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Last night I caught a Sandra Bullock movie from way back - if you know it you’ll recall that she saves a man from being run over by a train (he’s been knocked unconscious and later is in a coma) tells the hospital staff she’s his fiancee in order to check on him, and then has to deal with the family who think she really is his fiancee.  Which would be easy if it weren’t for the good-looking brother….

I was fascinated at how the Hollywood writers managed to keep the right admissions from being made that would have set the situation straight but killed the plot.  It was done with great skill and at times I could almost forgive the thin story line and the contrived events.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Yet …. I can’t help applying the six stages and shaking my head.  Sandra Bullock, in this movie, actually is an Orphan, and a lonely one at that (if you believe that anyone as beautiful as she would be lonely for more than seven seconds then you’ll love this plot). Moreover she falls in love with the family of the comatose man, who have no trouble in just adopting her (Orphan wish fulfillment at its best).  In fact she’s so desperate to be adopted that she almost marries the wrong guy.  Surely, she does tell the truth to everyone, and that takes courage, yet one can’t help feeling that her confessional speech and her quick scampering off to her apartment afterwards represent something that is less than full Warrior-Lover achievement.

Attractive as the movie is it’s really about Orphans who fall in love because they need each other.  The truly interesting story might have been to see how these two grow in stature after they’re married, but that wasn’t available for us.

Most of the world is populated with Orphans, and so this was a perfect recipe for a feel good movie.  But it wasn’t art.

And I think we do have a right to make that sort of judgment call.  Folk legends and fairy tales function in ways the movies mimic, and many of them truly are deeply revealing about the psyche.  For example, in Cinderella every gesture of hers has significance, signalling to the audience that she’s a certain sort of person. She goes to the prince’s ball three times (because courage is never a once-off action) and each time she leaves at midnight, the point of change from one day to the next, because she is herself at a point of change. The significance is pretty clear.  In this movie we have repeated references to people slipping and falling, so when the couple ‘fall’ for each other it’s when they slip on some ice - which allows for some close clinging that makes for good amusing viewing.  Yet the symbolism, to me, suggests only that we have here two people who cannot yet stand on their own feet and so need each other as props.  A beautiful evocation of Orphan love.

There’s nothing wrong with Orphan love.  I just feel that our culture would be better served if we were to see there’s more than that available.