Morsi at the Movies: Last Chance Harvey

Today it was one of those rare days that make up the winter in San Antonio. It was cold. Mid-forties and everyone in town was bundled up as if they were traversing the polar ice cap.
Bill was planning some sort of work on the chimney and decided it was too windy to be atop the house. I’m waiting to hear back from my agent on a new book proposal. So it was almost like a snow day at elementary school. Surprisingly free to do whatever we want.
After a chalupa lunch at Adelante we ran a few errands. Then he said, "Maybe we could catch a movie." Without any plan of what we wanted to see, we showed up at the theater. We quickly ruled out the kids movies and the ones we might see with Leila. We narrowed our prospects down to Gran Torino and Last Chance Harvey.
Gran Torino is supposedly vintage Eastwood at his best. And who could not like Eastwood? But we decided to take our popcorn to see Harvey and I’m so glad we did.
It was, to my thinking, a romantic comedy. Dustin Hoffman isn’t what one might call the traditional romantic hero. For one thing, he a bit older. He wears a bruised, battered, life weary persona that can’t be achieved by make-up alone. And Emma Thompson, is the charming girl next door all grown up and never quite realizing her potential. Of course, I loved it that she goes to writing classes and that the dream future she imagines for herself involves living in Spain and being a novelist. Having lived in Spain myself and being a novelist, I can only applaud her choices.
Harvey and Kate spend the day together and in the tradition of BEFORE SUNRISE, they walk the mostly non-touristy haunts of a beautiful city, in this case, London.
You don’t see them falling desperately, stupidly, for each other or passionately ripping each others clothes off. You see a friendship develop and a mutual respect. From there, the momentum can only go forward. Yes, it’s a romantic comedy, but it’s for grown-ups.
And that’s mostly who was there. The, fairly-well-populated-for-a-Friday-afternoon, theater was over-represented by folks of a certain age. Even the youngest in the room had been around the block a few times.
Now I am, without question, a romance junkie and I always have been. Bill says he loves to watch my face when the love talk comes on. He tells me that I’m always smiling. I guess so. I have been very lucky in love and I want everyone else to be as happy as me.
I do know that many people prefer singlehood. I agree that a bad attachment is worse than no attachment. And for some, living alone and unencumbered by unrelenting relationship is the perfect lifestyle. Good for them. Or good for you.
For me, well, I like being married. When I was single, I wasn’t unhappy. My life wasn’t empty or miserable. It was pretty dad-gummed nice. But I do love living with a special someone.
My friend, Margo, used to tell me that she didn’t like the stories where the people got together late in life, because there was so much time they wasted. Margo married a man she met in her twenties and still lives happy with him three decades later. I can understand how she might have acquired her perspective. But life can be messy. Whether it is tragedy, bad choices or just back luck, the truth is many of us find ourselves alone at some time in our life.
But I am very glad that, like Harvey, I got another chance. And thank God, I was open enough and maybe just wise enough to take it.