In the last seven days, an amazing thing happened in my marriage.
Prince Charming and I went to not one, but TWO, movies.
In the theater.
I still can’t believe it.
Last weekend, we rented a car and drove…and drove…and drove. On Tuesday evening, after all that driving, Prince Charming (!) suggested that we go to see a movie. It was, after all, too wet to mow (or rather, bale) the lawn. He had taken the day off to rest, and the girls and I had gone in to work in the morning.
I thought he was joking.
It turns out he wasn’t.
I am a BIG FAN of movies in the theater. There are a lot of annoyances about theaters: sitting in front of or behind someone who talks (or texts with their phone for a good portion of the movie), not being quite comfortable, the price of admission, the hassle of driving and going, a thousand other things. Did I mention I’m a big fan? I see past all these hurdles, to the picture on the screen, to the adventure that is real when it is big, to the magic of being whisked away.
So off we went, to the movies.
He picked Indiana Jones.
Walking out, he asked me what I thought.
“It’s a good popcorn movie,” I replied, happily. It wasn’t as good as the others, I didn’t think, but, well, it was Indiana Jones. And so, though we weren’t exactly blown out of the water with it, it was OK. It wasn’t terrible. We hadn’t blown however-much-it-was on something that we regretted seeing.
Imagine my shock and surprise when, on Saturday, he told me I could pick the movie (as long as it was one of the ones we had talked about seeing – no surprise chick flicks for my burly guy).
“You want to go to another movie?” I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a joke, though he has no history of ever pulling a prank on me.
I picked Prince Caspian.
I have heard many reviews of it, read some others, and I had decided that, though we were going to see it (decided back when we saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) in the theater, I wouldn’t read the book first. Why sit there the whole time comparing the book and the movie? I thought. And besides, it probably won’t be all that good. Everyone seems to think it’s sub-par.
I was not prepared for the experience of the movie.
When I read the Narnia books a few years ago, when the first movie came out, I don’t remember my heart breaking at the end, because I don’t think it did. I don’t remember feeling as powerfully sad at the ending, because I don’t think I did. I don’t remember being struck by some of the themes of faith and love woven throughout the book, because I don’t think I was.
Maybe I didn’t read the book well.
Or maybe this movie is an example of a book-gone-movie in a good way.
I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’ll be rereading the book sometime soon (there is no resisting it now), and then I’ll be sure to start picking things apart – things left out, things added, things just wrong. But the movie left me with the same wonder, the same awe, the same appreciation.
This is a movie worth seeing, just as the first one was. My imagination is pretty good, but I still found it gratifying – inspiring, even – to see these characters, who I so dearly love, up on the big screen. Meeting them again, in the world of Narnia, with their faults and failures, as they adventured and struggled, was worth the price of admission.
