If anyone asked me to pick only one movie as my favorite movie; this is it. I can give you the many aspects that I like about the movie: like the scene where Melvin was about to be able to find out what love is, only to be interrupted, twice; or Greg Kinnear's interpretation of a gay artist - I didn't know he was really supposed to be gay for the longest time I thought that was something Melvin was just teasing him about; or how the structure of the movie plays, it is about an artist that gets assaulted, and how his unapproachable writer and a waitress form an unlikely bond - a weird setting, and a charming story comes out of it.
Melvin Udall became one of my role models in the type of person I want to be in the way the he says the things that are on his mind, and do that with very smart words - mean as hell, but witty. I have even posted many of this movie's quotes on my Facebook.
With that said, not all the elements of this movie are perfect. Especially when it comes to the main romance between Melvin and Carol the waitress. Now, I am not saying there was no chemistry between the actors because I believe that was the point of their romance; they are not really the conventional couple. What bothered me about these two was the last monologue by Melvin; who is supposed to be throwing her about the biggest compliment that he could ever concoct - a nod that I would give to an earlier scene where it ends on "you make me want to be a better man".
On that final monologue Melvin says: " I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me."
Great lines, sure, but they come out of nowhere. I never got to see Carol to be the person that he is describing in these lines. It took me many viewings, but I think this monologue is more about Melvin than is about Carol. Think about it: Melvin is the one who says things about saying what means to say, and we find out he is about being straight and good - of course he comes out harsh, but that's who he is. Maybe it is just him seeing part of himself in Carol.
This is one of those movies that I have even seen the director's commentary, and in it they say that the union between the main couple is something that the audience is not supposed to be sure is going to work out, but that they are letting their own good feelings about each other lead them.
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