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The Story of Us
The Story of Us, a tale about divorce, is one of the most pro-marriage movies I've ever seen.
Initially, it seemed like the exact opposite. Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer play a couple who use their kids' absence at summer camp to begin a trial separation. It features a mish-mash of flashbacks, tense moments and disjointed glimpses of a fifteen year marriage that has disintegrated into a miserable breakup. The fight scenes show the stark misery of senseless marital fight and the quiet desperation that can come over a couple when they realize they can't patch up things, and don't even want to anymore. I almost turned it off several times because the last thing I wanted to see was a couple screaming at each other for no reason and planning their ultimate divorce.
But I'm glad I watched the whole thing. It was the kind of movie that rewards you for sticking with it, and teaches you something if you're willing to learn. Kind of like marriage itself.
What changed my mind about this movie was how valiantly it struggled to represent the value of marriage for what it can and should be, and for guiding its characters towards the realization that since they still love each other, their marriage need not be perfect for it to be worth holding onto. It is unique among movies in that it depicts main characters who are value-driven, kind-hearted, and aware of what a valuable, precious thing a good marriage to your best friend can be.
Despite being the ones going through the separation, the main characters Ben and Katie are the only ones who actually believe this, who respect each other, and believe in fidelty, even when troubles come. The other characters that orbit around them, the best friends and professional colleagues, are the ones who echo all the anti-value sentiments and attitudes we've ever heard about marriage. His friends don't believe in love, think infidelity is nothing or else stay faithful to their wives only because they can't be bothered not to. Her friends are no longer attracted to their husbands, and say things like "How can you french kiss a guy who refuses to change the toilet roll but leaves it sitting on top of the plastic container?"
Between them they typify every hesitation, every myth, every cultural expectation of the misery of marriage. Even the caring and sensitive dentist friend of Katie's, who seems to be as gosh-darn-aw-shucks supportive as you can get, doesn't waste a nanosecond once he learns she has separated from her husband. The words are barely out of her mouth when he tells her how much he always liked her and asks her out to dinner.
Ben and Katie can only stare at these people, dumbfounded, and try to determine if they've been wrong all these years, for believing in love, for being happy in marriage and with their children. Their struggle with this question is the essence of the story. They could have easily decided to go the way of so many other movie couples, who drift apart and end their union with animosity and distrust, but the triumph of this movie is that they decide they aren't wrong, even when the possibility of getting back together looks grim, even in spite of the jaded attitudes of their friends. If marriage had superheroes, it would be these two.
It is schmaltzy, in parts. But perhaps it has to be, to show the course of a fifteen year marriage in an hour and a half. But it also shows, in very real ways, how a marriage can be threatened not by the obvious, sudden causes like adultery or betrayal, but by the buildup of years of resentment, and that getting to the root of the problem and fixing it is possible. It is uniquely valuable in how well the characters challenge the presumptions of their friends, and our culture at large, and choose to enjoy being married.
It is a movie anyone interested in marriage ought to watch, not because it sees the world through rose coloured glasses but because it acknowledges that sometimes we don't see rose so much as black. If it helps us clear up the fogged up lenses a little, it has done its job.
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