THE PERFECT WOMAN

(PICTURE: I got to thinking, playing the perfect woman wouldn’t seem to take much acting at all. It all seems so natural. I could probably get in drag and do that although I wouldn’t be much to look at. I wonder what makes it so hard.)

I saw Elizabethtown, the Cameron Crowe movie, yesterday on Thai cable. This is an interesting, almost fascinating movie for many reasons, not the least of which, it caused me to write this (which is not a review). How good was it? It held my attention 85% of the time and I did no channel surfing while it was on. The average movie or TV show ranks less than 50% on my attention rating.

The movie is mostly about a young man (Orlando Bloom) who has suffered a career disaster and is trying suicide when he learns his father has died while visiting his home town in Kentucky. The family orders him to go there and take care of things. He meets a flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) on the way who comes on to him like gangbusters.

From there it all develops to an interesting ending. On the way, the widow (Susan Sarandon) does an amazing eulogy at the wake. Not one reviewer that I read understood what was going on there. How shallow those people are. How frustrating it must be for someone like Cameron Crowe to be writing so far above the heads of the reviewers (72% of whom hated this fine movie). What the widow had done was come to grips with the fact that she had lost her whole life (her husband) and she was trying desperately to save herself, which she was in the process of doing right there in front of our eyes. For the critics it was ridiculous and showboating. For me it was meaningful, deeply touching, and mesmerizing. The lady was trying to save her life. Rent the DVD and see who is right.

One thing I take issue with in the movie is the Kirsten Dunst character. She is like the friendly, intelligent little puppy dog that followed you home with a wagging tail (literally). In other words, she is a perfect woman. Women like that are not around in America. They are grabbed up by men like hogs snuffing out truffles, and they are just as hard to find. A 30ish, unmarried woman like her is an impossibility.

In real life, after high school, I have met two women like that. One I describe extensively in My Nympho (scroll down if you activate that link). We only got together because she was very recently wounded in her divorce. We only split because I knew that her Playboy class nympho daughter would be delivering a multitude of babies to her doorstep and I couldn’t handle that.

The second perfect woman I probably shouldn’t mention because it tells too much about me. I met her at a party. She had that intelligent puppy dog quality. We wound up at her place and talked the night away. We drank a great deal of white wine in her living room and then talked some more while cuddling in her bed.

We seemed perfect for each other. The only thing out of my natural range was that I have a preference for small breasts and the lady had extra large natural boobs. I’m not complaining. I just mention that. Only a fool would complain.

So what happened? Well this is the embarrassing part because we seemed so perfect for each other, almost like she was my alter ego. She turned out to be a complete wack job in social situations. I would look at her and not believe this was the same woman. I won’t go into details and you can believe me or not, but she caused me to start wondering about myself. If we were perfect for each other and she was nuts, what did that make me?

See, that movie caused me to think.

Beware the perfect woman.