Romantic sort-of comedy-drama about a young couple (Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern) who get married and eventually embark on parenthood. It’s a strange film. There are several dream sequences/magic-realist interludes that don’t add a great deal (and which possibly confuse the narrative), although the scene in which a street of all-American dads mow their lawns in stylised formation is effective satire that would have been critically applauded if Dennis Potter had shot it.
The lead actors are OK if not spectacular in the two key roles, but the main problem with the film is that it doesn’t establish their relationship and what they mean to each other – until it’s too late. We meet them on their wedding day with Alec Baldwin trying to talk a nervous Kevin Bacon out of getting married because he doesn’t want to lose his best friend (this seems like a homo-erotic sub-plot, but the film is so muddled that you can’t be sure). It would have been far better to start with an establishing scene – a romantic walk along the beach, or whatever – that shows how the couple really feel about each other. Instead, it leaps into themes of social conformity and how Americans are expected to behave. When Kristy secretly stops taking the pill in order to get pregnant it comes as a total surprise because the character is so underwritten that we don’t know how she feels about anything, let alone contraception and parenting. And then it becomes a different sort of film in the last 45 minutes. John Hughes juggles many themes (peer pressure, our role in society, masculinity, etc.), but doesn’t satisfactorily address any of them.
It’s difficult to know who this film is for. Was it made for female Bacon fans (he’s topless a lot of the time)? And if so, how are they meant to feel about the women in the story?
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