The Last 30 Minutes of “50 First Dates”

REALLY???? REALLY, HOLLYWOOD?

I have one good thing to say about this movie and it is that it forced me to stay on the stairmaster for 8 minutes longer than usual, because I could not tear myself away from waiting for the ending I was certain HAD to be coming (the return of her memory)…and which NEVER CAME! Thank you West Coast Fitness for having this on the television set instead of reruns of the GOP debates, which do not inspire the same kind of physical exertion (more like a “full body ennui”).

Ok so in this movie Drew Barrymore gets hit by a cow or something (I missed the first part) and gets a sort of mystically perfect brain damage where her memory has stopped on the day of the accident. So every new day she wakes up and thinks it’s that day, and it’s confusing and hilarious. Apparently somehow she meets Adam Sandler the day after her accident? And he is some kind of fish scientist who teaches penguins how to eat ice cream sundaes made of anchovies. Also this all takes place in Hawaii, so you know kooky shenanigans are going to go down, because Hawaii is like pressing the automatic zany button on a movie. Surely a coconut is going to fall on someone’s head, and I can’t wait! Plus native Hawaiians are hilarious! Look at that fat lady in the hula skirt!

So yeah, for awhile it’s like Groundhog Day, where every day Sandler goes and finds her and re-introduces himself to her and slowly works manipulatively upon her until he’s figured out exactly how to push all her buttons, and then she falls in love with him. And he does this every day, he makes her fall in love with him every day (hence the title of the film). Presumably then there is some sort of Big Reveal about how he’s been doing this every day for weeks, and presumably she is somehow not creeped out by it. I came in after they’d already fallen in love. Then there is this terrifying montage of days and days and days going by, involving him making her fall in love with him anew every day. The phrase “making me fall in love with you every day” is used roughly 100 times in the dialogue during this section.

Of course not raised are issues like: what if Drew Barrymore doesn’t WANT to be made to fall in love with Adam Sandler every day, but is unable to have this realization because the person controlling her daily experience is none other than the guy whose apparent mission in life it is to make her fall in love with him again and again? Or: why would Adam Sandler even be interested in this situation, in a girl who will never read another book; never see another film; never remember a single conversation they ever have? He will have to tell her about his upbringing in New York City over and over and over again until he will want to FUCKING DIE. To say nothing of waking up every single morning to a True Beloved who looks blankly at you because she has never seen you before. Not soul-crushing at all! Also not pictured: Drew Barrymore making the same observations about literally everything she sees, over and over again, which ditto to the fucking dying of sorrow and tedium. This is why people with horrific traumatic brain damage and memory problems have to live in INSTITUTIONS and get studied by Oliver Sacks, who wonders if they even have souls anymore. They don’t go galivanting around getting to pat walruses and fuck Adam Sandler in the basements of aquariums while the gentle natives make “ooga booga” faces and are played by Rob Schneider, of course.

So of course I am waiting, waiting, waiting for her to get her memory back. SURELY this movie can not end with her still being born totally anew each day, right, and having Adam Sandler explain to her what her new personality is and tell her that she loves him so much and should now have sex with him even though she’s never seen him before, again and again? Surely not.

Well, I waited in vain, and have the burning quadriceps to prove it, for that moment never came. Instead, in the final scene, we see Drew Barrymore wake up, like “HUH?” and then notice a VHS tape on her nightstand that says “Watch me” or whatever. The tape shows her her life story. “Woman Hit By Cow Suffers Terrible Brain Trauma” etc. Cut to DB crying while realizing that that’s HER, with the brain trauma! The video continues, showing her the things that are now important in her life, which of course she doesn’t yet know about. Here is your one true love, Adam Sandler! See, you are kissing him in the video, that’s how you know you love him. Oh wait, what’s this? Your WEDDING! Officiated by Rob Schneider being a complete ass! WHAT A SURPRISE! Cut to DB looking in wonderment at the wedding ring that is indeed on her finger. The video then shows Sandler being like “put a coat on because it’s very cold outside, and come up and have breakfast with me,” and DB goes to the window and looks out and goes “ooooh!” because it turns out she’s not in her home, in Hawaii, but rather on a fucking BOAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN IN ALASKA, which is something Adam Sandler wants to do for his job or something. And this is not terrifying but like a magical wonderland! She gets the gift of a Romantic love-falling-in every day AND the wonderful surprise of waking up in a completely different place than where she thought she would wake up! Every day! How fabulous!

And she goes up and a little girl runs up and is like “MOMMY!” and DB is like “HUH?” and instead of, I don’t know, vomiting with horror (also not pictured: her waking up every day of her pregnancy not understanding why she is 9 months pregnant suddenly, e.g.) she’s like “YAY I HAVE A FAMILY, EVERY WOMAN’S DREAM.” And that’s the end of the movie.

Well!

One thing I find amazing is that this VHS tape explaining her life to her is going to presumably get longer and longer and longer, the longer she lives, until in a sort of David Foster Wallacian nightmare she’s going to be spending 24 hours a day watching a 24 hour long tape of her entire life, and then the watching of the tape itself will be incorporated into the tape, so she’ll be watching a tape of herself watching a tape, and that’s the story of why she woke up and suddenly was 90 years old and that’s not scary at all.

Another thing that my old man talked about after I staggered home from the gym was that the whole VHS tape conceit is like a neat little ideological statement about film itself. Because the VHS tape is of course heavily edited, and has reaction shots, and it’s like, somehow we are to believe that the movie on the tape is giving Drew Barrymore ALL the information she could POSSIBLY NEED, like it is actually just injecting memories and emotions directly into her brain, such that after watching it she is able to be totally comfortable and confident french kissing this total stranger who walks into the room.

Also so dark is the fact that Adam Sandler is the one who constructs the tape for her each day, so it’s really like Adam Sandler is basically getting to invent a wife for himself. Like if they have a fight, he just doesn’t put it on the tape. Or if Drew Barrymore is like “I don’t want to date you anymore,” he can just not put it in the tape and she’ll wake up the next day not remembering she said that, and she’ll watch the tape and the tape of course instructs her to understand that Adam Sandler is the great love of her life etc.

Also SO DARK that we are to find charming the concept of a husband who DOESN’T CARE that his wife will not progress or change or learn anything ever again; that his wife experiences no feeling of history or familiarity or continuity within their marriage or with him as a person; that forevermore he will go out into the world and do things, and tell her about them, and the next day it will be like none of those things ever happened. They can’t even SLEEP IN A BED TOGETHER because when she wakes up in the morning she’ll think there’s a rapist kidnapper in her bed.

WOW!

What a rich text, as we would say in academia.

What a piece of crazy sexist bullshit! as we would say on earth.