Love and Other Disasters

I just watched the 2006 movie Love and Other Disasters.  My Lord this is a great movie.  Not only does it star Britanny Murphy and Matthew Rhys (remember the Welsh man that played Kevin on Brothers and Sisters), but costars Catherine Tate (of Doctor Who and the Catherine Tate show here's her singing the theme song to her show at a Kirsty MacColl tribute, the lady who wrote and performed the song



), and Stephanie Beacham (please tell me you remember Sable from the Colbys/Dynasty here's my favorite Dynasty Season 9 scene with Stephanie it's the elevator scene right in the middle of the clip)



(I love her expression at the end of that scene)

Now I know people are going to first say how atrocious Brittany Murphy's British accent was in this movie, but it's not supposed to be an accent. More of a way of talking. As Brittany's character explains well into the movie when someone calls her an American, her father is English, her mother is from Argentina, she lived in London until she was 5 when her parents died, then moved to the states and was raised by her mother's family. So it's really not an accent, just a rather formal way of speaking. Which is funny because Britanny Murphy was the only member of the cast besides Santiago Cabrera who wasn't from the UK. (Though Santiago did grow up in London, Romania, Toronto and Madrid.) As far as accents go, I thought Matthew Rhys who is from Wales and grew up speaking Welsh, does an American accent better than a London accent.

It was actually Matthew Rhys character who made the movie for me. A 30 something, single gay man living in London, his inner life is much more satisfying that his outer life. He meets someone fantasizes about them, then actually gets to know them and they suddenly become inadequate. That is so me. I've been looking for love since I was 12 and from the first to the last the reality was so less fulfilling than the fantasy. To the point where I'm not sure if I haven't given up on finding Mr. Right, and just don't want to admit it.

Now to be honest I'm never going to make anyone's top 10 list. I've seriously more walls than the Vatican. I've lived long enough to know that I want what I want and I'm not going to settle for less. I know what being with "him" feels like and that's what I want. What I've gotten, in the past, is men who demean me, abuse me, desert me, or manipulate me in one way or another. Now I have to admit, in each of these relationships I've felt something was off going into them, and I ignored that. That is my own damn fault. It's taken me almost 30 years to actually not respond when I'm feeling something is off.

The last guy that wanted a relationship with me, I was upfront with. I basically told him, I'm sick of people playing games with me, and trying to get me to do what they want all the time. I've spent the last few years gravitating toward what feels good, so here is how this is going to go. If you call, and I'm feeling it, I'll answer, otherwise I'll wait until I'm feeling it and I'll call you back. I'm only going to call when it feels right. So for the next few weeks I would be working and since I'm not supposed to be on my cell at work I wouldn't check it that often. Now knowing I'm working and I'm not supposed to even have my cell on, I would check it on a smoke break, and get the feeling I was in a relationship with a 12 year old girl. "How are you today?" "You busy?" "What's up?" "Don't you even have time to text me back?" getting meaner and meaner from there, and then he would wonder why I didn't call him the minute I got off work.

The truth is like Matthew Rhys' character in the movie, I want that guy who is the aha moment. I want to feel it. I want to know it's right from the first consideration of dating him, and to be honest I'm willing to wait another 30 years for it. Sure I'll be in my 70s with my behind scraping the back of my knees, but I know what I want and I'm not settling for less.