One thing that Bugs Me

First off, I want to say that overall I find this to be a really fun movie. My mom loves it, so we have to watch it at least once every year, and it holds up very well on repeated viewing. Except ... there's one thing that is really starting to bug me. I know movies like this are aimed at women (and I'm a woman myself), but I could do without the slight air of "women are more mature than men" pandering in the script.

The biggest example is in Faith and Charles's story. Faith's "female eyes" were needed to make Charles's book better. Like no man could ever have said "Hey, the girlfriend is pretty awful--what is your main character doing with such a 'witch'?" She drove this home after the book was finished; he said it needed fresh eyes, she insisted that it needed female eyes, and he agreed with her. I mostly love the Faith-and-Charles scenes, but I always kind of cringe when that moment comes up.

They made some gesture toward suggesting that Faith was also predisposed to think the worst of men as a result of her experience with her ex-husband, but the script never forced her to come out and admit she was wrong, the way it did with Charles.

And then there were Heather and Jason. Again, I mostly think their storyline is great, very sweet. But the part where she tells him he's acting mature when he decides they should go home has started to irk me. She sounds so very surprised as she pats him on the head. The line would work better coming from a much older woman. And then he tells her not to expect it all the time.

These moments just seem intended to make the (female) viewers pat themselves on the back, and that shouldn't be necessary. It's made me appreciate Emily and Ray's story for not having any of that, at least not that I've noticed.

It's a minor thing, and I'll still keep enjoying the movie every year. But I wanted to get that off my chest.