The Smondays. That feeling on a Sunday afternoon or evening when it suddenly stops feeling like the weekend and you start thinking about the work or school week ahead. The stresses of projects, meetings, assignments, emails, tasks, all that good stuff come rushing back to the front of your mind. Well, I have just the prescription for the Smondays: the Sunday night movie. A movie on a Sunday night before you go to bed is the perfect way to cap off the weekend, decompress, unwind, relax and get your mind off the coming week. My recommendation for this week is one of my Sunday night go to’s: Romancing the Stone, starring Kathleen Turner as romance novelist Joan Wilder and Michael Douglas as the swashbuckling Jack Colton. It is the perfect combination of romantic comedy and action adventure , and just the thing for winding down the weekend on a Sunday evening.
Romancing the Stone follows Joan Wilder, an intelligent and very successful romance novelist on an adventure to South America to trade a treasure map to some thugs in exchange for her sister’s life. The audience views the movie through Joan’s lens, as she is the only character whose motivations we can be sure of and trust. Joan just wants to get her kidnapped sister back, while other characters, to varying degrees, may be driven by the greed for the treasure. It doesn’t help that Joan isn’t very street smart or worldly, and is very much a fish out of water down in South America. We also get an insight into Joan when the movie opens with an excerpt from the novel she is just finishing writing. Her Romance adventure novels feature a strong female protagonist who is an extension of herself and her character Jesse who is her idea of the perfect man. Enter Jack Colton.
Joan meets Jack Colton when she gets stranded in South America en route to meet up with her sister’s kidnappers. Jack Colton is at once very similar to and very different from Jesse, the leading man in her novels. When we first meet Jack, Joan, along with the audience, question his motivations, as he comes across as cynical and motivated by greed, which of course he is to begin with. He is swashbuckling, handy, and worldly just like Jesse, but not as honourable or altruistic, again, at least not initially. It works so well because Joan is never really sure she can trust Jack, even when she really wants to.
The dynamic and chemistry between Joan and Jack is really the heartbeat of Romancing the Stone. Can she trust Jack not to screw her over and steal the treasure map? As they spend more time together they slowly begin to develop a mutual respect and start to genuinely like each other, with the question of Jack’s character and motivation looming large over the relationship. Romancing the Stone utilizes the classic romantic comedy trope of opposites attract, Joan being a very book smart, successful, fashionable city woman and Jack being a worldly, street wise, and wants to live free, loose and easy and by his own standards, which of course takes money. But tropes are only tropes because they work so well, and they work exceedingly well here. Romancing the Stone also uses the adventure movie trope of the Macguffin, or an object that the characters seek to find in order to drive the story forward, in this case the priceless jewel, the location of which is denoted on the map that Joan must trade for her sister’s life. It goes without saying that Jack knows that this emerald could more than fund his desired lifestyle. Of course in the end Jack ends up resembling Joan’s fictional Jesse character more than she would have believed, when he comes back for her with the emerald.
Romancing the Stone is the perfect marriage of the romantic comedy and action adventure movie. Joan and Jack don’t get along at all to begin with and slowly grow to appreciate and like each other as the make their way through South America to find the jewel and rescue Joan’s sister. It is a delight to see their banter as they get to know each other while escaping the various thugs that are chasing them through the jungle. This movie is the perfect lighthearted romantic comedy adventure romp through the jungle, and just what the doctor ordered for unwinding on a Sunday night.