In a furious and maniac attempt to refill my movie collection and encouraged by VUZE going particularly fast that day I came across this one which I honestly had not seen since the first (and second – yes, I went to the movies TWICE!) time in 1999. This has actually been the very first movie I watched this year. January the 1st 2010. One thing everybody should probably know before expectation levels might rise too high is that I am matter-of-factly THE ultimate Queen of Procrastination. Swear. It took me a whole month to finally have the guts to publish a post about this flipping movie. And it’s not like there are great issues to be addressed here, hey, it is a Sandra Bullock movie afterall! The american sweetheart, the girl next-door, the smiley, funny and pretty (but –never-quite-made-it-to-hot) brunette, one of the princesses of comedies never won first place, never even got nominated for an Oscar. Nothing. (Until a couple of weeks ago when apparently deservedly she won the Globe for “The Blind Side” – which I haven’t watched yet). I personally like her and I don’t think there is one movie she’s in that I haven’t watched. Like her. Like them.
About this one though… Alright, one thing is sure: 10 years is a very long time and I have to say that my reminiscence of this one was way cooler . Mind you, the movie flows, you’ll watch it all for sure but back then it all looked more quirky. Especially her, Sarah, who’s this sort of poor men’s Clementine (from The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind) who ends up travelling through the US with Ben Affleck to take him to Savannah, GA where his bride-to-be is awaiting for him. Misadventures, missed trains and burning planes will follow this eccentric girl and this cute in a nerdy way Ben all the way to Georgia. The sexual tension between the two definitely works for me, but as it often happens it doesn’t actually explode. I’m sorry (and this might be the hormones speaking!) but a quick pack on the lips is not the kind of action I expected from these two! Eventually, you inevitably find yourself rooting for them and wishing for him to dump the pretty rich girl before even getting to the altar. Well, he doesn’t. And in the end he chooses love, the old love, a love he already knew and felt more comfortable with. She leaves just like a tornado (hence the title. Did not like that, not one bit. I myself could have come up with a less lazy option – Bronwen Hughes, the director, had far more luck with tv shows such as The L Word and Hung..)
There is one little thing at the end of the movie that blew me away though. One thing I had completely forgotten about: a song, the end song. And it’s her, one of my first loves, Sarah McLachlan.
“Fear”. God knows how many times I’ve listened to this song, “but I fear.. I have nothing to give.. And I have so much to lose here in this lonely place..”… and then nothing. For years. I remember buying a whole album (Fumbling Toward Ecstasy) just to have this one song.. I love Sarah. Always have. Always will. And I did since the first song I heard, Possession, which still nowadays stays as one of my all time favourites. Yes, she moans, yes, her constant falsetto can be a little annoying after the 3rd song, but if you can get past that, she’ll bring you peace and serenity, and all you’ll want to do is curl up under a blanket, make yourself a cup of tea and just relax.
So, I guess re-watching “Forces of Nature” probably had me re-evaluating the much nicer memory I had of this movie, but brought me back to “Fear” and that was worthy enough.
