The Princess Bride

Ashia R:

Hey friends, welcome to Family Movie Night!

Tonight is Nathan’s pick. Which always…age interestingly.

 So like all of the movies Nathan chooses, let’s see if we get 10 minutes in before the Earthquakes start groaning with confusion and boredom.

Yup, looks like a standard 20th century classic – it’s time for 1987’s Princess Bride! Let’s get started.

Wow I did not remember the Mom’s mega-mullet, fashionably styled in a high ponytail. Actually I don’t remember a mom character at all? Did they insert her in the 90’s to bump up the count of women in this movie to…two?

Mom chastizes her kid for videogames and grandpa Columbo trundles in with a book. And the kid is like “OH NO! A BOOK! A GROSS AND BORING BOOK! As a modern child of the Wonder Years I am too cool for such things!”

But we all know he’s gonna love it! Columbo knows best.

I *SWEAR* when I was a kid this intro was like 20 minutes long and and it was soooo boooooring. But this scene just zipped by.

WHOA – As did the ‘falling in love’ between the blonde farmer’s daughter and her blonde horse groomer or whatever. I dunno really the scene just went by SO fast I didn’t catch the details. Seriously it’s like three sentences. Everyone is very blonde and willowy and pliable so of course they are virtuous, innocent, and all that standard white storybook stuff.

Because I grew up watching movies like this, I kind of thought love was instant? Like you exchange a few words, decide you love each other, and look at the sky and sigh a lot?

So when that never happened for me, I just decided to date whichever dude could keep his trap shut about how hot my mom is.

::does the low standards dance of a person who was raised AFAB in the 80’s::

I genuinely thought this movie took forever to start and build a back-story, but we’re 7 minutes in and already the farmer’s-daughter, Buttercup, has been conscripted into an engagement she doesn’t want by the prince, and THEN kidnapped again by our trio of ne’er-do-well, and now the boss is verbally abusing his minions.

Each plotline was like 3 seconds long holy cow I thought modern movies went fast!

Two things have always confused me about the cast of this movie: Actually, more than two things. But only two elements of this movie really fucked with my brain and left me confused.

And those two elements are Robin Wright and Mandy Patinkin. They broke time. While everyone else aged, they seem to be completely frozen in time! And since I didn’t really get access to an interweb that could explain to me how they were time-benders (aka how old they really are) I spent over a decade confused by their time-resistant faces.

Like – when Forrest Gump came out in 1994, I thought it must have been in production for at least 7 years because Jen-nay had clearly not aged since her role in this movie.

And look at Patinkin. Look at him! He’s gotten a bit heavier but really he’s been like 45 years old since 1975 and continues to be 45 to this day.

I want to SHOCK YOU by informing you that when Q was about 6 weeks old he was a dead ringer for Wallace Shawn – hairline and all. But really that’s not too shocking since every baby is a dead ringer for Wallace Shawn at that age.

(But Q was special because while he was in utero he somehow ended up with his nose all squashed up like a pig and it stayed that way for about 4 months.)

This comes at no surprise to any of us – but this movie gives us a nice heap of Evil Crip Villainry.

“My father was slaughtered by a 6-fingered man” says Inigo Montoya. Because hey why not introduce our Evil Crip trope character before he even arrives on screen! That’s his defining feature! This is the physical symbolism that betrays his cruelty and inhumanity.

Ugggghhhhh.

Andre the Giant plays a big role in the cast, and he’s like, neutral in terms of villainy. But he doesn’t play a particularly smart character and he definitely falls into some stereotypical nonsense.

(Despite that I should say for how few lines he has, he and Mandy are really carrying the movie, even in the scenes they’re NOT in, somehow).

As a 5-year-old, I remember thinking Inigo’s 20-year dedication to his father’s revenge seemed like #Goals. That focus! That determination! That sword mastery!

I’m now… realizing that the writers were trying to make him seem kind of sad? Like “Look at this weirdo who does this one thing and only one thing for exactly one mission in life.” ::: sad face :::

But I was like “Wow look at this weirdo who does this one thing and only this one thing for exactly one mission in life!” ::: ambitiously inspired 5-year-old ::::

Oh no my whole life has been misguided! My inspiration board was a LIE?!

Welp, too late now. It’s been my singular life’s mission to smash the sun into the moon since 1996 as revenge for a sunburn I received at Myrtle Beach this one time, and I’m way too lazy to become well-rounded now.

So Wallace Shawn has left his minions to murder the Man in Black following them as he flees with Buttercup. So far she’s had like… I dunno, 4 lines? 

As the only woman (excepting Irritated Mullet Mom) poor Robin really is just a resigned to playing a pretty human-shaped bauble that men drag around with them / slash / pursue.

She’s fine. She’s like, hmm. Well you know, she’s kind of like Wonder Bread?

Like  – Wonder Bread had this really cute logo, it had no flavor, was surprisingly soft and mushy and white. 

The thing about Wonder Bread is it’s not something you crave – it was really only super enticing when you couldn’t have it. 

I used to go to the Natick Mall as a kid whenever my step-mom would bring me for the weekend, and the parking lot smelled like *heaven* because there was a Wonder Bread factory nearby. So while you’re in this greasy parking lot, you want wonder bread. 

But you can’t have it! Because this isn’t where you buy it, only where it’s made. And by the time you make it to a place where Wonder Bread is sold, you don’t want it anymore.

Back to the movie – Shawn and the Man in Black are doing their logic-game face-off about iocane poison. Our bland Wonder Buttercup is *completely silent.* She’s just sitting there, blind-folded, listening to the men and their insufferable endless chatter.

She’s not even moving. She’s just… sitting there. Like she can clearly take off her blind-fold on her own. And influence what’s going on or really just like – stand up and start wandering away? But she’s just furniture. Or like a trophy sitting on a podium waiting for someone to win her. It’s unnerving.

Okay now the Man in Black has ‘rescued’ her from our malevolent trio of hooligans, but ho! Prince Humperdink is on his way with THE BRUTE SQUAD, also known as a loose group of dudes on horses. And deeper surprise – she has words that come out of her mouth!

The Man in Black threatens to back-hand her, and then tells her the next time he catches her saying something he doesn’t like, he’s gonna whack her. WOW. True love indeed.

She knows he’s the Dread Pirate Roberts! Roberts is a prideful asshole, Buttercup hates him with a venom and he’s cool with it.

Now see, it turns out the Pirate Roberts is all angry because he faked his death and his girlfriend moved on. And by moved on, we mean, conscripted against her will to marry the prince. 

Yeah of course *THAT* is not some toxic bullshit! (/sarcasm).

Wesley is not coming out of this looking like a guy worth hanging around for. He’s threatened to hit her twice, he blames her for living her life despite thinking he was dead, and he’s also victim-blaming her for living under the rule of a problematic monarch who is okay with coercive rape? 

Also that dinky little yellow caterpillar on his upper lip? Yeah, no thanks.

Ugh, he’s so smarmy.

So our ‘loving’ couple are wandering through the jungle, catching up, but then Buttercup wanders into the most loosely packed pile of dry sand and whoop, gets swallowed up. 

Buttercup grew up on a farm. She grew up mucking stalls and shit. She would KNOW to step gently in unfamiliar terrain, but nah, this works better for the plot if we completely forgot she’s had more than 15 minutes experience being outside.

(This scene inspired me to be afraid of jungles to this day.)

And now these giant scabby rat things attack Wesley and Buttercup just STANDS THERE. My mom and I used to just SCREAM at the screen when we watched this scene.

Buttercup just stands there while this person she supposedly loves gets mauled to death. Like this isn’t even a panic freeze response. It’s just…not her problem.