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Paul_Asay

Movie Monday: When in Rome

Posted by Paul_Asay on Feb 1, 2010 10:23:18 AM
Someday, I will write this Monday blog and announce that Avatar has fallen to No. 2.when in rome.JPG

 

But today is not that day.

 

Avatar continued to hold a convincing lead on the weekend's box office charts, pulling down another $30 million to continue its march to becoming North America's top-grossing film of all time. Mel Gibson's R-rated Edge of Darkness crawled into the No. 2 slot with $17.1 million, according to Box Office Mojo, while another newcomer, When in Rome, debuted in third place with about $12.1 million.

 

Frankly, I'm surprised When in Rome did that well. It launched without a bevy of brand-name stars or a massive publicity push, so the fact it performed as well as it did may suggest movie-goers are hankering for a little bit of PG-13 romance. When you look at the releases lately, and the theaters have been awash in action and adventure and gore. When in Rome seems like a smart bit of counter-programming.

 

And indeed, When in Rome felt, in some respects, like a good soap: pretty sweet, refreshingly clean and completely unremarkable.

 

But it also left me in a bit of a lather.

 

See, the film, along with its normalish romcom attributes, served up a rather flighty attitude toward marriage. It suggests that the institution is inherently a gamble—a box of chocolates, in Forrest Gump lingo. "The passion is in the risk," one of the characters says. And that sorta rubbed me the wrong way.

 

I wrote in my review (and you can read the whole thing here) that:

 

Marriage is about so much more than passion, more than risk—more than a lottery ticket where the winners get fairy-tale endings and losers find divorce attorneys. Marriage is about commitment—commitment that holds firm through the fickle vagaries of human emotion. Yes, there's risk involved in it, but marriage should never be analogous to rolling the dice in a game of chance. Rather, it's like building a house: You check the foundation, you build the angles square, you make sure the place will last a lifetime.

 

It made me feel a little bad to hammer the movie on this point, since it obviously tried to be a bit cleaner than your typical romcom. Now I want to hear your take. Do you think I was too hard on the film?

1,874 Views Tags: movie, box_office, avatar, when_in_rome, edge_of_darkness, romcom


Comments (4)
Feb 1, 2010 9:31 PM LionesSong LionesSong    says:
I haven't seen this movie yet, but I don't think you were too harsh about this film.  You fairly showed both sides of the movie.  I think that it's sad when a movie undermine's a institution such as marriage.  This may or may not stop me from seeing the movie, but now I could watch it aware of that undermining while I watch it, and make my own decision about whether or not the movie was worth it.
Feb 2, 2010 11:38 AM Family5 Family5    says:
I think it is good to point out moral flaws even in a relatively cleaner movie, because it hightens our decernment and awareness when watching the film and reminds us - holywood is not real life, however clean or wonderful it may seem.
Feb 3, 2010 9:41 AM Mykus Mykus    says:

I actually found myself cheering a quiet "nice!" to myself when I read your critique of the movie's stance on marriage. As having been a recent 'victim' of sorts of this kind of ideology towards marriage, it was incredibly refreshing to see that you were able to see through this popular view (assumedly, without the extreme sensitivity of an 'open wound' that I currently have).

 

Although it is important to know the content in movies in regards to violence, sexuality, and language, I would even go as far as saying that it is just as important to critique some of the ideas that each film (whether in specific purpose or inadvertently) puts forward. To think critically about what kind of worldview that you're being taught when engaging in any kind of media (movie, music, book, etc) is so incredibly important, because even the good things of the world can be twisted and subtly distorted, often leading us in the opposite direction that God wants us to go (usually into a self-centered orientation instead of a God-centered one).
Feb 3, 2010 11:36 AM CindyGrace CindyGrace    says:
I really enjoyed the movie and I'm glad I went.  But I think it's important to think and talk about the content.  My goodness if we are supposed to compare the sermons we hear in church to the word of God we certainly should the movies we see too.  And then make a decision about what to do.  In this case, it's the "bad example" character who makes the risk comment.  And I thought it was pretty clear that you wouldn't want to take his advice.  But my teen probably wouldn't see that if we didn't talk about it afterwards.

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