To ask what films you see differently now than when you watched them as a kid/teenager?

[Pandaparty]

We rewatched Mrs Doubtfire last night. As a kid, I was so on Daniel's side and didn't have much sympathy for Miranda (Sally Field), and couldn't warm to Stu (Pierce Brosnan) at all. Now though, I'm with Miranda all the way. She traded in a husband-child for a man who she can depend on and who loves her kids. Daniel's such a sleaze when they're at the pool too, making the women feel uncomfortable.
(I suppose our outgoing Prime Minister is a good example of people being prepared to overlook huge personal failings if someone is charismatic/"fun" enough.)
Anyway. What other films do you look at completely differently now than when you first watched them?

Agree with this completely. That woman needed Mumsnet. She'd have been told how to get her "ducks in a row" so she wouldn't have needed to fake her own drowning to escape, and then she'd have had The Freedom Project recommended to her so she wouldn't have swooned at the next man to go stamping all over her boundaries.

Thing is, any kind of art is likely to touch on the unpleasant. For instance, you can't make a film about the evils of racism without explicitly showing racism.

The Alan Bennett stuff isn't intended to be cuddly. The whole point is the darkness and tension beneath the surface of ordinary lives. If you went in expecting a sort of literary version of Victoria Wood, you were quite likely to be shocked. And that's kind of Bennett's point.

Big
it gives me the ick factor nowadays.

AmyandPhilipfan I don't see how Tom Hanks' character is emotionally abusive in Splash?

Actually, I think the scene where he leaves her alone at the ice rink was quite bad.

Plus he makes her feel bad for not wanting to marry him.

(memories might be hazy)

I think it was obvious that they were dicks to Eugene all along, not just 'these days'.

Pretty Woman annoys me now.

It was written by a teenage mother. She had a short and fairly tragic life and died at at 29.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dunbar

Meraas yeah I get that though I can sympathise with him as she just says 'no' without explanation. And it's her that leaves him at the ice rink. I bloody love that film! Tom Hanks can do no wrong in my book

Thing is, should art represent the world as it is, or as we'd like it to be?

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is a good example of the 'what should art do' issue.

The writer - a kid at the time - wanted to write about what she knew. And she wrote it with a fair amount of insight into the complexities of motivation, insecurity, venality and expections of the people involved all of which implied the underlying moral issues without being heavyhanded about it.

If it's uncomfortable to watch, she got it right.

So either we have to say, "That's a very discomfiting subject for a film, and it shouldn't have been made" or we have to say "Yeah, it's good that it was made, because it's very discomfiting."

Completely agree

Ugh. That's a set text in English for gcse or a level or it was in the 90's. Tedious book

@NotMyDayJob that was kind of the point with Bridget Jones, though - she was obsessed with calories and being 8 stone when really she was healthier at a heavier point than that (in the book she eventually hits her target, is really excited, and everyone asks her if she's ill).

A lot of these films I haven't seen (had no tv as a child, didn't go to the cinema much. Probably saw more films in the decade 2009-2019 than in the 40 years before that). I remember The Little Mermaid though, which came out when I was in my 20s. Was seriously pissed off, having grown up with the ethereal weirdness of the HCA story (though looking at Wikipedia, I appear to have forgotten the actual ending - was convinced she did dissolve into foam).

It's so nice to rewatch these shows and see normal faces without Botox, fillers and veneers

Not a film but a tv show, Frasier.
Used to love Niles and his antics and really hoped he and Daphne would get together (which they did), but watching it now several years later and just think he was actually a creepy annoying little man when he was around her acting like some lovesick weirdo plus the fact he was still married to Merris (think that was her name?) and Frasier, Niles, the dad Martin all spoke of her negatively.
Frasier wasn't too bad but there was definitely an air of sleaze about him.

Gigi - a woman grooms her young granddaughter to be the mistress of a rich man but it’s ok in the end because he falls in love with the girl.

Watched it as a teenager and didn't see any issue with Rochester lying about being married and locking up the mad wife

he was protecting the wife though from a worse fate.It was 19th century, there was no help for mentally ill.

*Things like 16 Candles etc have aged very badly.

Loved it at the time but it's a film about date rape being funny*

i saw it years ago but remind me where does date rape come into it?

I also agree with Baby’s parents that the relationship with Johnny isn’t really appropriate

they were more angry though at his social class rather than his age, in 1963 age difference wasn't as much as an issue as they were both adults still remember and younger women that age of late teens often partnered with men a decade or so older. Baby was presumably 16/17ish by by 63s standards that was very much a grown woman.

I have always quite liked that story and there are nuances to it that you start to get as you get older. That he was tricked into marriage, that he could have kept his wife in some awful place instead of well cared for his own home, he could have had her institutionalised or done away with altogether in those times and many did. The crime was to be angry enough and bitter enough to want to deceive Jane.

Although the bit the book goes through and almost all film and tv series makers miss, is that Jane is as not naice and wild as he is, she just learned to hide it well, and it's two very similar people together managing the ethics and veneers of the time they live in.

Heathcliffe and Cathy having their horrible, toxic relationship all over the moor I never fully got, but Jane Eyre and The Tennant of Wildfell Hall were staggeringly ahead of their time, and make you think the Bronte sisters would have been very useful posters on the relationships board here.

I watched a magical series when I was about 10 on BBC Box of Delights. It totally grabbed my imagination. Bought the box set and sat down to watch with Dh and kids after gushing at how good it was. Ha! It was laughable - terrible acting and really shonky special effects we turned it off. So sad!

My children thought it was awful, laughable as you say. It hasn't aged well at all.

The special effects, of course, weren't that bad when I saw it all those years ago!

They rebelled at watching Midnight is a Place and we didn't finish it.

Agree, Sargasso was/is tedious and in my opinion didn't add anything in the way of background, not that I would have liked or done it anyway @pastypirate

Totally agree.

And that scene where she is trying on hats or whatever is beyond cringe.

Big. Loved it as a teen but so bad a few years ago I couldn't watch.

Aren't we missing the incredibly racist undertone? She was 'dark skinned', uncivilised. She was basically a wild, 'mad' bad woman of colour, bought to England and locked in an attic. Was she really mentally ill?

Not that it mattered, I think husbands could have their wives locked up anyway.