Movie of the Day (01/21/2010)- Til There Was You (1997)

Til There Was You (1997)
starring Dylan McDermott, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Sarah Jessica Parker
directed by Scott Winant

-I'm decidedly not the biggest fan of romantic comedies. This is mainly because aside from westerns, they are the one genre which I find rarely strays from its conventions. The setup is typical: boy and girl meet, love happens, obstacles get in the way, and by the end, the two come together to spend the rest of their lives together in cinematic bliss. While there is nothing wrong with this premise, the problem lies in the fact that there is very little room for deviation within this setup. However, the little-seen Til There Was You successfully managed to re-write the genre and offer up a new twist on romantic comedies.

Til There Was You deals with the lives of two characters: Nick (Dylan McDermott) and Gwen (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who as the romantic centerpoints, never really meet until the film's end. As children, the two came from different backgrounds: his family was poor, while hers was well off. One day while running away from a school bully, Nick crashes into Gwen, knocking her down. Though he'd like to stop and help her, he continues running to evade his tormentor. The story flashes forward years later when Nick, a young architect is making a presentation across the street from the university where Gwen attends graduate school. Nick accidentally knocks a model of one of his designs out the window where it ends up nearly hitting Gwen. She yells up at him then takes off. As more years pass we see Gwen become a successful ghost writer and Nick a prominent architect. We see the two of them date various men and women with distinct flaws while the two main characters must come to grips with their own issues. There are two elements linking Nick and Gwen together: 1)Francesca Lanfield (Sarah Jessica Parker); a former child star who spent time in rehab and who hires Gwen to write her biography and Nick to handle the design of her new apartment complex she is involved in, and 2) a bizzarely decorated restaurant named "The Awful Truth," which both Nick and Gwen frequent with various dates and which the former designed.

While most romantic comedies offer up their share of sentimentality, Til There Was You breaks the mold by offering up a genre film that is more true to life than most other entries in the canon. First off, the two characters are seen as real people with real issues, not ones that a bland Hollywood script allows them to have. Both Nick and Gwen are flawed individuals who recognize the problems within themselves and try to live their lives as best they can in spite of them. But on a larger scale, Til There Was You proves to be realistic in the sense that its the story about two stranger's journey toward meeting each other. The failed relationships, the professional setbacks, the family crises, and the differing views on life and romance as seen through the supporting cast which includes Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olin, Michael Tucker and Nina Foch.

On the production side, Til There Was You is top quality. While McDermott and Tripplehorn are unlikely choices for the leads, the two inhabit their characters beautifully, especailly the latter who nails Gwen's hopeful, yet surprisingly realistic optimism. All of the other elements of the film come together in a decent way. And even if the running time is a bit longer than the story deserves, there are still plenty of new characters to watch in the meantime.

While this is Nick and Gwen's story, the real surprise of the film is Parker who, as the narcissistic former child star/drug addict, gives what is perhaps her best screen performance to date. Her turn as Francesa is truly one of a kind. She is at all times vain, insecure, whimsical, self-aware, and surprisingly wise. The character is truly a mixed bag and Parker brings all these facets to life almost effortlessly. In fact had the film been more well-received, I'm convinced that the actress, who was praised for her performance in the film, would have garnered some major accolades, perhaps even an Oscar nomination. To some it might seem far-fetched, but Parker has yet to deliver a performance as stellar as this one.

This is a romantic comedy which shows how true romance really is. It isn't finding the love of your life in the first reel and encountering one wacky situation after another. Love is a journey that involves several twists of fate, different characters and life lessons you never expected to learn before finding the one you were truly meant to be with.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi721289497/