Oh, Rose and Jack! It's been nearly 16 years, and you still get under my skin. I really do try not to get all sentimental, trust me. I'm normally quite the picture of stoicism. But there's just something about you two that turns me into a weepy-eyed mess. And when you guys say your final farewell on that life raft, well, I'm just a soggy piece of emotional toast.
Yep, I'm talking about “Titanic,” that 1997 blockbuster of a movie that made Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet into household names and turned Celine Dion's “My Heart Will Go On” into a song that will forever live in infamy as the most-overplayed tune in music history. I watched it this weekend and felt those same pangs of woe all over again.
Yes, I know that many critics panned it for its syrupy storyline and somewhat implausible tale of two star-crossed but ill-fated lovers. But, frankly, “Titanic” rocked my boat (no pun intended). I enjoyed the fictional account, to be sure, but what I really enjoyed was how director James Cameron set it all against a historical backdrop that truly was spot-on in its accuracy.
Here's what else I remember about the movie — or, rather, the time in my life when the movie debuted. Unbeknownst to me, I was just two years shy of being Mom to not one but two baby boys. Blissfully ignorant of my soon-to-change-forever life, I flitted about in a gauze of guilty-pleasure living (which, as a recent college grad and married woman entrenched in her career path, meant working out when I wanted, eating at times that suited my schedule and darting to the theater whenever the fancy struck). The words “babysitter” or “What's the best way to wash spit-up off a white shirt?” weren't part of my lexicon. In short, my emotional “trauma” consisted of bawling at movies or biting my nails to the quick when sources wouldn't return my phone-call pleas for last-minute quotes. (I was a newbie reporter at The Business Press, and nothing had me quaking in my Nine Wests more than a blank page to fill on deadline day. Come to think of it, that scenario still gives me the heebie-jeebies.)
Since then, my life has shifted seismically. Children and parenthood and all their attendant responsibilities have a habit of doing that to a person. In some ways, my worries have lessened; in others, they have vaulted. But underneath it all, I'm still the same (sorta sappy) chick. Thanks, Rose and Jack, for reminding me of that.
Now, can you pass me a Kleenex? That last scene is still choking me up.
