Leading the movie audience by the hand

Cafe Society
1

. . . or is it the nose?

Went to see Princess Dairies 2 this week. Now, I’m not the target audience, but DesertRoomie wanted to see it and I could just melt in Anne Hathaway’s eyes . . .

Anyway, the acting was passable and the plot serviceable enough for a fluffy romantic comedy. The big problem I had was that not once, but twice the director practically spells things out for you, just in case you’re too dim to follow along.

MINOR SPOILER FOLLOWS

The basic plot, if you’re unaware, is that Hathaway’s character (Mia) is all set to inherit the throne of Genovia when her Grandmother (Julie Andrews) steps down. The Evil Count (John Rhys-Davies) wants his nephew to inherit so he digs up an archaic law that the Queen of Genovia must be married to a Royal. The two factions in Parliament compromise on her marrying in 30 days or losing the title. She finds a match in a British minor royal (Callum Blue) and tries to fall in love with him. Meantime, evil count’s nephew (Chris Pine) is trying to queer the match so he can become Genovia’s king.

Okay, so it isn’t Oscar-worthy material but it was adequate for a Saturday afternoon. The problem is, in one scene, Mia is smooching the nephew in the garden. The camera draws back to her two handmaids and one says, “That’s not her fiance.” and the second replies, “No, it’s the other one.”

Towards the end, there’s a big Royal Wedding snafu. At the beginning, a wedding guest with a fussy baby leaves to quiet it down, then ten minutes later as all the dust is settling down, she returns and asks what happened. Her hubby gives her a fifteen second run down on what you just saw.

Severe downcheck for these two scenes. I mean, the two rivals were both hunks, but not that similar that anyone paying the slightest attention couldn’t tell who was who. And the second instance wasn’t a ten minute exposition diagrams and photographs, but you just saw it!

Is the ten to thirteen year old girl audience really that stupid? Or is Garry Marshall that stupid for thinking they are?

DD

2

[insert obligatory make-fun-of-the-OP’s-typo joke here]
As it turns out, we had a thread on something similar a few months ago. The thread was about dialogue which seems out of place, to explain events not shown. This is dialogue to explain events which are shown. Anyone have a link to the thread?

3

Try searching on “exposition”.

4

Only slightly less annoying are the times when the script deliberately does this, and then tries to make it funny by having a character say, “Thanks for explaining the plot!” (breaking the 4th wall and looking at the audience is common, but not necessarily a given).

C’mon. That was funny, like, the first ten times it was done. Maybe even the first twenty. The ensuing fifty thousand just got stunkier and stunkier.

5

When Da Vinci Code gets produced as a major action blockbuster, It will most definately top that list.

6

Yeah, I thought “Primal Fear” (Richard Gere, Edward Norton) kind of beat you over the head with the explanation at the end, like they thought maybe you were too stupid to figure it out on your own. Would have been a much better movie if it had been about five minutes shorter…