Forget Paris is a 1995 romantic comedy film produced, directed, co-written by, and also starring Billy Crystal as a NBA referee and Debra Winger as an independent working woman whose lives are interrupted by love and marriage. The film received mixed reviews, mostly positive but some negative, and was rated 6.4/10 on IMDB and a balanced 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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| A Comedy about Love....After Marriage |
Plot :
At a restaurant in New York City, Andy prepares to introduce his friends to his fiancée, Liz. As the couple waits for the rest of the party to arrive, Andy begins telling Liz the strange story of how his friends Mickey and Ellen came to know each other and fall in love. As each of Andy's friends arrive, more of the story is unfolded to Liz. Mickey Gordon is a National Basketball Association (NBA) referee who honors his recently-deceased father's wishes by burying him at the resting site of his World War II Army platoon in France, of which he was the sole survivor. However, Mickey's plans are delayed for several days after the airline misplaces the casket. Ellen Andrews, an airline employee from Wichita working in Paris, assists Mickey in locating and retrieving the lost casket. She surprises Mickey by attending the burial in the French countryside so he won't be alone. Mickey rides back to Paris with Ellen, and the two get to know each other better along the way. Mickey spontaneously decides to delay his return trip to the United States to spend more time with Ellen. The two fall in love in the streets of Paris, but after a week together, Mickey is forced to return to the United States for the beginning of the NBA season. Constantly thinking about his time in Paris, Mickey's loneliness leads him to lose his temper during a nationally-televised game. As a result of the tirade, Mickey is suspended by the NBA for a week. During the suspension, he returns to Paris to see Ellen. Soon after he arrives, Mickey learns Ellen is married but separated, and is unsure if she and her husband will get back together. Brokenhearted, Mickey returns to America. While Mickey is in Charlotte to referee a game, Ellen arrives unexpectedly to meet him and reveals that she has gotten a divorce. Having quit her job in France, Ellen marries Mickey. After a honeymoon period spent on the road during the NBA season, the couple settles in the San Fernando Valley outside Mickey's hometown of Los Angeles. When the next basketball season begins, Ellen takes an entry-level customer service job with American Airlines, while Mickey travels with the NBA. Hating her new job and only seeing Mickey a few days each month, Ellen becomes lonely and depressed. She asks Mickey to quit his job; he compromises by taking a one-year leave of absence and briefly working as a car salesman. However, Ellen quickly gets promoted and climbs the corporate ladder, leaving Mickey at home to tend to her aging and irritating father, Arthur. Dealing with common marital issues, including the incongruity of their professional lives and the inability to conceive a child, the two begin to emotionally drift apart. Mickey, unhappy at home with Arthur, decides to return early to the NBA. He comes home from a road trip to find Ellen gone. Before he can read her note, she arrives and explains that she had simply returned to Kansas to deliver Arthur to her siblings so she and Mickey can finally be alone and attempt to repair their marriage. Shortly thereafter, Ellen approaches Mickey and says she has been offered a transfer to Dallas. Mickey refuses to move away from California, so Ellen takes the airline's other offer of a transfer to Paris. Now separated, the two are seemingly content in their original arrangements: Mickey traveling with the NBA, and Ellen working for an airline in Paris. However, it is obvious to all of their friends that they miss each other's company. At the restaurant, Andy's friends have caught Liz up to date on the entire story as they know it, with the latest development coming four months prior. A basketball fan enters the restaurant and informs the group of an odd occurrence during the traditional singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to that night's New York Knicks's game at Madison Square Garden. Mickey decides to go AWOL from his job and immediately return to Paris to find Ellen. Before he can make it across the basketball court, however, he spots Ellen in the arena. The two meet and reconcile at mid-court, and as the arena lights come on after the anthem, the entire crowd sees the two kissing. As the man finishes telling the story, Mickey and Ellen arrive at the restaurant together (surprising the rest of the party, who still believed them to be separated) and begin to re-tell Liz the entire story of their relationship.
Analysis & Reflection :
Everytime I watch a romantic movie, two thoughts enter my head; whether it would end well for them, and whether I am watching a 'chick flick', meaning a sappy romance film filled with cliches that 100% ends with a happy ending. However, "Forget Paris" was a different kind of romantic film; one that showed the hardships that people faced in relationships, and that love isn't always fun and flowers. In a film about romance, it is only natural that the movie be centred around the theme of love, and it is the very concept of love that is questionable in this movie. Love is indeed an interesting phenomenon, and according to Sternberg's triangular theory of love, intimacy, passion, and commitment are crucial in determining a type of love in a relationship. Based on the theory, it would seem that Ellen and Mickey's marriage is based on the concept of consummate love. Although, Mickey and Ellen struggle a lot with intimacy and commitment in their relationship, for example, the travelling arrangements for the couple. At first, Mickey is the one who travels a lot, leaving Ellen at home, miserable and lonely. After Mickey compromises and gets a new job, he in turn starts to feel miserable while Ellen is at work, and Mickey has to stay home with his very old father-in-law. The fact that they are always apart, busy with their own lives, and as pointed out by Mickey in the movie, they have not had sex for a very long time, which indicates a lack of intimacy in the relationship. This means that although they feel love for each other, and the intimacy is high between them, they are unable to act on it, which gradually reduces the level of intimacy between them (an example of "want but not able to do").
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| Toyotaaa...you asked for ittt, you gott itt |
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| One of those bird-stuck-to-your-head kinda days |
As for their commitment levels, it is not to say that Mickey and Ellen are not committed to the marriage; they are, but in doing so, they have had to let go of their dreams, something which had came back to haunt them and they eventually succumbed to choosing their dreams over the marriage. This means that Mickey and Ellen both were mentally committed to the relationship and marriage, but due to their pursuit for their dreams, the physical commitment to the relationship was very little, in terms of intimacy and their priorities in life (in which career took precedence over marriage). Examples include Mickey getting his job back and Ellen choosing to go back to Paris after Mickey refuses to go to Dallas with her. Personally, I felt that their decisions were right. Love hurts, but if one's dreams are more important than the love of your life, then those dreams should be pursued, as the consequences may be unhealthy for the relationship or marriage, for example, blaming one's soulmate as the cause of unfulfilled dreams, which could lead to an impending breakup or divorce in the future, which should by all means be prevented.
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| I love you....but I love my job too :/ |
The week in Paris, however, was completely different, and started as infatuation. They had a week full of sightseeing, dancing, laughing, and singing, in which they were constantly by each other's side, and Mickey and Ellen then were enveloped solely in passion, with no commitments and feelings of intimacy. However, the relationship then turned into romantic love when Mickey spent the night at Ellen's home, where it was implied that they had coitus. This became the basis for their marriage, and yes, naivety or a rash decision can lead to disasters, hence the reason why some couples take some time to know their significant other first before deciding on marriage, as marriage is no trivial matter.
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| You see that? He's right, ya know. |
Conclusion :
All relationships are a give and take, and it takes two parties to make a relationship work [like a balance (weighing scale)]. Marriage and love is not something simple, as it takes commitment, passion, the endless acceptance of each other's flaws, and honorable fidelity to achieve a satisfying and functional relationship. Love is also about going through not just the ups, but also the downs in life with one's loved ones, as seen in the film, depicted by Mickey and Ellen's one week 'honeymoon' period in Paris, only to be greeted by the harsh reality of marriage for the rest of their lives, in which is depicted the essence of the film that defines the reason for the film's name, "Forget Paris".
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| Their bodies form a heart shape :') |
Rating : 8.7/10
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| FINALLY DONE |
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