imagine me and you

So yesterday I finally watched Imagine Me and You, a sweet movie highly recommended by some friends as it was fairly recent, being released sometime 2006.    I don’t think it was shown on the big screen here, but immediately was released for DVD distribution. Not that was it was neither offensive nor marginal in any way, I guess not just mainstream enough.    I mean movie bigwigs would rather show stupid teenagers doing slapstick comedy bordering on foul and offensive, but not these classic well-written love stories. That’s commercial cinema after all and it’s up to us to choose what we watch. That's something to be thankful for.

It’s actually a bit more rewarding trying to watch these very difficult titles. You walk in a store, flip through DVDs and realize they don’t have it, manage to have the courage chat up store clerks who haven’t got a faintest clue of what you’re talking about, and walk out feeling all lost and confused. Apparently they don’t know Lena Heady or Piper Perabo. It seems all they know are the Paris’s and Lohan’s and what have you’s.

So I have to order them from some other continent and have them delivered here. But sadly that is not a thing I could afford. And as much as I feel for getting them off free at P2P networks, I must say that I have no choice. At P2P, I got Imagine Me and You after a week of downloading. If you were getting say for example Indiana Jones 4 which just came out, it will take you 30 minutes tops to get a really blurred low quality poor excuse for a video, probably some guy holding up cam inside the movie house where you can see the actual people watching the movie, eating popcorn and laughing at the scenes. Sometimes if the camera guy laughs hard enough, you lose a couple of scenes essential to the whole story. Hahaha. What am saying is that it's best to watch it on the big screen like normal people and buy the DVDs at the store like you're supposed to.

Back to my point, movies like Imagine Me and You won’t have much seeds. There were actually 4 seeds only, that’s why downloading took so long. Imagine only 4 people in the whole world thought it was good enough to keep it in their hard drives for other people to get. I guess most people are just plain leechers, those who get the movie and never share. There are but few out there who don’t mind not getting anything in return, save a couple of thanks from random strangers at one point or another.

So anyway I waited a week to watch it and I must say I wasn’t disappointed. It was after all my kind of movie. You know contemplating love at first sight, soul mate, following your heart stuff. And it didn’t hurt that it was about 2 gorgeous British girls. Lena Heady, who looks a lot like a late 30ish Keira Knightley with more flesh, plays Luxe, a florist out to set-up for a wedding. Piper Perabo, who in not actually British by the way and is sadly remembered as that tragic wannabe Coyote Ugly girl, was the bride Rachel in the wedding. Let’s just say they saw each other a few seconds when she was walking down the aisle and it was it. The whole magical stuff built on fairytale look of looks. Anyway, she got married. They got to meet in the reception, banter, share a funny experience, more banter and starting a friendship…basically all that cute stuff we put in between. The newlyweds befriended Luxe and found out she was gay and Rachel found herself more intrigued and attracted until finally crazy in love with her. And of course, as sensible women that they are, try to fight it off to save a marriage but end up as they say breaking their own hearts. And in true typical romantic Brit movie (e.g. Love Actually, Notting Hill and so on and so forth) the girl or whoever made the mistake, drives a car frantically to the airport to catch the other half, say I’m sorry and let’s be together. I think we’ve seen all typical love stories end this way, someone being chased and someone have to shout out declarations of love out of breath and in public places. Yeah pretty typical, but still true blue romantic anyway.

Rachel tells the husband who was unbelievably understanding (come on, can you imagine giving up your new wife you courted for years, spent money to wed,  to a florist who didn’t make an effort) gave her up and told her get the thing that would make her happy. Of course this is already after Rachel dismissed Luxe altogether and Luxe decides to mend the broken heart elsewhere. Anyway, the get-her-back scene was Rachel on top of a car shouting at the top of her lungs trying to find Luxe in one of the cabs stuck in traffic. Luxe gets up on the roof. They see each other, run live rabid monkeys towards each other and end in a kiss and happy smiles. And everyone smiles because maybe one, they shared in the magic of happiness and romance, or two there were two hot women making out in the street. Anyway it was a happy ending. And to top it all off, at the end they play the turtles “So Happy Together”, which is one of my favorite tunes, to further stress that it was a happy ending and that they got the title of the movie form the first few lyrics of the song. And it always is nice to see a montage of what happened later before the credits start rolling.

So yeah I’d recommend you all to watch it. And I would give you copies if I have to. It was well written and unexpectedly not so clicheic. And for the closet homophobes, there are no sex scenes and there are no flesh bared. There were just 2 kisses, one short and one the climactic finish and it was all. It's more of the gutfeel, fill-up the spaces in between type movies. Conversations were crisp and clever and humorous without trying too hard. I just like the fact that they made it into an ordinary love at first sight, feel-good light movie that it was and not about weird artsy melodramas usually used for women falling for women themes. Imagine Me and You is actually the awww shucks sort of heterosexual chick flick we all go out to see to feel a little more in love with love. Just this time the women are the ones in love. I am happy that the writer and director was able to show it a most normal way, where you don’t have to squeamishly flip your head from side to side just to express how unlikely and impossible it was to happen. Ol Parker, good job there, give yourself a pat on the back.

The thing is it does. And I have it from experience. It’s not about being a man or woman, young or old, gay or straight. It’s about having that moment with a complete stranger. And yeah sometimes it leads to love. I think it’s a biological thing. Maybe there’s something in our DNA that makes us attractive to one person and not the other. Like I said before, you could almost smell her pheromones a mile away and apparently you were the only one receptive to it.  Maybe that’s the whole love at first sight theory where you stop in your tracks and pause and see what a wonderful creature this is looking back at me. And it’s a joy if she exactly feels the same way without reason. I don’t believe it’s only one person. I believe it’s of a genetic dictation. Maybe that’s why people who were previously involved get involved with each other’s excess. (e.g. Melrose Place, Gossip Girl, all heterosexual by the way ehehehe), maybe there’s all a reason for that swapping partners based on biology and attraction. That’s putting culture and modesty and values aside. I’m not saying that infidelity is ok. It’s not.

I’m just saying love at first sight can happen once or twice, maybe even more, in a lifetime. I’m just saying that when it happens to you, and you get that vibe from a complete stranger from across a room, by heavens go out and talk to them. Find out the source of the magic. Maybe she’s just one of your good friends to be, maybe you’re related, maybe even she’s your one true love. Just find out what it is. A smile and a conversation never hurt anyone. And there is no greater joy than it is to be found. OK, so you’re either right or wrong. Could go either way. I say if it had the potential to lead you to the one true thing, it’s still worth the shot.