Films you see differently as an adult...

[LoveShitJokes]

I presume this has been done before but fuck it, it's Saturday night and I'm bored. So I'll start...

Mrs Doubtfire. As a child I saw Miranda as a boring, stuck up cow. As an adult I see her as a successful, independent woman exasperated with her man child husband who gives me The Ultimate Ick. And then some. I'm gobsmacked she ever married him. Stuart was a capable, equal partner not the villain I once thought him to be. Anyone else?

I was coming here to say this.
Bob is so creepy

I have no issue with Mrs Doubtfire. One of my favourites.

Jack, on the other hand, didn't adult/child Jack kiss his friend's mother?

The implication of your post was that the money shouldn’t have been used an “illegal activity”. Just because abortion wasn’t legal then doesn’t mean women didn’t have a human right to one albeit unrecognised by the patriarchy. Don’t know what all the pearl clutching is about.

I don't know but I'd love to know what it was called it was such a weird scene but I never actually watched the whole film. Maybe I was drunk! I think after the water scene (street fountain?) she was driven off in a limousine by his staff...

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 received Royal Assent in April this year. It is planned to come into effect on Monday 27 February 2023. The Act will raise the age of marriage and civil partnership to 18 in England and Wales to protect children from the scourge of forced marriage

News to me too! Can't see it will be of much use in preventing forced marriages as they tend not to happen under UK law.

I don't buy this one. Nothing wrong with a lively sex life. Nobody was abused. A DNA test would have been an easier solution, but that wouldn't have made good viewing.

100% agree about Mrs Doubtfire. I still love it as a film as much as I did as a kid, but I see it through Sally Field's eyes now and completely emphasis with her character - how thin it can wear carrying the mental load and being seen as the serious slightly naggy one while DH is playing the fun loving one, but not actually doing any of the work. I love that the ending is a little bit sad but realistic.

Rewatched a few romcoms recently from early 2000s and the men come over as horribly creepy. One where an actor similar looking to Jeremy Renner falls onto a woman in a traffic accident and is basically coming on to her as she lies shocked on the street. It is supposed to be flirty and attractive but is just awful. Watched it with the DC and they were appalled.

There were two versions of Saturday night fever. I remember discussing it with our form teacher in primary school, she'd seen the grown up version. I've not seen it since and I don't remember a rape scene, so imagine it was cut from our version.

Leon - second time I watched it much older I was struck by how sexualised Natalie Portman's 12-year-old's character was portrayed.
She has even said how inappropriate it was.

Airplane - thought it was hilarious as a child, it's really sexist racist and homophobic.

I really enjoyed reading Memoires of a Geisha many years ago but had to turn off the film recently as I got fed up with watching a young teenage girl having to sell off her virginity to the highest bidder. The Chairman is creepy.
The film glamorised it all a bit too much, at least the book depicts where the girls who don't make it into a proper Geisha house end up.

American Beauty - yet ANOTHER old man perving over a teenager.
Same with Lost in Translation.

I have an idea for a re-write in which Harry's aunt has a change of heart when he's first left with them, because he's just a baby and he's Lily's baby, more to the point, so she leaves her horrible husband, and raises Harry and Dudley alone.
^
They grow up poor (because you know Dursely isn't going to pay regular maintenance, and no-one knows about Harry's inheritance yet), but happy and Harry and Dudley are as close as brothers. Harry calls him "Duds" and his aunt "Aunt Pet." She's very nervous about him going to Hogwarts, but supportive, and they all meet the Weasleys while looking for platform 9 and 3/4, and she and Molly become great friends, both being maternal, protective types - Molly even helps Pet send multiple howlers to Dumbledore, berating him every time Harry's life is at risk.

I just think it'd be interesting to see how his story might differ, with a strong maternal character in the background.^

Grease-Danny changed too.
Mrs Doubtfire -Miranda was far too uptight.

Yes! It’s sheer genius

Regarding Cinderella, I think the real villain in the story is her father.
Why on earth did he allow his daughter to be treated so badly by his new wife?
Cinderella was an abused teenager living in a time when her only option to escape and have an ok life was to get married. No wonder she grabbed her chance of marrying a prince.

Surely in most versions he's dead.

I agree about Mrs Doubtfire. There are other examples of the sensible mother who has always had to do the grunt work, and the liveable rouge useless shit father. The Full Monty is just one example. We are supposed to feel sorry for the useless fathers and believe the problem lies with the boring mothers.
Fatal Attraction is wrong on so many levels, let’s blame the unmarried woman rather than the married man.
Basic Instinct is vile. Homophobia full on not to mention misogynistic. Think it was the same director as Fatal Attraction.
I have never like Pretty Woman.
Saturday Night Fever. Even John Travolta doesn’t defend it. The director’s cut has Tony say “Are you a nice girl or a cunt?” There is a rape scene.
I loved the film as a youngster, albeit the edited version was shown in the cinema.

was it ‘Birth’? With Nicole Kidman?

I like the observations upthread about women of earlier eras who reject the old-as-time angel vs. whore stereotype: particularly referring to Grease and Dirty Dancing. I don't find the character arc of Sandy as problematic as some do, and Rizzo is a great character. If ever there's a creepy, predatory male it has to be Vince Fontaine (and that beauty school dropout angel's a bit dodgy as well)!

There's rarely been such a picture of grim hopelessness in British Cinema as Rita, Sue and Bob too. Even at the time it was profoundly depressing aside from some brilliantly funny moments. The racism was probably accurate to that era in those kinds of surroundings, but strikes uncomfortably on modern ears.

Likewise, Muriel's Wedding is so poignant and in places desperately sad: so much is lost by so many people during the course of that film, and Betty's story is searingly sad.

I've been a big fan of Doris Day since childhood and Pillow Talk has long been a favourite. In some ways it was stylish and sophisticated for its time but in others, what a difference a few decades makes. Particularly so when Rock abducts Doris from her bed, runs through the streets carrying her despite her loud protests and a policeman makes a sexy quip instead of arresting him! As for the doctor who chases Rock around, thinking he's the world's first pregnant man and the route to making an easy fortune, well, I'd better not even go there ....!

Speaking of Debbie Reynolds she was in a film in the 1950s called Susan Slept Here. I saw it when I was a kid. The plot is about a juvenile delinquent (Debbie) who is in custody and the policeman doesn't want to leave her in jail over Christmas so he takes her to his friend - a middle aged Hollywood screenwriter to 'look after her' for a few days. (And guess what, they fall in love).

Can you tell the morals of Hollywood film-makers in the 50s that they looked at this plot and thought 'yep, seems reasonable'.

Nope! It's bugging me now 🤔

Neil's death was due to his uptight bully of a father.

There's a really weird film with Maggie Gyllenhaal about a teacher who becomes obsessed with a child prodigy and abducts him to a hotel. It's quite recent though. Could that be it?

Can we do Fairy Tales next

The girls weren't pregnant but had genuinely fallen for the boys!

No, it was a good ten-ish years ago when I saw it. I don't think it was an old film.

Almost any 90s teen film that is another variation of The Ugly Duckling and everything is amazing in the end because the ugly nerd conforms to the plastic ideal of beauty and gets the boy she fancied.