Happy Perfect Date, everyone!
"Describe your perfect date..."
For my fellow homesick New Yorkers (or just the intellectually curious), The New York Times published a really illuminating architectural tour of some Manhattan skyscrapers: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/arts/design/nyc-skyscrapers-virtual-tour-virus.html
Also, in need of a good cry? This story will empty out those tear ducts: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/us/coronavirus-victim-family-note-trnd/index.html
Passing along a neat initiative from a friend and reader, MasksOn! In the Boston area, some ingenious folks are banding together to produce reusable masks where FDA-approved PPE is not available. Worth a look, and perhaps a donation: https://maskson.org/
Now, what you came for...
(Past suggestions archived on Letterboxd)
DAY 43: Miss Congeniality (available to rent)
It appears I was screaming alone into the void on my live tweet of Miss Congeniality today -- don't worry, all the posts are collected here should you want to pursue and learn a little more about the film. Since I couldn't convince anyone else to join, I figured I'd use this space to further extol the virtues of this film that has grown in my estimation and love over the years! (You all have no one to blame but yourselves for this...)
Wesley Morris, in one of the few positive reviews of the film at the time (Miss Congeniality holds a shockingly low 42% on Rotten Tomatoes), sums up a lot of why the story resonates with me: "[Bullock's] movies require a certain juvenile mind-set to enjoy: If I root for her, it's because at a given moment we're both 12-year-old girls trying to find a table in the cafeteria. For 'Miss Congeniality,' middle-school angst is transferred to the beauty pageant stage." I first saw the film in cable re-runs when I was, go figure, in middle school. If you didn't know me then and need something to fuel your imagination, imagine a male version of Bullock's Gracie Hart: bookish, extremely type A, friendless, devoted to work, pretty stiff ... hoping you now get the picture so I can stop triggering myself.
Miss Congeniality contains elements of the makeover and the rom-com, but neither defines the film entirely. Gracie does not require a love interest or a more appealing physicality to better integrate her into society. She already has what she needs inside to self-actualize. But unlike many movies of a similar ilk, which approach extreme makeovers as something that brings beauty out from the inside, Miss Congeniality takes a different approach.
It's a little bit more outside-in as a "fish out of water" scenario unfolds in which a frumpy FBI agent must successfully pose as a beauty pageant contestant in order to disrupt a terrorist threat. The film creates an image of beauty and grace that Gracie must grow into. Only by growing and drawing on her reserves of self-love, compassion for others and commitment to excellence can she close the gap between who she thinks she is and how the world sees her.
I won't deny there was a bit of wish fulfillment in Miss Congeniality; Bullock herself even admitted such to Roger Ebert in 2000. "It gives hope to anyone," she joked. "I love the fantasy element of that to a certain degree, the swan. The great thing about movies are [that] they can help you get there. In real life, it's a little more difficult." Indeed, it did give hope to at least one gawkish klutz, who loved that a movie offered the message that you could succeed because of certain things that might otherwise make you an outcast, not merely in spite of them. The film doesn't require Gracie to rid any of the things that make her so formidable; it merely expands her skill set and repertoire.
On top of it all, the film is packed to the brim with clever one-liners, solid physical gags, a menagerie of memorable characters ... and, of course, the effervescent energy of Bullock herself. Miss Congeniality is the ultimate showcase of the full range of her comedic talents. A watch, or rewatch, makes for one Perfect Date indeed.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall