'10': Two sides of the same Susan B. Anthony dollar

From our class assignment, October, 5, 2010:

"Although all of the characters [in '10'] have slightly more modern profiles, I would argue that Dudley Moore's character is a bit of a hopeless romantic. The oldest stories always involve a man who is just wandering through life until he sees the woman of his dreams. Typically, he would woo her and they would live happily ever after- after he redeems himself for some hi-jinks gone awry in the course of winning her affection. Moore, however, never entirely possesses Bo Derek before he is able to have her. In fact, he doesn't at all. She comes to him, and then he realizes that she is not all she is cracked up to be. He realizes that the woman he is really in love with, Julie Andrews, is the right woman for him. Of course Andrews is not some docile female who waits at Moore's beckoned call; she is a strong female that, although she loves and cares for Moore, does not put up with his shit, so to speak.

Both women in the film are very much in their time, Andrews being a modern woman and a positive product of the women's rights movement. Derek is more of a product of the '60s counterculture, free love and marijuana use. This, I would argue, resists typical "romance." Formulaically, one of the females that Moore has to choose from would welcome him back with open arms. While Andrews does take him back, she does not have to change herself for him. He realizes how lucky he was all along and instead of her being grateful, she kind of says, 'yep, I told you so.'

Extra Credit: Wow! Great haircut, Prof. Wexler!"


I can never hear Bolero de Ravel the same way again.