Last night I watched what will probably become my favorite movie ever—I’ll have to watch it a few dozen more times to make sure—but it is definitely my favorite movie of the last year.
The Best of Me, starring James Marsden and that girl who I always think is Bridget Moynihan, but isn’t.
what is her name?
It was so bad it was truly stupendous.
So, James Marsden and Not Bridget Moynihan play former high school sweethearts who grew up in a small Louisiana town. They haven’t seen each other in 20 years. He works on an oil rig and she’s married. Some old guy dies and leaves them both his house, which makes them both think about the olden days when they were in love and ...*swirly flashbacky part*…
We now see high school James Marsden, played by a fellow who looks absolutely nothing like James Marsden except for the fact that he is also 40. He is poor and his family is trash, but he’s smart; we know this because he reads a physics book for fun. At home, his mean dad is all “You ain’t better than me! I’ll punch yer lights out as soon as I’m done whorin’! ” and young JM is all “I just want to read my physics book in peace!” So he runs away and hides in the garage of a wise old loner who doesn’t take anyone’s guff.
The wise old guy finds him, and he’s like “You can sleep on that cot and drink from the hose, but don’t be thinkin’ I’m gonna basically adopt you as my own! I ain’t got ties to no one and I ain’t about to start now!“
And then Young James Marsden’s dad shows up, but the wise old guy chases him off and then basically adopts Young James Marsden as his own. Because he secretly has a heart of gold, and sometimes he still goes out to his tulip patch to talk to his dead wife.
Young JM falls in love with the town rich girl, played by an actress who at least looks like she could be related to Not Bridget Moynihan. Her rich jerk dad disapproves, so he offers young JM money to leave her alone. He doesn’t take it, but he does take a shot of the rich jerk dad’s whiskey, and then spits it out like a badass as he smashes the shot glass onto the ground.
The two misunderstood lovebirds live out their fairy tale under the not-at-all creepy tutleage of the old man, who as we now know, loves true love above all else. Well, maybe not as much as he loves teenagers doing it in his living room, but he likes it a lot.
Prom night comes, and everything goes horribly wrong—Young JM’s mean dad shows up again and starts a scuffle, and the next thing you know, Young JM’s best friend is dead. Young JM gets 4 years and his dad, who is really to blame, get sent away too, and when young Not Bridget Moynihan goes to visit YJM, he’s all “Don’t ever visit me again, you must go live your life!” and she’s like “NO” and he’s like “GO!!” and she’s all “WHY, WHY?!"
So she goes and marries someone else within two years—a rich jerk. She has two kids and one of them dies of cancer. James Marsden gets out of prison and works on an oil rig, which causes him to shrink 5 inches in height, get dark hair, bushy eyebrows and bright blue eyes but not a single day older.
So now we’re back in the modern day, and Grown up James and Grown up whatever-her-name-is go to see the house the old man left to them, and within 14 seconds admit they are both still in love with each other and embark on the best weekend ever, complete with scenes of sweaty shoulders and belt buckles and her sidling up to a delicious egg breakfast in his button-down shirt and no pants, and I think we all know what that means. AND THEN THEY SWIM IN THE NUDE.
But it isn’t meant to be, and they both know it. But, as the old man explains to them in a note they find later, at least they had this... He wanted to get them together one last time. He is the wisest man they’ve ever known.
NBM goes home to her jerky husband, JM works through his despair via intense gardening, as any broken-hearted-oil-rig-worker-frustrated-physicist-ex con would, but then, she has an epiphany, brought on by the fact that her jerky husband takes a call during dinner. She calls James Marsden and leaves him a message that she will indeed leave her husband for him. Please call her back when it’s convenient. She tells her husband. He’s like “Whatever, I’m drunk.”
Then her son gets in a car accident and needs a heart transplant.
She races to the hospital and her jerky husband is there, too, sobbing that “he can’t lose another one”.
Meanwhile, back in James Marsden’s part of the story, he is driving along a scary road at night, finally listening to her message on his phone, but before he can call her back, his mean dad and brothers resurface to settle old scores. “OH MY GOD NO,” you might be thinking. “HE CAN’T DIE, NOT AFTER ALL THAT!!” But you would be wrong, because he does. Die. HE DIES.
And the next morning, Not Bridget Moynihan’s mother tells her the tragic news of James Marsden’s death, and instead of reacting to it like I might’ve in her position (“What? Who? MY TEENAGED SON HAD A HEART TRANSPLANT LAST NIGHT GET ME TO THE HOSPITAL I WONDER WHY I DIDN’T SPEND THE NIGHT THERE?”) she collapses in sobs, dreams crushed, once again.
A year passes. Not Bridget Moynihan is divorced, working as a children’s legal advocate, the job she always dreamed of before she went and dropped out of college to get married on the rebound. Her teenaged son, now a college freshman, calls her to tell her some interesting news…he found out the name of the person who donated his heart…he was from your hometown...perhaps you knew him, mom?
NO
NO
NOOOOOO
I still can’t stop screaming inside.
I was watching it by myself, and I wanted to jump out the window, roll in the grass and stuff handfulls of mud down my throat, anger, amusement, exhileration, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WAS FEELING.
I’ve already ordered the poster. I think I have to have a viewing party of this movie, and I think I need to dress as all the characters.