Date Night

Pedro and I went on a date tonight to see (coincidentally) Date Night, the new comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

Date Night united the stars of two of my favorite TV shows -- The Office and 30 Rock; the highlight of the movie, as you can probably imagine, is less around the actual plot then watching Steve Carell and Tina Fey bounce off each other (although a shirtless and very worked-out Mark Wahlberg certainly doesn't hurt). Not surprisingly given the cast, the movie at points approached grimace-inducing slap-stick. A strip-club scene involving Fey in a frilly bustier and Carell as her androgynous sidekick was particularly disappointing: Tina Fey writes arguably some of the smartest comedy on TV today, and it was sad to see her take part in the stock caricature of the scantily-clad pole dancer to land a couple of easy laughs. One could imagine, for example, a more interesting spin with Fey playing the role of a female pimp to Carell as a pole dancer.

The biggest issue with Date Night -- if one really wants to look at it critically -- is that the plot seems to undermine its very moral. Steve Carell and Tina Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, a suburban couple from New Jersey that is the epitome of marital stability bordering on boredom-induced-failure. What's clear from the exposition is that Phil and Claire care a tremendous amount for each other; they're still at the point where they will offer to do things for each other such as making lunch for the children and attending an insufferable book club. One gets the sense that what's really getting between them isn't so much waning affection or wandering eyes as the general wear-and-tear of daily life. Phil and Claire try to stave off romantic staleness by going on a weekly date night, and it is on such a night that they get caught up in a web of political blackmail, car chases, and shirtless former Calvin-Klein-models. Naturally, all of the explosions and gunfire bring out the best in Phil and Claire, and their passions are reignited by the realization of how far they would go for each other when they are driving backwards down Lexington Avenue in a souped-up Audi that belongs to Marky Mark.

It's a fun and romantic notion, but one that perhaps doesn't quite get to the heart of the issue in Phil and Claire's marriage. Grandiose gestures are easy: when someone is pointing a gun at the mother of your children, I would imagine that it's really not that hard to figure out that the right thing to do at that moment is to step between her and the goon with the semiautomatic. What's harder is deciding, when your partner is taking out the trash, to put a fresh garbage bag in the bin so that he doesn't have to do it when he comes back into the house. Or doing the dishes even though you've cooked dinner because she happens to have work to do that night. It's doing the selfless thing when the stakes are low and the payout will be minimal and/or delayed. They could've made a movie where Steve Carell happily volunteers to make not only breakfast but also lunch in the morning, to close all the open drawers in the bathroom, to pick up and drop off the kids from soccer practice; and repeats this day after day for 18 years. But how would Hollywood sell movie tickets if they couldn't deal out unrealistic expectations about love and romance?

I also saw Clash of the Titans on Friday. For $16. Oh, how Liam Neeson has fallen. And that's all I'll say about that.