FORGET PARIS

Forget Paris is the nontraditional modern romantic comedy released in 1995. Packed with one liner jokes and full with comical characters, this movie servers as typical Hollywood comedy film cliche but in terms of plot wise, it is an anti-fairy tale about love, which is sort of non-cliche. The movie focuses on the relationship between Mickey and Ellen, started on how they met until to how the struggle to keep the marriage alive. This movie gives modern portrayal of characters in the sense that the female lead, Ellen was a successful Airline Assistant ans so does Mickey. Both of them have clear visions on their careers and both of them love the career their into. But this movie explores more into the finding happiness in marriage when it goes beyond having a stable career and just being in love with each other. It takes more than that to make the relationships work.

The story of Ellen and Mickey starts in Paris, famously coined as the city of love and romance. At the start of their meeting, both of them are in the place where they find each other as great convenience, mainly because both of them needed company. Mickey just lost his father and travelling alone in Paris only to find the airline misplaced the coffin. This crisis put him in a very stressful situation, in addition of being alone in a strange city. While Ellen who did not disclosed about her dying marriage at the beginning, she provides Mickey comfort by accompany him to his father's funeral. Later we found out both of them are in the situation where meeting someone new and falling in love with that person seems like the only logical thing to do, in order to fix their loneliness. They are filling the void by seeing each other as compatible, the missing puzzle piece that fits in just right. This raises the question on whether to commit into the relationships is a good idea or the worst idea ever. One of the conflicts appeared in their marriage is when both of them feel like they are married to stranger. In the middle of the marriage, they both have the "Who are you?" moment which indicates they do not fully know each other on every layers and folds. Not only that, they seem to forget the values they both put in each other careers because both of them are happiest when they do what they love, which is their jobs.

As the relationship as husband and wife progressing, Ellen and Mickey find it hard to find the place where both of them feel happy and content with their life. As this movie used the context of career, we see its hard for them to find the balance between living a perfect married life and having to do their job without effecting their relationships. But we need to give them credit for trying, as both of them made sacrifices in order to safe their marriage. It shows that it takes a lot of work to compromise in marriage and the work is an on going process. Even at the end of the movie, there is no typical happily ever after ending, as both of them agree to continue working on their marriage. That's the reality. As the title says, "Forget Paris" which means forget about the time in Paris, where everything seems simpler, but the harsh reality in California is what both of them needs to face and keep on surviving. When I look at my parents, after more than 30 years of marriage, they both still working on compromising each other. The work on happy marriage is an never ended process so this movie shows us that, the realistic idea of creating a perfect marriage is the work by both parties. This related to triangular theory of love which are intimacy, passion and commitment. I want to emphasis again on commitment. Based on this theory, commitment in long term relationships needed planning made for each other (Sternberg, 2004), which Ellen and Mickey lacked at at the beginning of their relationships as both of them decided to jump the gun without planning carefully how to reach the equality in their happiness especially in their careers.

All in all, Forget Paris is a simple, typical Hollywood charisma but with an interesting nontraditional plots on love. I enjoy the movie because this movie gives me lessons in love with many generic punch lines.

Reference

Sternberg, Robert J. (2004). "A Triangular Theory of Love". In Reis, H. T.; Rusbult, C. E. Close Relationships. New York: Psychology Press. p. 258