The kids are at camp this week, so Mr. and Mrs. Crazy-Go-Nuts went to a movie last night. Not to brag, but it started at 9:50 and the popcorn was dinner; can dancing all night be far behind? Don't answer that, but after all the recent news about hi-pro marriages gone wrong*, it was nice to get away for Away We Go, a big-hearted little meditation on old-fashioned living in sin.
(*Jon & Kate, I never heard of you until recently, and wish I could get back that innocence. John Edwards, the sound you hear is Bill Clinton laughing; not even that old hound dog was ever accused of having already picked out the music for the wedding he'd have once his wife was, um, dead. And Mark Sanford, don't look now, but your beautiful missus can and I predict will do better. Old CW: At least he's in love! New CW: (Tan) lines have been crossed before, so please zip it oh King David come to life; the mother of your children does not need to hear on television about how hard you are trying to fall back in love with her.)
In Away We Go, two madly-in-love 30-somethings with few belongings but a fair amount of baggage fly off to find just the right nest for the baby they're expecting. She won't marry him, maybe because since her parents are dead she "doesn't see the point.'' But they're so much more committed than all the couples they see making a hash of it that we don't know, either, why they'd want to change a thing. The scene on the trampoline where they exchange unofficial vows to do things like let their daughter be fat or skinny or any size at all except bent-out-of-shape over her weight was one of the sweetest things I'd seen in a while.
A couple of nights earlier, as it happens, I'd also seen the ultimate divorce movie, The Women, on TCM, and wondered if Jenny Sanford maybe fit the mold of the Norma Shearer character, Mary Haines, who rides out and rises above the indignity of losing her man to the fling he imagines himself in love with. The whole thing is fabulously over-the-top, with good wifey Mary (who because this is 1939 is a.k.a. Mrs. Stephen Haines) advising bad-girl girlfriend Joan Crawford that the trampy get-up she's just charged to Stephen's account is far too obvious for his taste and Joan answering that if she finds she's wearing anything Stephen doesn't like, well then honey she just takes it off.
In the last scene, mortally clueless hubby (off-camera, like all of the guys) is the last to learn that Joan really was only after his big old bank account, and comes crawling back to Mary. "Mary Haines, where's your pride?'' shrieks her busybody non-friend, Rosalind Russell. "I don't have any,'' she replies. "That's a luxury that a woman in love can't afford.'' Mrs. Sanford, I am not going to go all Rosalind Russell on you here – only you know what's right for you -- but the way you're marching through this mess with dignity intact is a reminder to the rest of us that as another disappointed political wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, said, no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Melinda Henneberger is the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com. She spent 10 years as a reporter for the New York Times, in the paper’s Washington and Rome bureaus... more
Comparing real life to tv or movies is ridiculous.Another article with no substance.
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hope700
7:35PM Jul 1st 2009
Why are we so shocked when people have affairs?? People/media ALWAYS act and talk like its the first time they ever seen it. Its ridiculous...but hey, it makes them money. http://www.SomeCoolStuff.net
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ellieswenson
8:03AM Jul 2nd 2009
If extramarital affairs are so common and are just a ho-hum yawning bore, why even bother exchanging marriage vows? What's the point?
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James Daubs
9:50AM Jul 2nd 2009
Great comparison--but at least George Cukor made sure we never had to HEAR Stephen Haines go on ad nauseam about how Crystal Allen was his freakin' "soul mate"!
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AHILL
10:06AM Jul 2nd 2009
I have one thing to say to Gov. Sanford: KEEP YOUR DAMN MOUTH SHUT! I supported you when all I got was grief. I know no one is perfect. And if you look back, Political Offices have always been full of affairs. Look at the Kennedy's. Look at Bill Clinton. But Mr. Sanford, I thought you were better than that. Now, I will be supporting Lt. Governor Andre Braugher. I do not think you should step down, I just think you should SHUT UP and do your job!
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boredwell
2:34PM Jul 3rd 2009
What I believe most miss here is that both husband and wife Sanford are slapping each other rather viciously, though sotto voce, in public. C'mon, if Mark says that Ms Maria was not just his inamorata but his "soul mate" that's big slap. When Jenny says that she doesn't give a damn about his political career because she's only concerned (Mark's not) about her boys that's a putdown, too. Then Mark ups the ante with confessions of more in flagrante delicto. Poor Maria! You're right, she deserves a "better" man.