Imagine Me & You

Just had a fabulously delicious meal at Carol and Zahrul's fabulous new house last night. Carol is the most amazing cook - so far i've had the best chocolate cake and the best quiche at her house. Positively orgasmic. I would move in next door except for the almost negligible fact that the house next door costs almost three times the price of my house. Carol and Zahrul are one of the nicest couples too. Z is incredibly sweet and obviously dotes on Carol - lucky Carol!

Anyway, after that wonderful dinner, washed down with plenty of wine, we had to make a move as Sean had to go to bed since it was a school day the next day. I was thrilled when GL passed me her DVD of 'Imagine Me & You'.

I'd wanted to watch Imagine Me & You ever since i saw the trailer - being a fan of most romantic comedies. I had to wait for the DVD because i don't think it was shown in cinemas here. Piper Perabo (ex-Lost and Delirious and Coyote Ugly) had an interesting British accent. Made me a tad curious why the BBC couldn't find a British actress for this part. Maybe they wanted an American actress to appeal to the other side of the pond. Anyway.

Overall the movie was pretty predictable (i like that though..) and saccharine sweet. Made me think about the eternal question though - is there such thing as love at first sight? and what if you are married to/engaged to someone else and you see a spark across the room... what do you do, if anything, about it?

If you haven't seen the movie and want to, stop right here as i'm about to talk about the ending.............

For political correctness, Rachel should've left Luce to go back to Heck (if you don't know what the Heck i'm talking about, go watch the movie). It would be the 'proper' thing to do. After all, Rachel was committed to Heck in holy matrimony (and all that ^%#%). The lesbian theme is actually completely irrelevant except that it gives the love story a different twist. Rachel fell in love with some one else. Period. Her angst and what choices she makes is the basic storyline. The right thing to do would have been to NOTpursue it.

But are we in control of ourselves or not? Or should we be in control? Should we disregard strong feelings for someone else because we are so-called 'taken'? I personally think monogamy is overrated. But saying that, i wouldn't act on anything while i am with someone out of pure respect for my partner. It's all about self control and not giving in to our delusions and attachments and the golden rule of not hurting anyone.

There is one poignant scene where Luce is confronted by Heck's best friend, Coop. Coop throws the line back in her face - so much for not wrecking other people's lives... we all (well, most of us anyway) don't want to hurt other people. But often we do - sometimes unintentionally, which can be excusable, and sometimes intentionally - because we so-called 'cannot help it'. Is there anything we really cannot help when a decision is ours? But how far to we go to put others' happiness above ourselves? According to the Buddhist credo, or what i understand of it, we must always put others' happiness above ourselves. Do we then obey our parents blindly - because that would make them happy? E.g. marry someone because they think he is suitable for you even though you have no feelings for them whatsoever. Or not go travelling because they think that's not a good thing to do. How far do we go? Going back to the movie - i'm sure many people will be most disapproving of Rachel and Luce's relationship - more so because of infidelity rather than homosexuality. I think it's because everyone is so afraid that their partner will fall for someone else and leave them...

Saying that though, i'm glad Rach ended up with Luce! GL just pointed out to me that actually Rachel didn't leave Heck. Heck left Rachel because he didn't want her to stay with him out of obligation. And that it was nice that their friendship (Heck and Rach's) was emphasised as the cornerstone of their relationship and that staying together or letting go was decided by both. I guess that's how the writers redeemed Rachel for her infidelity - though she had only one kiss or two..

If nothing else, the movie's anti-homophobic stance deserves applause. The movie portrays a lesbian relationship as fairly normal, with Rachel's mother providing some kind of balance by being stereotypically disapproving and disbelieving for a whole 3 minutes or so. But support was at least predictably and warmly provided by Rachel's dad, played by Anthony Head (of Gold Blend nescafe ads in UK - gosh - does that tell my age.. but more famously, in the popular series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', which also has a lesbian sub-plot but i won't go into that here).

With movies like 'Brokeback Mountain' and the TV series like 'L Word' and 'Queer as Folk', homosexuality is definitely moving into the mainstream. Hopefully, in time, gay marriage would become as accepted as interracial marriage is today, which is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Imagine that!