Like many girlypops with a Netflix/Stan/Disney account and a desperate need to feel something, I am in my romcom era.
In the last couple of weeks I have been binging all my childhood faves — He’s Just Not That Into You (Justin Long pls marry me), 10 Things I Hate About You (the best teen romance movie of all time), She’s The Man (the best comfort movie of all time), The Proposal (I would die for Sandra Bullock). Wow, Shakespeare adaptations really do slap.
However, there are some romcoms I’ve devoured along the way that have aged so badly they’ve gone down like carton of sour milk and made my tummy roil. The worst of these is the devil’s (Adam Sandler) 50 First Dates.
On paper, the premise of the film is cute enough: Lucy (Drew Barrymore, bless her) is a quirky woman with amnesia, who forgets the events of the previous day every time she goes to sleep. Henry (Adam Sandler), who becomes obsessed with her the moment they meet, has to court her again and again because she keeps forgetting she met him.
Too bad this becomes incredibly weird, creepy and nightmarish the moment you give it more than a modicum of thought.
Mainly, Henry — like a freak — decides to use Lucy’s condition against her.
Knowing she won’t remember him the next day, he essentially fine-tunes his character based on information he learns about her on their many “first” dates.
He basically tricks Lucy into thinking their meetings have been chance, or fate, when in reality he meticulously planned their encounters and developed a personality perfectly suited to her.
The two eventually get married and even have a child (!!!), and this ridiculous ending is possible because Henry makes a video every day recapping their lives, which Lucy can watch when she wakes up.
It’s clear to me that this film was written by men, because from a woman’s perspective, this is not so much romantic as it is genuinely scary.
Firstly, imagine finding out that your husband actually planned your romantic chance encounters all along, and essentially targeted and stalked you like prey until you fell in love with him. Imagine knowing that all of your relationship was based on a man’s desire to be with you, and that you’ve had fairly little agency in the grand timeline of your love story.
Then there’s the fact that I’m supposed to believe Lucy and Henry could ever progress to a wedding when Lucy’s side of the relationship resets every day. Every single day, she wakes up not remembering ever meeting Henry. She literally only ever gets to know him for, like, 16 hours, and then it resets.
The power imbalance that sustains their relationship is also concerning: Lucy has to trust that Henry isn’t lying and that she did actually fall in love with him. She has fairly little agency in that sense, and he essentially has become her keeper. It’s giving Rapunzel and Mother Gothel, honestly.
And now, the most insane part of 50 First Dates: Lucy becomes pregnant.
I highly doubt Lucy would have chosen to become pregnant with Henry after knowing him for what she believes to be 16 hours, but even if she did, next-morning-Lucy would have no recollection of that decision.
Of course, we don’t know the backstory for this part, since it’s revealed right at the end of the film that the two share a daughter, but I think we can infer enough to know this would actually be a fucking nightmare in real life.
Imagine waking up, looking at your body, and seeing a giant pregnant belly. Imagine the terror you would feel having no recollection of the sex that led to your pregnancy, of who it was with, of how long you’ve been pregnant, of whether it was even your decision of if you consented.
The issue around consent and bodily autonomy in this movie feels especially unsettling given the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US.
Now that we’re talking about these issues now more than ever, rewatching 50 First Dates is, uh, not fun.
In fact, it’s downright disturbing.
Wish I could erase my own damn memory of this realisation.
Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group
