The Shaming of the Crew
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Runaway Bride in a Nutshell
Takes place in: New York and rural Maryland
Rips off: The Taming of the Shrew; Pride and Prejudice
Unique spin: Serial groom-jilter
Rom-com stalwarts: Wacky best friend; wacky fiance; colorful small town filled with weirdos; SCK
Members of central couple involved in journalism or advertising: Him
High points: As bride is driven off by FedEx truck, one observer asks, “where is she going?” A second observer replies, “I don't know, but wherever it is she'll be there by 10:30 tomorrow morning.”
Low points: Everything else
Point of contemplation: none.
10-word summary: Keep running. Keep running. Don't you ever stop the running.
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In Kate and Leopold, a 19th century duke (played by Hugh Jackman) travels through time to contemporary Manhattan and falls in love with a brassy, obnoxious advertising research executive played by Meg Ryan. She loves his accent and casts him in a commercial for inedible margarine. The vileness of the product prompts the happy couple's big breakup. Leopold has too much integrity to peddle crap to the masses. Kate just wants a promotion. Naughty Kate. Eventually, once Leopold has returned to his own time, Kate realizes that he was right – her job is an empty hell with no socially redeeming qualities. She resolves to be with her true love, because after all, where else is she going to find a 19th century duke willing to spoon her on the second date?
Kate's former boyfriend Stuart (Liev Schreiber) is also Leopold's great great grandson. He reacts with admirable good humor to the news that he's apparently spent four years bonking his great great grandmother. Rather than gouging his eyes out with toga pins, he delivers his erstwhile squeeze back to the 1890s to save his own ass. Kate appears at a lavish dinner party just in time to become betrothed to her one true love and spend the rest of her life in an oppressive, male-dominated culture that has no need for focus groups or commercials. And fascinating, according to the film, this is a happy ending.
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