When Bruce married Michelle in this Rob Reiner comedy.
Bruce Willis revisited an iconic character this past weekend who ISN’T John McClane when he returned to the role of David Dunn from 2000’s Unbreakable in M. Night Shyamalan’s follow-up, Glass. It’s Willis’s most high-profile film in years as he, Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy reprise their respective characters from the far out world the one-of-a-kind filmmaker began crafting so many years ago. Response to the film has been mixed to say the least, but as always, Shyamalan’s vision remains fully his own and Willis seems more than happy to once again join him on the journey.
Between Unbreakable and 1999’s The Sixth Sense, Willis has a lot to owe Shyamalan for keeping him interested and exciting to watch as an actor in the late 90s/early 00s when the likes of Mercury Rising, The Seige and The Whole Nine Yards failed to do just that. One sparkling exception during this period, was the Rob Reiner-directed romantic comedy The Story of Us, which ironically ended up being one of his most reviled despite the fact that it shows Willis at both his most playful and genuine.
In The Story of Us, Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer play Ben and Katie Jordan, a Southern California couple whose 15-year marriage has come to an impasse. After the two say goodbye to their children for the summer, Ben and Katie immediately separate with the former taking up residence at a hotel. As the summer progresses, the pair try to adjust to their lives alone while reflecting on the various ups and downs which have made up the past they’ve shared, and what it means for their future.
The Story of Us cannot and does not forget its romantic comedy roots, especially in a movie directed by Rob Reiner. Yet thankfully, nearly all of the film’s gags are rooted in the kind of real-life situations which longtime couples would find funny, even if they were the only ones. A sequence featuring Ben and Katie on vacation in Italy sees them continuously trapped by a loud, obnoxious fellow American couple (Bill Kirchenbauer and Lucy Webb) who follow them from cathedrals, to seaside views to a dinner which sees our heroes playing hangman under the table. Tensions Ben and Katie have about attending marriage counseling is offset by a string of uncharacteristic shrinks including one who excuses himself to the men’s room every five minutes. “The guy is peeing on our time,” Ben whispers to Katie, and another with a large birthmark in the shape of California on his forehead. “This separation and anxiety, what triggers it; first thing that comes to your mind,” he asks the couple. “Sacramento,” replies Ben. “Governor Gray Davis,” adds Katie. The Story of Us also takes slightly experimental chances with its humor. When one marriage counselor suggests that there are actually six people in the bedroom (meaning the subconscious influence of each person’s parents), Katie’s parents (Tom Poston and Jayne Meadows) and Ben’s parents (Red Buttons and Betty White) turn up as magical figments visible only to the audience. As the couples begin arguing about the state of their kids’ marriage, their sentiments are echoed by Ben and Katie in one of the movie’s most involving and entertaining scenes.
Still, Reiner doesn’t waste the opportunity in asks some very real questions throughout The Story of Us, and does so in the most refreshing way; namely by not DIRECTLY asking them. One of the strongest examples of this is a fight between the couple when it’s revealed to Katie that Ben has been confiding in another woman about their marital troubles, which the former considers a betrayal. The scene progresses with Ben insisting he has no deep-seeded feelings for the woman and Katie claiming his actions are reminiscent of a sort of intimacy she believed was their’s alone. The Story of Us shows its audience that it’s eager to discuss these and other problems a couple such as Katie and Ben would face after being together for so long through internal voice-over narration and especially in the device of having the central couple deliver various anecdotes and frustrations directly into the camera. Breaking the fourth wall, but remaining in character, the pair deliver a number of thoughts and theories regarding what is actually the movie’s own tagline: “Can a marriage survive 15 years of marriage?”
A movie dealing with such a specific turning point in holy matrimony cannot do so without the right script to tell its story and explore the various ideas it sets out to make sense of. Screenwriters Alan Zweibel and Jessie Nelson know this and insert dialogue that manages to be both clever while also poignant, beginning with the moment early on after Ben and Katie have dropped off their kids and are about to part ways. “Isn’t this the moment where one of us is supposed to say: ‘Look, this is ridiculous, we love each other, all couples go through this, let’s give it another try,’” Ben asks his silent, solemn wife. At other times, the script dissects the state of the fractured marriage through its characters, such as Katie observing the darker changes that befall a husband and a wife after so many years. “I think the loudest silences are the ones filled with everything that’s been said, said wrong, said 300 times; until fighting becomes the condition rather than the exception,” she says via narration. “Suddenly without even knowing it, it becomes the language of the relationship and your only option is a silent retreat to neutral corners,” she adds.
The beauty of watching both Willis and Pfeiffer here is how they both let down the kinds of acting guards many of their previous characters have forced them to put up. Willis gets a chance to engage in a lightheartedness as Ben in a way he really hadn’t since his Moonlighting days, while also managing an emotional availability that’s lovely to watch. When Ben realizes that he actually wasn’t as present as he should have been when Katie needed her partner, he goes to their front door and tells her : “Tonight I saw myself through your eyes; and I’m sorry.” It’s one of the truest moments Willis EVER put to film. Pfeiffer meanwhile gets to exercise her specific brand of embraceable cuteness and mix it with a real sense of longing, striking a perfect balance and helping The Story of Us establish the right kind of tone it needs in order to function. “You like who we were,” Katie tells Ben after the pair’s post-separation trial dinner has ended disastrously. “You can’t possibly like who we’ve become.” The leads are backed by some ace supporting players. Aside from the four pros playing their parents are Rita Wilson, Paul Reiser, Julie Haggerty and even Reiner himself turn up as the couple’s various friends.
Reviewers weren’t kind to The Story of Us when the movie was released in October of 1999, with many feeling the whole exercise was no more than an excuse to pair two movie stars together for what some saw as just another fluffy comedy. The resulting write-ups made the movie one of the lowest-rated in the careers of Willis, Pfeiffer and Reiner. By all accounts, audiences should have been the ones who responded well to the movie, giving it the love absent from the critical media. Yet the general public wasn’t interested in seeing two high-profile names pretend to have marital woes, making the movie a bona fide flop.
In all fairness, The Story of Us doesn’t do itself any favors with the sheen it possesses not just in its stars or the polished fictional world the movie places them in, which includes a serene Eric Clapton score. But there’s also no denying the purity of the material and its efforts to talk about who Ben and Katie really are. There’s an endearing factor when the film’s reaches its conclusion and we see a melancholic Katie gazing at Ben while they drive to pick up their returning kids, whom they intend to break the news of their divorce to. As we journey through a wonderfully composed montage featuring a collage of instances from Ben and Katie’s marriage, we realize the film’s the movie’s greatest virtue. It’s about the moments, both big and small that linger because they mattered in the creation of a life shared between two people. The Story of Us honors these moments by playing them for truth first and laughs second, making sure to do right by the characters all the way through. It’s not the greatest stretch to look at the movie as a companion to Reiner’s classic romantic offering When Harry Met Sally. Maybe this was something the director was conscious of and perhaps why we don’t spend a lot of time with Katie and Ben prior to seeing them as husband and wife. We’ve already seen that movie about the complexities of modern-day courtship. The Story of Us is about what comes after.
