The Mirror has Two Faces

I finally got to watch The Mirror has Two Faces, the movie that has the OST I Finally Found Someone. Though the movie was supposedly a box office flop, I liked it. It did not have the typical rom com plot and some moments made me laugh while others actually moved me to the tears. When I think back, though, I'm not sure if they should have. Maybe I'm just more emotional than your average Jane. Or maybe those scenes just hit so close to home.

Anyway, the story is about Gregory, a blubbering Math professor who has been burned by passionate relationships in his past and who decides to take out a personal ad to look for a female companion. Rose, a professor of Romantic Literature, has a sister who answers the ad for her, and when Gregory sits in on one of her classes and hears her talking about 12th century courtly love which had nothing to do with sex, he becomes convinced that he has found the perfect one for him. But then he leaves in the middle of the lecture and fails to hear her opinion that people still want love despite the mess because it feels so great.

So he asks her out and he finds that she has a good head on her shoulders and a wonderful personality. They keep going out, but they are not dates, they are "just agreeing to eat at the same table" in Rose's words. Months later, Gregory proposes an unconventional marriage built on intellectual passion instead of sexual heat, and Rose agrees, even though she secretly doesn't like the idea, but because she feels that no other guy will ever offer her marriage and because she has actually fallen in love with Gregory. Of course Gregory's idea was garbage and in the end, they fall in love for real. Otherwise I could not have liked this movie.

Anyway, I liked the idea that the Gregory loved Rose for her personality and not for her looks, though he did become physically attracted to her only after her major makeover, which he gets upset about. In the end when they kiss and make up and confess their love, he tells her, "I don't care if you're pretty, I love you anyway!" It's refreshing because in the real world, physical attraction is the number one basis of relationships being formed. I've always been wary of guys who profess their feelings for me when they barely know me. It makes me feel that their feelings are shallow because obviously, their attraction is based on my looks. I want to be loved for my personality, and obviously it takes a lot more time for that.

My favorite conversation in the movie, though, is Rose's lecture. Thank goodness I found it on script-o-rama. Here is her lecture less the interjections from students:

This is the scene at my sister's wedding. She's getting drunk, regretting that she got married for the third time. My mom's sprouting snakes from her hair in jealousy. It was perfect ... We've got three feminine archetypes: the divine whore, Medusa and me. What archetype am I? The faithful handmaiden. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. It proves what Jung said all along. Myths and archetypes are alive and well and living in my apartment. As I stood beside the altar beside my sister and her husband to be, it struck me that this ritual, called a wedding ceremony, is the last scene of a fairy tale. They never say what happens after... that Cinderella drove the prince mad by obsessively cleaning the castle cause she missed her day job.

They don't say what happens after because there is no after. The be-all and end-all of romantic love was marriage. But it wasn't always like that. The 12th century had ''courtly love'', which had nothing to do with love and sex. It was usually defined as a passionate relationship between a knight and a married lady of the court and so they could never consummate their love. They rose above ''going to the toilet in front of each other'' love, and went after something more divine. They took sex out of the equation, leaving them with a union of souls.

Think of this. Sex was always the fatal love potion. Look at the literature of the time. All consummation could lead to was madness, despair or death. Experts, scholars and my Aunt Esther are united in one belief: True love has spiritual dimensions, while romantic love is a lie. A myth. A soulless manipulation. And speaking of manipulation, it's like going to the movies and seeing the lovers kiss. The music swells, and we buy it, right? So when my date kisses me, and I don't hear the Philharmonic in my head, I dump him.

The question is, why do we buy it? Because, myth or manipulation, we all want to fall in love. That experience makes us feel completely alive. Our everyday reality is shattered, and we are flung into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, but that doesn't diminish its value. We're left with memories we treasure for the rest of our lives. I read an article awhile ago that said, ''When we fall in love, we hear Puccini in our heads.'' I love that. His music expresses our need for passion and romantic love. We listen to La Bóheme or Turandot, or read Wuthering Heights, or watch Casablanca, and a little bit of that love lives in us too. So the final question is: why do people want to fall in love when it can have such a short shelf life and be devastating? I think it's because, as some of you may already know... while it does last, it feels fucking great.

I sooo miss Literature classes!

Anyway, this is one more point in the film that I liked, the realization that though passionate love can bring pain and remorse and madness and even death, it's still worth all that. Good companionship is important, of course, but if it doesn't come with passion, then what's the point? You have friends for that. As Rose finally confesses to Gregory, "To be honest, l think your theory about relationships is bullshit. I believe in love, lust, sex and romance, not in a perfect equation. I want mess and chaos. l want someone to go crazy for me. I want passion and heat and sweat and madness! Valentines and cupids! I want it all." And having it all includes the bad with the good.

And I love that soundtrack, I Finally Found Someone, which they played at the end. You may watch it here: