SPOILER ALERT:
If you have not seen the movie 50 First Dates & do not want to know what happens, you may want to skip this post!
Yesterday I watched the 2004 Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore movie, 50 First Dates, & wanted to share some of my thoughts. I am not a big Adam Sandler fan, but every once in a while, he seems to have a pretty good movie. I want to caution you that it is not a movie for children. It is rated PG-13 due to sexual humor & drug references. That being said, I did enjoy most of the movie (minus those references) & came away w/ a few thoughts I wanted to share.
First of all...what is it about? Adam Sandler plays Henry Roth, a womanizing veterinarian in Hawaii. He preys on women tourists, avoids commitment, & has big plans to sail his boat to Alaska for a year long sea life program. While out testing his boat one morning, it breaks down & he ends up on the other side of the island to wait for the coast guard. It is there in a small restaurant that he meets & is captivated by Lucy (played by Drew Barrymore). They hit it off from the beginning & plan to meet for breakfast the next morning. However, there is a catch...Lucy has an irreversible short-term memory problem due to a car accident the previous year.
She can't remember anything that's happened since the day before the accident. With the help of her father & brother, she does everything exactly the same as she'd done on that last day. She then forgets everything while sleeping & starts the next day over again. In her mind, every day is & always will be that day before the accident.
Henry finds this out the hard way when he arrives for their breakfast date & she has no idea who he is. Thankfully, the waitress is a good friend of Lucy's. She takes Henry outside to explain what happened. She asks him to leave Lucy alone, as does her father, but he can't do that. He's drawn to her & continues to show up.
Henry finally has Lucy's father's acceptance when he shows up at the house one morning w/ a video tape of everything she's missed in the last year. He includes information about the accident & a re-enactment of their meeting each other. From that point on, the first thing Lucy does each morning is watch the video & any new things added. She also keeps her own journal at night so that she's not just getting someone else's thought about her life, but seeing it in her own handwriting.
When she overhears Henry talking about giving up his trip to Alaska to stay w/ her, she decides to erase him from her life, including removing all the pages from her journal about him. He doesn't want her to do it, but because he loves her so much, he goes w/ her wishes & helps her put together a new "Read Me" book for her mornings. He then makes preparations to head for Alaska, & on the day of his departure, Lucy's father & brother show up to see him. Once Henry's on his way, he starts to realize that some of her father's comments hint at the possibility of her remembering him. He turns the boat around.
Once he finds her, he asks if she remembers him & she says no, but that she wants to show him something. She takes him to her studio which is full of paintings & drawings of him. She tells him that she dreams of him every night, so he must be someone important. Fast forwards a few years...they are sailing in Alaska. She wakes up & watches her video, puts on a coat & heads up to the deck. There is her now husband, Henry w/ their 3 or 4 yr. old daughter.
I think it was quite commendable that Henry gave up his womanizing ways right after meeting Lucy. Each morning was a new encounter for her & a challenge for him to get her to fall in love w/ him again. How much he must have loved her to be willing to face each day knowing the work cut out for him! Sure the videos & her journal helped, but much of what she experienced each day was new to her.
The scene at the end, when she sees her daughter, really struck me. When she woke up that morning & before she watched her video, she had no idea she had a family. Then, as her daughter ran to her, she swept her up in her arms & cried...tears of joy because of her beautiful child & tears of sadness for all she couldn't remember. How would I feel in that instant, knowing that I'd had a daughter yet couldn't remember a single moment of her life?
So what are the lessons I learned from this? First of all, we should treat each day as it is...a brand new one w/ the slate wiped clean. It's a time to put the bad things of the previous day behind us & see everything in a new light. Forget about the two year old's spilled milk episodes, the times you lost your temper w/ the children, etc. Use it as a time to start fresh & a renewed opportunity to grow closer in your walk towards Heaven.
Secondly, through your words & actions, use it as a day to get your spouse (or boyfriend/girlfriend) to fall in love w/ you all over again. Make a goal to do something extra special for them each day. Again, forget the bad things of the previous day & start fresh. Unlike Lucy, we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of previous days & choose to do better in the next day. This is no small feat, especially if you're not in the habit of doing these things, but again...each day is a new one, treat it as such.
If you've seen this movie, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it & my post.
If you have not seen the movie 50 First Dates & do not want to know what happens, you may want to skip this post!
Yesterday I watched the 2004 Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore movie, 50 First Dates, & wanted to share some of my thoughts. I am not a big Adam Sandler fan, but every once in a while, he seems to have a pretty good movie. I want to caution you that it is not a movie for children. It is rated PG-13 due to sexual humor & drug references. That being said, I did enjoy most of the movie (minus those references) & came away w/ a few thoughts I wanted to share.
First of all...what is it about? Adam Sandler plays Henry Roth, a womanizing veterinarian in Hawaii. He preys on women tourists, avoids commitment, & has big plans to sail his boat to Alaska for a year long sea life program. While out testing his boat one morning, it breaks down & he ends up on the other side of the island to wait for the coast guard. It is there in a small restaurant that he meets & is captivated by Lucy (played by Drew Barrymore). They hit it off from the beginning & plan to meet for breakfast the next morning. However, there is a catch...Lucy has an irreversible short-term memory problem due to a car accident the previous year.
She can't remember anything that's happened since the day before the accident. With the help of her father & brother, she does everything exactly the same as she'd done on that last day. She then forgets everything while sleeping & starts the next day over again. In her mind, every day is & always will be that day before the accident.
Henry finds this out the hard way when he arrives for their breakfast date & she has no idea who he is. Thankfully, the waitress is a good friend of Lucy's. She takes Henry outside to explain what happened. She asks him to leave Lucy alone, as does her father, but he can't do that. He's drawn to her & continues to show up.
Henry finally has Lucy's father's acceptance when he shows up at the house one morning w/ a video tape of everything she's missed in the last year. He includes information about the accident & a re-enactment of their meeting each other. From that point on, the first thing Lucy does each morning is watch the video & any new things added. She also keeps her own journal at night so that she's not just getting someone else's thought about her life, but seeing it in her own handwriting.
When she overhears Henry talking about giving up his trip to Alaska to stay w/ her, she decides to erase him from her life, including removing all the pages from her journal about him. He doesn't want her to do it, but because he loves her so much, he goes w/ her wishes & helps her put together a new "Read Me" book for her mornings. He then makes preparations to head for Alaska, & on the day of his departure, Lucy's father & brother show up to see him. Once Henry's on his way, he starts to realize that some of her father's comments hint at the possibility of her remembering him. He turns the boat around.
Once he finds her, he asks if she remembers him & she says no, but that she wants to show him something. She takes him to her studio which is full of paintings & drawings of him. She tells him that she dreams of him every night, so he must be someone important. Fast forwards a few years...they are sailing in Alaska. She wakes up & watches her video, puts on a coat & heads up to the deck. There is her now husband, Henry w/ their 3 or 4 yr. old daughter.
I think it was quite commendable that Henry gave up his womanizing ways right after meeting Lucy. Each morning was a new encounter for her & a challenge for him to get her to fall in love w/ him again. How much he must have loved her to be willing to face each day knowing the work cut out for him! Sure the videos & her journal helped, but much of what she experienced each day was new to her.
The scene at the end, when she sees her daughter, really struck me. When she woke up that morning & before she watched her video, she had no idea she had a family. Then, as her daughter ran to her, she swept her up in her arms & cried...tears of joy because of her beautiful child & tears of sadness for all she couldn't remember. How would I feel in that instant, knowing that I'd had a daughter yet couldn't remember a single moment of her life?
So what are the lessons I learned from this? First of all, we should treat each day as it is...a brand new one w/ the slate wiped clean. It's a time to put the bad things of the previous day behind us & see everything in a new light. Forget about the two year old's spilled milk episodes, the times you lost your temper w/ the children, etc. Use it as a time to start fresh & a renewed opportunity to grow closer in your walk towards Heaven.
Secondly, through your words & actions, use it as a day to get your spouse (or boyfriend/girlfriend) to fall in love w/ you all over again. Make a goal to do something extra special for them each day. Again, forget the bad things of the previous day & start fresh. Unlike Lucy, we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of previous days & choose to do better in the next day. This is no small feat, especially if you're not in the habit of doing these things, but again...each day is a new one, treat it as such.
If you've seen this movie, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it & my post.
1 comments:
I meant to leave a comment before that this was a great review!! :D
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