So I watched Runaway Bride last night for the first time in many years. At first glance, the movie appears to be about a woman named Maggie Carpenter (played by Julia Roberts) who is so afraid of commitment that she runs like the wind every time she begins to walk down the aisle for marriage. She's done it three times when the movie opens and that's where USA Today columnist Ike Graham (played by Richard Gere) enters. He writes a column about how flaky Maggie is and he ends up losing his job over it. Armed with a chance to redeem himself through another publication who wants an article about Maggie, he travels to her small town to prove that he was right about her. Of course, this is a chick flick, so everybody knew that Maggie and Ike would eventually fall for each other and, of course, they do. But I love the way it happens.
After Maggie realizes that she has too many difficulties to cover up, and after she sees that Ike seems to be softening towards her, she begins to tell him about her life. She tells him that her mom passed away and that her Dad deals with it by drinking too much, so she moved back to small town life to look after him and the family store. In turn, Ike tells her that his father wanted him to become a classic musician and his mother wanted him to become a novelist, so he was "oh for two."
The more honest they are about their lives with each other, the more they begin to see larger flaws in their own lives. She realizes that she's been running from marriage because none of her prospective husbands really knew her. She wasn't willing to let her hair down and be herself around them. Instead, she became what they wanted her to be. By the time she got to the altar, she realized she was living a lie and she ran. He realizes that he's just as lost as she is. His first marriage collapsed and he isn't sure why. He's prideful, cynical, critical, and tears others down for the poor choices they make--all the while, he's not willing to take any risks himself.
The movie paints a beautiful picture about the way two people ought to come together. As Ike and Maggie became vulnerable, they opened themselves up to being evaluated by the other person, and evaluate they did. Sometimes it wasn't pretty, but at least it was real. It wasn't based on pretenses. And as often is the case, by being willing to expose their flaws, they found common ground, and ultimately love.
