's seated on the plane next to Sandra Bullock, who was officially a top-billing star at this point, and whose character is confusingly named Sarah. Sarah wears black eye-liner and says inappropriate things, so -
DING DING DING! *BLAAAAAAARP BAP BAP BAP BAAAAAAAP*
Oops! Did you hear that alarm? Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a Manic Pixie Dream Girl!
- anyway, a bird gets sucked into the plane engine on takeoff, shutting down the airport and freaking out uptight Ben/Ben considerably. Sarah/Sandra also needs to get to Savannah ASAP, so before we know it, our *hilariously* mismatched couple become travel buddies on an increasingly convoluted journey down the eastern seaboard, complete with drug smugglers, stalled trains, all-night Kmarts and cute elderly people. Ben/Ben, already anxious about the wedding and marriage, starts to fall for Sarah/Sandra... but is it love, or is it Stockholm syndrome? Looks like we'll need a wedding-day confrontation to figure it all out.
Why it's bad:
"Forces of Nature" is stylish, it's fun and, thanks to its cast (especially Affleck and Bullock), it's really fun to watch. But if you start to think about it too hard, it just makes no damn sense. "It Happened One Night," this movie's more accomplished grandfather, can get away with the crazy travel plot because it takes place in the 1930s when people didn't have things like cell phones, or even pay phones. Nothing in "Forces of Nature" happens if Ben/Ben and Sarah/Sandra don't get in that first car together.
I get it - Ben's plane has just crashed, the airport's shut down, there are roughly 700 people in line at the rental car counter. Here's the thing, though... YOU'RE IN NEW YORK. You know what's outside the airport gate? Several dozen taxi cabs. Ok, given the emergency situation one might have to walk a bit to find a cab, and that would be unpleasant. But even if it took half a day to get to wherever else in the biggest city in America one rents a car, that HAS to be preferable to spending two days hitchhiking with a certified MPDG, right?
To be fair, Sarah/Sandra is a cut above most of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope because she does have an inner life of her own. If there were no Ben/Ben, Sarah/Sandra would still be making her way to Savannah. But that doesn't change the fact that her purpose in the story is to make a male character evaluate his life choices by lecturing him about how he needs to LIVE! before he dies!
And every time I watch this movie I drive myself crazy trying to figure out their route. It's pretty ambiguous up until they hit South of the Border, a sequence that takes up a relatively huge amount of movie time. Which irritates me because at that point Ben/Ben is maybe three hours from Savannah, and surely someone in the wedding party could drive up there and get him. Story-wise, this is the point where Ben/Ben starts to question whether he wants to marry Maura or stick with Sarah/Sandra, so it makes sense that, the closer he gets to his wedding, the less he wants to make it there.
But, you know what? Don't think about it too much. Just enjoy.
Why I love it:
Like another bad movie I love, "The Skulls," I saw "Forces of Nature" with my best friend from college. We'd been seeing the trailer at every movie we'd seen for what seemed like months, and I still think it's a model of slick economy. Formula, schmormula - you know exactly what you're getting when you buy that ticket.
And, it's a gorgeous movie to look at. There are so many frames that you could take off your TV screen and hang on the wall, they're that pretty. It's a well put-together movie. And, this bears repeating - "Forces of Nature" works to a large extent because of its cast. Affleck and Bullock are super-charming, but even the supporting and minor characters are wonderful.
But I think the main reason I loved "Forces of Nature" the first time I saw it was that I identified with Ben, not Sarah, as every woman my age at the time seemed to do. Maybe there's something romantic about being a penniless, black eyeliner-wearing drifter who lies to people just a liiiiiitle too easily... but at the end of the movie, she's the one who changes, not him. This is one Hollywood romantic comedy that doesn't really buy into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who will change your life (tm).
Gotta go, they're about to kiss.
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