By Nicole Kobie
If you can fall in love with someone once, you can fall in love with them again. Or at least that’s what The Story of Us, the new Bruce Willis – Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle, would have us believe.
This divorce-romance could have been dull, over-emotional or tired, but instead is refreshingly funny. The Story of Us chronicles a separated couple on the verge of divorce. Ben (Willis) and Katie (Pfeiffer) Jordan have yet to tell their two children about their failing relationship.
Although the kids spend most of the movie at summer camp, they still manage to add wonderful doses of humour, just when it’s needed. One such injection comes as Ben and Katie are faking smiles and happiness and their son describes the high point of his day: drinking a chicken. What would the world do without blenders?
>As the kids are away Ben and Katie live apart, and miss each other terribly. They won’t admit it and come up with stupid excuses to call each other. They finally get together, have a great dinner and end up fighting in bed with visions of their parents in bed with them.
Most of the movie’s finer moments take place in flashbacks. When Ben and Katie met, their many couples therapists, and a second honeymoon are revisited. Director, Rob Reiner, overuses this method, but it is effective at showing the characters’ states of mind.
Usually, supporting characters add the humour to romantic-comedies like this, and they do in this movie too. Willis and Pfeiffer manage some funny scenes as well.
One of the funniest scenes could have been one of the sappiest and cheesiest, but instead their final make-up scene is hilarious and heartwarming. It’s no surprise they kiss and makeup, Reiner makes sure that it is never in question.
The entire movie is predictable, which does steal from some of the effect, but it still succeeds because of the great acting. The way Ben looks at Katie, and she smiles at him, its obvious right from the start these two will stay happily together.
One of the finest points in The Story of Us is the acting. I know, Bruce Willis acting? As strange as this may seem, Willis is excellent and portrays a range of emotions from frustration, fear, and loneliness, to relief and forgiveness, with perfect subtly. Willis is truly believable in his role.
Pfeiffer is no less superb. Her eyes have never been more expressive and her comedic timing has never been greater.
This truly is a movie for our era; with high divorce rates, most people will be able to relate to a story of a shattered relationship, glued back together with humour and honest romance.
The Story of Us opens Fri., Oct. 15.