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An Affair to Remember, 1957
Terry (Deborah Kerr) is aboard an ocean liner headed for New York when she meets playboy womanizer Nickie (Cary Grant). While both are already attached to significant others, they cannot deny the sparks that fly between them. Despite some attempts to give each other space, the two end up unable to accept walking away from each other, and agree that if they have ended their current relationships and made a success of themselves, they will reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months time. But neither foresees the complications that will threaten their blossoming romance.
This romance soars when its main couple shares the screen, and flops when they are apart.
This is a film that I went into with decently high expectations. It’s probably one of the most famous romances, to the point that other famous romance films have been inspired by it, at times explicitly. And so perhaps I had the bar set too high, but I was pretty underwhelmed.
On the technical front, this film is very well made. The staging of the final scene of the film is very strong, and the camera knows just how to show--or not show---its charismatic cast. The best sequence in the film is a side-quest whereby Terry and Nickie end up paying a visit to Nickie’s grandmother, Janou (a fantastic Cathleen Nesbitt). At this point in the film, Terry has acknowledged her physical attraction to Nickie and his rich-boy easiness, but is still unsure of his character. Through watching his interactions with his grandmother, and then speaking to Janou alone, Terry sees him in a kinder light.
Kerr and Cary make for a fantastic lead, and particularly on Kerr’s side, in terms of showing how someone can fall in love at the worst time. The film lets us see the different stages of their relationship, evolving from something purely physical to something deeper. While the two do a fair amount of bantering, they also have conversations, and they listen to one another. We get to see two people making a connection with each other. Having had a few friends experiencing a sudden (and frankly disorienting) attraction to someone who isn’t their romantic partner, I appreciated that the film gives Kerr time to sort out just what this all means for her.
And as an aside to that thought, I also appreciated the portrayal of Terry’s boyfriend, Ken (Richard Denning). While he senses the distance from Terry on her arrival in New York, he’s overall very even-handed when he learns he’s being pushed to the side. When Terry falls on hard times in the second half of the film, he becomes a supportive friend to her, giving her good advice (THAT SHE DOES NOT FOLLOW!) and genuinely looking out for her best interests.
Unfortunately, once that boat pulls into New York, things get pretty stale. When the strength of your movie is the chemistry of your two leads, separating them from each other for like 30 minutes is just a poor choice. The low point of the movie is the looooooong portion of the movie where we see Terry teaching music to a group of children, an excuse to wedge underwhelming music into the film. Hey, remember when this movie was fun banter on a boat and not a children’s review show with a father proudly proclaiming that now that his son knows how to sing he won’t grow up to be “a mug”?
For me, the magic of the movie just drained out in that last half. Is the final sequence really well executed? Yes. Was it enough to save the film? Nope. And for me that was doubly true because the thing that has been keeping them apart feels incredibly contrived, so that the desired catharsis of that last moment falls a bit short.
An Affair to Remember, 1957
Terry (Deborah Kerr) is aboard an ocean liner headed for New York when she meets playboy womanizer Nickie (Cary Grant). While both are already attached to significant others, they cannot deny the sparks that fly between them. Despite some attempts to give each other space, the two end up unable to accept walking away from each other, and agree that if they have ended their current relationships and made a success of themselves, they will reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months time. But neither foresees the complications that will threaten their blossoming romance.
This romance soars when its main couple shares the screen, and flops when they are apart.
This is a film that I went into with decently high expectations. It’s probably one of the most famous romances, to the point that other famous romance films have been inspired by it, at times explicitly. And so perhaps I had the bar set too high, but I was pretty underwhelmed.
On the technical front, this film is very well made. The staging of the final scene of the film is very strong, and the camera knows just how to show--or not show---its charismatic cast. The best sequence in the film is a side-quest whereby Terry and Nickie end up paying a visit to Nickie’s grandmother, Janou (a fantastic Cathleen Nesbitt). At this point in the film, Terry has acknowledged her physical attraction to Nickie and his rich-boy easiness, but is still unsure of his character. Through watching his interactions with his grandmother, and then speaking to Janou alone, Terry sees him in a kinder light.
Kerr and Cary make for a fantastic lead, and particularly on Kerr’s side, in terms of showing how someone can fall in love at the worst time. The film lets us see the different stages of their relationship, evolving from something purely physical to something deeper. While the two do a fair amount of bantering, they also have conversations, and they listen to one another. We get to see two people making a connection with each other. Having had a few friends experiencing a sudden (and frankly disorienting) attraction to someone who isn’t their romantic partner, I appreciated that the film gives Kerr time to sort out just what this all means for her.
And as an aside to that thought, I also appreciated the portrayal of Terry’s boyfriend, Ken (Richard Denning). While he senses the distance from Terry on her arrival in New York, he’s overall very even-handed when he learns he’s being pushed to the side. When Terry falls on hard times in the second half of the film, he becomes a supportive friend to her, giving her good advice (THAT SHE DOES NOT FOLLOW!) and genuinely looking out for her best interests.
Unfortunately, once that boat pulls into New York, things get pretty stale. When the strength of your movie is the chemistry of your two leads, separating them from each other for like 30 minutes is just a poor choice. The low point of the movie is the looooooong portion of the movie where we see Terry teaching music to a group of children, an excuse to wedge underwhelming music into the film. Hey, remember when this movie was fun banter on a boat and not a children’s review show with a father proudly proclaiming that now that his son knows how to sing he won’t grow up to be “a mug”?
For me, the magic of the movie just drained out in that last half. Is the final sequence really well executed? Yes. Was it enough to save the film? Nope. And for me that was doubly true because the thing that has been keeping them apart feels incredibly contrived, so that the desired catharsis of that last moment falls a bit short.