chick flick

My daughter was home sick yesterday, and both boys were at school, so we had the morning free. Normally I'd suggest a cooking project, but yesterday, a rainy day when you just wanted to huddle under the covers, I asked if she wanted to watch a movie. It seemed appropriately decadent, since I'd never turn the television on for myself during the day.

Sarah is at that in between place where childhood entertainments are beginning to seem to babyish, but the next step, which has her endlessly intrigued, is still a little too...tarty. We settled on Bride Wars. Who doesn't love a bride? It promised promised hijinx! And pratfalls! And blue hair! So we huddled under a blanket on the couch together and ordered it up on pay-per-view.

I generally don't like chick flicks, and would have never chosen to watch this on my own. The plot was facile, the comedy too broad, the characters were caricatures. I know that is the point of a formula film such as this.

But the experience of watching it with my daughter, on a day when she was supposed to be in school, made the experience so...delicious, that I found I enjoyed, if not the film, certainly the experience. Letting my critical, intellectual faculties go, taking at face value that this was a mindless entertainment, not high art, liberated me.

I'm sure the company helped. Perhaps the inclusion of a companion--even who who is still a bit too young understand the phychological nuances--is the appeal of the chick flick, and the essential quality which has eluded me all these years.