The Proposal (2009)

Romantic comedy directed by Anne Fletcher. 

High-powered businesswoman Margaret (Sandra Bullock) will be deported and lose her job at a New York publishing firm unless she gets married to an American. She forces her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to go along with the plan. They travel to his family home in Alaska, where – in trying to convince his family and immigration agent that they’re in love – they inevitably fall in love for real. 

It sounds formulaic but there are some genuinely funny moments and the script is finely tuned enough to sparkle. 

Sandra Bullock is likeable as a hard-edged bully who slowly reveals her vulnerabilities. A ludicrous scene in which a small dog is carried off by an eagle actually works. 

The strong cast also includes Mary Steenburgen and Betty White.

Philadelphia (1993)

Directed by Jonathan Demme, this is an emotional drama starring Tom Hanks as Andy Beckett, a lawyer who is dismissed from his firm for being a gay man with AIDS. Denzel Washington plays Joe Miller, the lawyer who represents him in court. 

The drama comes from two parallel threads. The first details Andy’s swift decline in health. The second deals with Joe having to work through his homophobia and put aside his prejudices to do what he knows is right. Washington is excellent at portraying that conflict. You can see his mixed feelings in every scene, as he slowly comes round to what his conscience is telling him. 

Parts of the film are unusually shot, and especially a section in which Andy enters a heightened state while listening to opera. Later, in the courtroom, unusual camera angles are employed to show his faltering consciousness.

It’s to Demme’s credit that he doesn’t opt for a tragic feel to the inevitable ending. Instead, he introduces a celebratory quality based on the sense of community and family love that the film has successfully established around Andy. 

There’s a strong soundtrack, mixing classical music with new songs written for the film by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.

Parenthood (1989)

Brilliant mixture of comedy and drama on the subject of family relationships, directed by the always-reliable Ron Howard. 

Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen are superb as a couple with three children, one of whom is suffering emotional problems. Meanwhile Dianne Wiest is a single mother struggling with two teenage children and her daughter’s relationship with the hopeless Keanu Reeves. Rick Moranis plays a father trying to raise his young daughter as a genius. Jason Robards (who plays Steve Martin’s dad) has to face up to the fact that his other son is addicted to gambling. 

A superbly written script dovetails these characters’ fates and elegantly weaves together multiple narrative threads without letting them get too tangled. 

Some of the scenes are genuinely moving, and there’s no doubting the truth of their insights into human experience, but crucially Parenthood is very funny as well.

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

The concluding part of the saga is so much stronger than the second instalment. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back to the Old West of 1885 to prevent his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from being shot by the local cowboy Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), who just so happens to be the great-grandfather of Marty’s old enemy Biff.

The DeLorean is damaged and they have to devise a new way of getting back to the future. But all this is complicated when Doc falls in love with a schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen), and instead of Doc being shot it’s suddenly Marty who’s at risk.

This has all the laughs, thrills and romance of the first part, but none of the misjudged bleakness or over-the-top pantomime of the second. It’s once again extremely clever without being confusing, so well planned and executed are the intricate plot twists. And the piling up of reference points and jokes from the first two films makes it a real pleasure to watch.

It’s lovely that Doc has his own story and it’s nice that they found room for his character to be developed further. The high-speed climax is genuinely nail-biting and the coda is both absurd and satisfying. A truly joyous end to the trilogy.