You see couples like them all of the time. She's beautiful, intelligent and feisty. He's talented, charimatic, rich and "cleans up nicely".
If you didn't feel that there was chemistry throughtout the movie, you are right. It was only in about the last 20 minutes, when the love, not intense chemisty began to unravel. So, the question begs. How much chemistry is required for a sustainable love? In this case, probably the minimal was sufficient.
Someone once said, you marry the first time for love. Second for security. Third for companionship.
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cknob-1
15 years ago
As for chemistry...Carol was an insightful individual...made desperate by bad luck, a chronically sick son and circumstance but she had excellent insights. She wasn't the only waitress in the restaurant who tolerated Melvin because she knew he was rich...no one there could stand him...she waited on him because she had insight into the deeper gentleness in his character, the stuff that resided beneath the OCD rituals and the racisim. Remember the interplay between them when he says "How old are you? If I had to go by your eyes I'd say you were 50" and without skipping a beat she says "...and if I went by your eyes I'd say you were kind so...so much for eyes eh?". It's a brilliant moment that reveals what she senses about him that's later externalized in his relationship with Verdell and then with Simon. Remember, Spencer is the apple of her eye and she knows what chronic illness can do to someone. She knows Melvin is sick ("...do it now...or leave...you crazy FU*%!!!") but she appreciates the human under the crust. It's also obvious she has an older man, daddy thing going on too. That's often chemistry enough. As for why he needs her...he states it without pretense and unecessary verbiage "...cause it relaxes me..."
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