Imagine Me & You
by Ol Parker
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Actor: Anthony Head, Celia Imrie, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode, Piper PeraboDirector: Ol Parker
Brand: FOX
Writer: Ol Parker
Producer: Andro Steinborn
Producer: Barnaby Thompson
Producer: Bill Shapter
Producer: David M. Thompson
Producer: James Spring
Producer: Jamie Laurenson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.1
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Imagine Me & You
DVD Review: Ultimately Derailed
Summary: 2 Stars
When the political, ideological and Christian Right rants and raves about Hollywood's "gay agenda," its less informed and more reactionary elements are probably objecting to the very fact of movies like "Brokeback Mountain.." More thoughtful and less homophobic observers, however, while perhaps seeing nothing particularly objectionable about the existence of the current rash of GLBT offerings, can nonetheless not be blamed for taking decided objection to the fact that so many of these efforts cannot seem to forego the opportunity to beat the audience over the head with certain messages repeated ad nausium, even when that compulsion detracts from the rest of the film.
"Imagine Me & You," a 2005 lesbian themed film by Director Ol Parker unfortunately continues this pattern, echoing themes already played to death by such films as "Shelter Island" and "Saving Face."
The film starts out promisingly enough, as in classic modern romantic comedy fashion, blushing bride Piper Perabo finds herself smitten at her own wedding by a glance exchanged with an unknown face in the reception crowd. This is almost standard fare, and the audience settles in for a fairly familiar story, if anything intrigued by the idea that the unknown face is that of another woman. This all seems so familiar. The fact that the setting and the entire cast are British only add to the effect, and with the exception of the lesbian angle, one could be watching almost any Hugh Grant vehicle or BBC comedy.
Unfortunately, like "Shelter Island," Ally Sheedy's disastrous lesbian themed murder mystery, this film immediately settles into the GLBT convention that any straight man in the story must be an idiot, a sophomoric and leering sexist, or a bad guy. While "Shelter Island," being a who-dunnit, had all three stock characters, "Imagine You & Me" is a comedy, so it settled for casting all on-screen males as idiots and/or sohpomoric sexists, and leaving the "bad guy" a mere reference. There are three males in this film, Piper Perabo's father, a dithering, stuttering, distracted, henpecked idiot, her new husband, Heck, a sweet man who unfortunately could not buy a clue, and Cooper, Heck's shameless lothario and sexist best friend...who also has the IQ of a ham sandwich. So much for creative character development.
Arranged against this array of halfwits are Piper's character Rachel, as attractive and appealing as all get out, her new and unsettling love interest, Luce, also attractive, strong, sympathetic, appealing and to the bargain, morally centered, Rachel's harpy mother, who refers to her husband as being "as useful as three farts in a jelly jar," and Luce's sad, sad mom, apparently long ago martyred on the alter of her husband's feckless infidelity: the screenplay could have easily portrayed her as a widow with no loss to the character, but that would have meant not exploiting the chance to victimize her AND neatly fill the bad guy role with the reference to Luce's long absent father....opportunities apparently too good for Director Parker to pass up. No grade B Western, with its white hats and black hats, ever more clearly telegraphed who we should be rooting for as the story opens.
But aside from these dumb conventions, the movie ALSO has its message to deliver, and so, much like "Saving Face," another thoroughly disappointing film that explored many of the same themes as this film, Parker chooses to toss out all the audience buy-in that the film's first 90% achieves, and club the viewer over the head with the mantra that all right-thinking people should, could and would applaud the lesbian relationship for which Rachel abandons her month long marriage and her devoted and faultless husband.
In "Saving Face," when the two lesbian characters' relationship finally becomes common knowledge, the main character's theretofore strictly conservative, straight-laced, and extremely traditional Chinese family unilaterally and unbelievably throws its entire cultural lodestone out the window in joyous celebration of the likelihood of their daughter/grand-daughter/niece's impending gay marriage. In this film's inanely improbable ending, not only does Luce's mother, apparently long in on the fact that her lovely daughter is gay, applaud the realization of her Luce's anguished yearnings, but Rachel's mother immediately switches sides and abandons her life long dream of her daughter's traditional marriage and motherhood. For his part, Rachel's father simply seems incredibly pleased that his son-in-law will no longer be "sticking it up his daughter," and even Rachel's wounded, wronged and betrayed cipher of husband weakly waves a cheering flag and wishes her well because "only her happiness matters." UGH!
There are two troubling and bothersome things about all this. The first is that, no matter WHAT the GLBT may want to tell the world, not all families jump for joy at the news that their son or daughter is gay. Quite to the contrary, more than one staunchly Christian, Jewish, Muslim and/or Chinese family has turned its back on the black sheep who has dared to embrace the love that dares not speak its name. THAT, for better or worse, is reality, and the rest is poppycock, wishful thinking...or propaganda. By contrast, what this film and its companions deliver is an unmistakable message of how, from one particular point of view, everyone should react to gay relationships. But just like a daughter's unwed pregnancy, a son or daughter's decision to cohabitate and have children outside of marriage, or any other action that flies in the face of convention, not everyone will or ought to be expected to celebrate. There are good and thoughtful people who believe with all their hearts that such things are wrong, and a film that acts as though such folk either do not or should not exist is propaganda, pure and simple.
A romantic comedy, almost by definition, is not "real." After all, who REALLY walks out on a marriage because of a glance across a room? But that recognition aside, a much, much stronger and compelling film would have been the result had this film avoided the unbelievable sappy, happy ending and shown Rachel and Luce making hard decisions in a realistically hard world, and facing realisticly hard consequences.
Also disturbing is the subtle message that when true love calls, such silly inconveniences as a marriage should never stand in the way...particularly when true love is calling a female. In "Fatal Attraction" the unmistakable message was that Michael Douglas' own infidelity brought all the subsequent hell down upon his head...and the moral was that he deserved it. Yet in "The Bridges of Madison County" essentially the same infidelity was celebrated and embraced because the lead female character had found her true soulmate...her husband and the basic question of right and wrong be damned. In this film, on the one hand Luce's father is referred to in dark terms for having abandoned Luce's mother. The audience is supposed to immediately recognize his type and loath him having apparently put his own immediate interests first. Yet hardly 40 minutes later, when Rachel dumps her husband, her "best friend" and the love of her life, in favor of someone she hardly knows, not only does the entire cast cheer, but the audience is supposed to join in. Strange.
All this may or may not be part of the Hollywood agenda that the political, ideological and Christian Right so vociferously denounces. But there IS a message here, and that message, at least in this case, derailed and ruined an otherwise generally enjoyable film.
Description of Imagine Me & You
Synopsis: 0Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: R
Street Date: 09/18/07
Wide Screen: yes
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
LanguageENGLISH
Foreign Film: no
Subtitlesno
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: yes
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve Please note: This supplier will be closed on 11/24, 11/25, 12/26, 1/2 for the holidays. The shipping cut off is 12/10 to try and have the products delivered by Christmas.
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