Current Project: New Romantic Suspense
Status: Outline and 3 Chaps
Status: Outline and 3 Chaps
My girls have been fascinated with President Obama's daughters. I understand completely. They are similar ages with no brothers. I've overheard conversations about what it'd be like to live in the White House and what it'd be like if daddy were president. So when I was at the video store on Saturday and spotted First Daughter (2004) with Katie Holmes, I grabbed it, delighted to find a movie they hadn't seen and that would surely hold their interest. I did a quick peek at the back of the box, saw the PG logo, and added it to the requested Legally Blonde 2 (ack) and The Last Unicorn.
Samantha McKenzie is about to enter college as her father campaigns for his second term. She's lived with secret service protection since she was fourteen and longs to be a normal, anonymous kid in college. The long procession of black Suburbans and the bullet proof limo doesn't make for an anonymous arrival at her school. She's mortified to find the college band playing Hail to the Chief as she and her parents step out of the car.
Predictable problems occur. A sassy roommate who pressures Samantha to lighten up. Confrontations with anti-President McKenzie protesters. Paparazzi. Embarrassing photos. After her four member secret service detail tackles a boy with a squirt gun at a frat pool party and whisks her away in the blink of an eye, Samantha demands a smaller, more discreet detail. To her delight the detail is reduced to two burly, bald men.
The love interest is her resident advisor, James. Marc Blucas (Riley Finn) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's a good-looking, hunky student who purposefully draws attention away from Samantha during an awkward classroom lecture where every eye was on her and her detail sitting in a circle around her. Over a few convenient encounters and a scene where James helps her escape from paparazzi and enjoy moments of being "normal," Samantha falls for the guy. I do, too. It's PG, so the kiss is sweet and tender.
Then there is a nice twist I stupidly didn't see coming. In a tight situation James shoves her into a black limo and speaks into the mic at his wrist. He's secret service! This twist also surprised my husband who hollered "What!?" at the scene.
She's crushed. James nearly loses his job for getting too close. They try to stay apart but come together for one last White House Christmas ball and simple kiss. It's a beautifully shot film. Lots of gorgeous ball gowns, long close-ups of Katie who is terrific at showing emotion, and it simply creates a sweet romance that any girl would love.
Then it falls apart in the last two minutes. She returns to college and he stays at the White House. An agent comments that she'll be home for spring break and the movie ends. My husband and kids stared at the credits, confused.
"They broke the main rule of every storybook romance. There's no HEA." I stated, supremely annoyed.
"What's that?" Hub asks.
"Happily Ever After."
I think the writers were trying to avoid a predictable Hollywood ending, but that's what I wanted! Even my husband and kids did. Sometimes it's right to break the rules, but this wasn't the place. Literary fiction often avoids the HEA, but this movie wasn't literary, it was 100% Cinderella. And Cinderella deserved to ride away with the prince.
What movies or books have held you enthralled and then left you empty and disappointed at the end?
14 comments:
Oh, man! I hate that when it happens. But I'm not a big movie watcher, but it seems like the first Princess Diaries is kind of like the one you just described.I can't remember for sure.
I'm sure others will have a lot more movies with 'wrong' endings.
Fun post, Kendra.
I'll say it before Becky does...Somersby, Somersby, Somersby!!!
Post Civil War romance with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. Jodie Froster's controlling husband comes back from the war a changed man. She's not the only one that notices it, but this new man is so much better than all the rest that slowly he's accepted into the community, even though he looks just like his old self but is different. He comes up with a plan to save the community by planting tobacco and life post war for this confederate town (flattened by the way) slowly starts to rebuild. He also gains Jodie Foster's love...and the romance is actually very sweet and endearing. I loved the entire movie...until the end. When it's discovered he is NOT her husband but a con man who was in a prison with her husband, who looked just like him and took advantage of that fact after the war, coming to her home and town to take his place and pick up his life. All of that was actually a good twist, but what ticked me off was in the end, when everyone found out and he was sentenced to hang for a murder he did not commit (but which Jodie Foster's REAL husband did), he didn't admit he wasn't who he said he was. Everyone knew it. He knew it, she knew it, the whole town knew it. But instead he took the punishment and was hanged. I remember sitting in that movie theatre saying, "WHAT?!"
There are a lot more. Message in a Bottle? Oh, don't get me started.
Kendra...that movie you mentioned would bug me. Esp. since it was very clearly a Cinderella story. There are definite times where the HEA is expected and NEEDED. And that's not cliche to me, it simply makes it a good story.
Message in a Bottle ended HORRIBLY! Plus it was a boring movie.
The one that sticks in my head (and in my craw) is City of Angels with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. Aaargh! So sad.
You know, Romeo and Juliet is a classic love story, but the ending sucks.
Same with Love Story.
There are lots. Don't like sad endings!
Thoughtful blog, Kendra!
I'm okay with a sad ending so long as it makes sense for the movie (or book). For example, the ending of Titanic didn't bug me at all. Yeah, it was sad, but Jack's character arc was really good. That he sacrificed himself in the end to save Rose's life? I totally bought into that. And the way Jack changed Rose's life? Her life would never have been the same had she not loved and lost him. (And I guess you could argue that still did have an HEA sorta when she eventually died and they were back together on the Titanic.)
Books or movies with unhappy endings that DON'T make sense or seem only added for shock (or non cliche) endings are what bug me. That's what the end of Somersby was. That's what the end of Message in a Bottle was. There was NO reason either of those guys had to die in the end of those movies.
Fun blog and I have a candidate for this but damn if I can remember the name -- Oh, wow, I think I just did -- The Prince and Me? Is that it?
I was researching for my royalty book and was watching everything with a castle in it and so I rented this movie and totally loved it -- until -- the end. He's a Prince of a gorgeous castle in school in the USA. She's a girl with the ambition of being a doctor or a lawyer or an Indian Chief (fuzzy on the details, it's been awhile.) She's Kristen Dunst and I don't know who he was. Anyway, they fall in love with predictable but charming events until he leaves for the home country and she stays behind and then realizes she can't live without him so flies to his country, is plucked from a parade crowd (I think...) and introduced to Mummy and Daddy where it's full speed ahead until she decides this isn't the life for her, damn it, she has goals of her own and they don't include prancing around being royalty. Huh? (Note: what little or not so little girl doesn't fantasize about the "chore" of having a gown tailor made for her, and deciding which royal tiara she should wear?)
People, the goal of these movies is for the audience to heave a collective sigh at the end! Geez. Again with my miserable memory, but I believe they even shot two endings for this thing, knowing their key audience, romantic females like me, would be disappointed. That should have been a warning to them.
I love a HEA, too.
Yep, Eli is spot on. First thing that entered into my head. Nuff said. LOL
I refused to see Message in a Bottle because I knew it ended stupid. I now go on the to the interwebs to cheat before I see anything that I think may end poorly. Hey, I'm putting my money out there and it ain't cheap! I want my HEA! No exceptions.
Most Americans want a HEA because that's our culture, the way we have been raised and taught in school. We're very pampered, and I like it that way. :)
Fun post, Kendra. And thanks for the movie spoiler. Now I don't have to rent it and be disappointed.
Oh, and I can't think of a book I've read that didn't have a HEA; if I'm ever in doubt about the ending, I read the end of the book to see. I refuse to read a book that doesn't end well. It makes my mother crazy that I do this, but I don't care. I want to know, and it doesn't spoil it for me to know the end is happy; but it would TOTALLY spoil it to read the whole thing and it end bad. Life sucks enough without having to bring more unhappy crap into it. Duh! LOL
THANK YOU KENDRA!!! I saw that movie several months ago and loved it, then I threw the papers I was sorting at the TV. I was so angry at the ending!!!! I then went and rented the Mandy Moore first daughter movie which *does* have a HEA and all was well. But that made me so mad! It should have had a happy ending, it was a cute movie!
Kendra--your daughters would probably love Meg Cabot's All American Girl. I'm not sure on your girls' ages and your strictness level, so you might give it a quick once over, but it's a cute, fast read. I heart Meg Cabot.
I do not heart sad endings. I like being taunted with the POSSIBILITY of a sad ending, and then miraculously a happy ending is clawed free from the evil grip of Fate. Make me believe all the way up until the second to last page that it will be sad, but then I want my happy ending. Real life is full of compromises and sacrifice and sadness. I want HEA's for characters that I've invested so much time in. (And I hate, hate, hate, hate when television shows screw up HEA's as well).
Great topic -- and now I've got some more movies to put on my "don't bother" list. I know that there are movies and books that I've seen and read that have had this problem, but for the life of me I can't think of them right now. I guess I must have expunged them from my brain. LOL
Like others have said I can deal with a sad ending if it makes sense. But don't build up to an HEA (especially if it's in a genre the pretty much expects it) and then pull the rug out from under it at the last minute. Especially if you haven't laid the groundwork for such a switcheroo. Sometimes I wonder if the writer and/or director feel it's beneath them to give the audience what they want to see.
I haven't seen Somersby, but I remember the complaints. Reminds me of Cold Mountain. I waited and waited for Jude Law to crawl his way back to Nicole AND HE DIES!
Haven't seen Message in a Bottle either. I did buy into Titanic. I knew he was going to die so that helped.
Alice, I had thought of The Prince and I when I wrote this blog. That movie drove me crazy, too. They tried to patch it at the end by having the prince appear at her school and say he'll wait. Wait for her to finish medical school? He'll be waiting a while.
Anyone remember in Baby Boom when Diane Keaton is reading Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty to the toddler and has the princess turn down the prince because she needs to go to law school or something?
I'm brain dead today. We're staying at my grandmother's house. Imagine walking into a new home for sale. No furniture, no beds, no dishes, no nothing. That's what we're living in. The cats hated the move and cried all night and kept us up. Luckily my mom lives next door and has wireless I can borrow.
My boss took the internet access out of our individual bays, so I'm not getting the access I'm used to at work. :( I'm having withdrawals.
YOUCH! Strike one for the hot boss.
Dear Stupid, albeit--Hot Boss,
Hell hath no fury like a woman denied internet access in her own bay.
You-Will-Pay.
Sincerely,
Friends of said denied woman
*snort!*
Gotta have a HEA! That's why I stick with romance books and rarely watch movies unless I know how they end.
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