Time for what is apparently a legendary romance film but I am left thinking that it is incredibly overrated. This is one of those jaded romance films where everyone acts absolutely terrible and the characters would have been better off staying single. You gotta wait for the perfect marriage and settling early will usually end up in this kind of scenario. The ending is saddest for the rebounds who are really stuck as being an after thought.

The movie starts off by introducing us to two characters. Katie who is openly joining communist groups and has very unpopular political opinions and Hubbell who basically just enjoys his life and doesn’t think about politics much. We get a lot of contrasting scenes in the beginning where Katie is basically miserable for decades as she makes politics her whole life while Hubbell is having a blast trying out a ton of hobbies. It is a really striking contrast right there. Well, in the present Hubbell is serving a term in the army while working on his books while Katie works in more of a live radio setting while still doing her protests. They meet up again and decide to get together. Can their physical attraction to each other get past all of the numerous red flags that stay in the way?

Usually the answer to that question is going to be no. The reason is because passion can fade over time. Usually one or both people are going to have reduced drives over the years, they will get older and less attractive, etc. There are whole memes about why this is a bad idea and that’s why you can’t fall for someone on physical attraction alone. That’s what crushes and one night stands are made of. A true love goes beyond that to personality and really loving every part of the other person. That doesn’t have to be literal of course as it can be 90% or something even if that’s not ideal. The problem is that these two tick each other off from the start.

For Katie, it’s clear that her politics have a higher place than Hubbell. She feels like his positions and attitude towards current events are wrong and so she would be compromising by not standing up in defiance every time. That is already a dealbreaker. When your side is right and the other is “wrong” then you won’t have true synergy at that point because now you have yourself on a higher pedestal. She doesn’t even try to analyze her worldview and just makes a scene at every party and event. Katie won’t be quiet about this and moreover she will lecture everyone else.

Katie was absolutely not fun at parties. Now, parties aren’t for everyone but if you’re going to marry someone who loves being at parties, then that’s not going to be a good development. Often times people aren’t going to change a whole lot for marriage. She put herself in a bad position and as the film goes on, her position gets worse and worse until there was really no hope left except to go grab a rebound guy to take care of the kid and go from there which is naturally another bad decision.

Meanwhile, as drastic as Katie was, Hubbell is decidedly worse. He is the one who decides to go and cheat on her. Ultimately while fans of his character can try to come up with a number of excuses, the truth is that there are none. Cheating is breaking the covenant of marriage completely. That is much more serious than fights here and there or disagreements. He already made the oath of for better or worse after all. So as annoying as Katie was, Hubbell was the one in the wrong here and ends up being the worst character here.

He ultimately goes for a rebound later on as well. As the ending shows though, Katie and Hubbell still like each other and are basically only kept apart thanks to social customs. It makes the situation even worse for their new partners because they are clearly second fiddle and this comes close to emotional cheating. So that is why both of the main characters are just really terrible the whole time so you can’t root for any of them. The film doesn’t try to hide this though.

The first time they get together is when Katie took advantage of Hubbell while he was extremely drunk and didn’t know what was happening. If the roles were reversed this film would have really been seen as pushing the envelope back in the day. It’s just a terrible way for their relationship to start. Yeah Hubbell made a lot of bad decisions to put himself in that position but Katie was the one to take advantage of this. It is played up in a romantic and even comedic way afterwards but it was a rough scene.

So with the romance already in the toilet, could the film come back from that? Well, this isn’t a comedy so you don’t really have the laughs to balance it out. Instead you have more drama like a bunch of Hollywood figures being taken to court and that puts more friction on the relationship. What I can say for the film is that the pacing’s pretty decent. I didn’t think that the film dragged on or anything even with the characters not being fun. So I think that is definitely a credit to the movie.

By the end of the film it’s hard to say who is having a more enjoyable life. Katie continues to fight a losing battle of talking to the masses but at least has the knowledge that she will never compromise on her beliefs. It’ll be hard for her to make friends as you will always need to watch your jokes and be ready for a political lecture. Meanwhile Hubbell is really well off with continued financial success but knowing that he will always compromise and crumble his beliefs for the easier road. He will do whatever is needed in order to get to the next point which will eat away at his psyche even if he would never admit it, potentially even to himself. As the years go by, he will have wasted them with pointless chatter instead of doing anything.

Overall, This is a pretty dreary film about two people who were just completely incompatible from the start. They are just too different and their lifestyles wouldn’t be fun to each other. Hubbell is clearly content to just lounge around and listen to his friends gossip about everything while Katie would much prefer hanging out 1 on 1 or doing something constructive. It’s why you always need to take these things into account as well when going into a relationship. The only context I would recommend this film to people in would be as a cautionary tale of what not to do when getting ready for marriage. You can’t treat it as the next logical step of dating, it is a completely different beast and you better be sure that you know the other person extremely well. You will never be 100% certain but you had better be careful because it will be one of the most important decisions of your life.

Overall 3/10