Forget Paris - An Unforgettable Movie

   I am not a sucker for romantic comedies because most of the time the movie plot doesn't make sense and it is really fictional compared to real life. But sometimes it is nice to mindlessly watch a romantic comedy movie for the laughs on low-brow humour and to release stress. Forget Paris came at the right moment as a great stress reliever from all the coursework :)

Forget Paris poster from IMDb

   It was also fun to see a repetitive scene being used in the buildup for a humourous scene. There was a particular scene where Ellen's father is always repeating the Toyota tagline - "You asked for it, you got it." Viewers of the movie may see this as just a senile old man repeating words that he sees along the street, but later in the movie, he repeated the tagline again after an argument between Ellen and Mickey, much to the masochism the enjoyment of the audience. The repetition of the tagline helps to ingrain the phrase into the audience's memory, and when it was used again later in the movie, it showed how a seemingly meaningless phrase at first takes on a more symbolic meaning when the phrase was repeated again in a different context. The "You asked for it, you got it" tagline that came after an argument between Ellen and Mickey primed the audience to believe that Mickey deserved the argument between him and Ellen as he was the one who started the argument by his actions, which was karma in action.

   Much of the humour also comes from Mickey's personality as a sarcastic character, as his witty comebacks in situations helps liven up scenes that are usually a bore, especially during romantic scenes. There was this particular exchange of dialogue between Mickey and Ellen when Ellen offered to bring Mickey around Paris for sightseeing which goes like this:

Mickey: I was thinking of doing some sightseeing.

Ellen: Sightseeing? In Paris? What a bizarre notion.

Mickey: Sure. You got any stuff here?

Ellen: Yeah, we got some stuff. Would you like to see the Eiffel Tower?

Mickey: That's here?

   And the fact that Mickey is saying all these sarcastic lines with a straight face makes the movie even funnier as it shows that he is really serious about his sarcastic remarks, and that made the audience laughed even more.

   Humour aside, there were many psychological elements in the movie if you watch it with your psychology student lens on. Out of all the romantic comedy movies that I have watched, Forget Paris has clearly highlighted how romance does not always go the way that you intend for it to go; there will always be periods of  friction and conflict apart from the smooth sailing and happy moments in a romantic relationship. I believe the main theme of the romantic relationship between the main characters, Mickey and Ellen, is compromise. At the beginning of the movie itself, it seems like Mickey is the one who is always compromising with Ellen, **SPOILER ALERT!** as Mickey is the one who delayed his flight back to America to stay in Paris and be with Ellen. It may have seemed sweet and romantic of Mickey at first, but as the film progresses, we can see the effects of being overly compromising rear its ugly head. For example, Mickey is always compromising with Ellen's request by moving out of his apartment unit to stay in a newly purchased landed property with her, as well as letting Ellen's father live with the both of them. Mickey has also put refereeing career on hold and took up a job as a car salesperson he loathes just to satisfy Ellen, as his job as a referee is requires him to be travelling most of the time, much to the dissatisfaction of his wife. In order to please her, Mickey took up the job selling cars for over a year just so that Ellen could be with Mickey. But as soon as she got a promotion, her working hours were different from Mickey's, hence they were not able to see each other during the weekdays.

   Eventually, Mickey became really upset with the way his life was at that moment and soon his and Ellen's marriage went on a downward spiral because he is tired of compromising with Ellen all the time as they were always fighting and they have not engage in sexual activities with each other for a long time. It was interesting to see that in order to save their marriage, both of them were actually able to come to an agreement together for the first time after a long time to try for a baby. When they realised Ellen is unable to conceive a child, their relationship just continues to deteriorate until they both went their separate ways. In a cliché-ed turn of events at the end, Ellen has finally shown compromise in a symbolic scene of her visiting Mickey's workplace for the first time ever, as Mickey was always the one visiting Ellen at her office ever since they met in Paris. Hence, we can see that compromise is really important in a healthy relationship, and for compromise to happen, it is obvious that good communication should exist between each partner so couples can actively resolve issues together, hence leading to a healthy relationship together.