The Smondays: that feeling on a Sunday afternoon or evening where the weekend ceases to feel like the weekend and the pressures of the encroaching work or school week start to weigh on you. Fear not, for I have just the prescription to cure that particular ailment: the Sunday Night Movie. Some easy escapism to forget your worries and cares, let you relax, decompress and recharge your batteries for that impending Monday. Rob Reiner’s immortal classic: The Princess Bride is this week’s selection for the Sunday Night Movie.
The Princess Bride has everything you could want from a movie and has a little something for everyone. It’s a fairy tale with swashbuckling action and adventure, it’s an uproarious comedy and a heartwarming romance, all at once. The story is framed as a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading a fairy tale to his grandson (Fred Savage), who is home sick from school. There is a really amusing and enjoyable interplay between them, as at first, the grandson wants nothing to do with a childish fairy tale about a princess, that might have kissing and stuff in it. Of course he is reluctantly drawn into the story as they progress and even tries unsuccessfully to hide his eagerness for finishing the story, but his grandfather obviously sees through this with knowing amusement. It is funny to note that I think many people’s experiences of this movie are very similar to the sick grandson’s, myself included. I remember when I first saw it when I about 10, I too was put off by the name of the movie, I didn’t want to watch some movie about a princess! But like the grandson, I too became reluctantly invested in the fairy tale and it’s quirky characters.
The fairy tale the grandfather reads to his grandson is about a young woman named Buttercup (Robin Wright) and her poor farmhand, Westley (Cary Elwes), who gradually fall in love. Westley and Buttercup wish to marry, but since Westley is a poor farmhand, he sets out to sea to seek wealth in order make this possible. But he is allegedly killed at see when the Dread Pirate Roberts attacks his ship. Five years later, Buttercup, believing Westley to be dead, reluctantly agrees to marry the nefarious Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). She is subsequently kidnapped by Vizzini (Shawn Wallace), Fezzik (Andre the Giant), and Inigo Montoya (Mandy Potinkin), of whom only Vizzini is actually villainous, the other two merely working for money and eventually becoming good guys. After they kidnap Buttercup, a masked man appears on the horizon who appears to be chasing them. This masked man turns out to be none other than Westley, who has taken up the mantle of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and upon learning of the kidnapping of his beloved Buttercup, sets out to rescue her from her kidnappers and eventually her nefarious fiance.
What sets this movie apart from all others is its uniquely lighthearted and irreverent tone. It never reaches the territory of parody or satire, but the framing of the story of a grandfather reading to his sick grandson lends itself to a knowing, almost winking tone. Rob Reiner has really managed to bring a fairy tale to life, all the while maintaining a very particular fun, lighthearted sense of character and storytelling. The movie so deftly and seamlessly balances swashbuckling adventure, outrageous comedy and warm romance, that it is the perfect way to unwind and relieve you of your Smondays. It is “inconcievable!” to me that anyone would not enjoy this absolute classic of a movie.