Valentine's Day

Seen at: Carmike 10, about 3 weeks ago

Last month my sister emailed me about this movie. She'd gone to see it with some friends on a girl's night out. They liked it; she hated it, and couldn't understand why anyone would like it. What did I think of it?

I wasn't particularly offended by this movie. It was pretty much exactly what I expected, with a few twists. The movies I truly dislike, especially among Postmodern romantic comedies, are the ones that take me to a new level of disgust, which this one thankfully didn't.

The story is based on a gag premise: imagine contemporary Los Angeles, and its dating workplace scenes and married couples with issues, etc., but set in an alternative universe.

The alternative universe is one in which Postmodern Weak Men (PWM) still exist (because who could conceive of it being otherwise, right?) but in which attractive single women actually crave the saccharine displays of "i wuv you" affection with which PWM attempt to find mates.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on the male characters in this movie, but maybe you get my point. This movie uses Valentine's Day as the pretense for juggling the emotional rules of the courtship game to actual give guys a fighting chance to impress women.

If you can stomach seeing a half dozen mini stories like this for two hours, then you can make it through this movie. I think the only reason it held my attention was because it didn't try to inflate any one of these mini stories into a full-fledged plot.

The funniest twist of the movie for me was the unexpected reinforcement of the new Hollywood rules for categorizing Postmodern men into three basic types: (1) charming but weak and clueless; (2) strong vibrant complete assholes; and (3) gay.

Actually there is a fourth type, played here by George Lopez, namely the long-suffering family man who has achieved a zen-like detachment from it all, who no longer expects intimacy with his wife or any concessions to his manhood, but knows his place in the universe. He's the PWM who has achieved enlightened wisdom. Thus Lopez's character is essentially the axle around which the rest of the movie revolves.

As far as category 3, this is somethings I've noticed strongly over the last few years. According to Hollywood, the most emotionally mature and balanced men are not interested in women at all. On the surface that statement is extremely classical. But in the classical era, it meant that the hero was not really interested in any woman who did not deeply strike him as exceptional, and who was not really his true love.

In the Postmodern era, it means something different obviously. Nowadays we simply do not understand how men could be this way, that a man could turn down sex when offered to him by a woman (something every classical hero was expected to do). According to current reasoning, He must be gay.

Thus the two real male "catches" of this movie both turn out to be gay, and moreover in love with each other. We don't realize this until the end of the movie, when their two respective miniplots merge with a homosexual kiss when they finally meet. It was the iconic moment of the movie to me.

So what's not to like here, sis? It's a nice little Whitman's Sampler box of everything that Hollywood wants us to know about relationships right now. Since we live in such a vibrant, emotionally healthy society, this is only a good thing, right?

Well actually I feel a bit nauseated afterwards. Probably took too many chocolates from that Sampler box.