I watched a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie last night that I actually kind of liked. It was called Remember Sunday. It was about a man named Gus who had the same sort of problem that the Drew Barrymore character had in the movie 50 First Dates:
every day, he forgot what took place the day before, while still
keeping his long-term memories from before the accident that caused his
condition. Gus is developing a romantic relationship with a sweet
waitress named Molly, but each day he has to remind himself of who Molly
is through notes and recordings that he made of their conversations.
While the movie sounds like 50 First Dates, it is actually quite different. In 50 First Dates,
the Adam Sandler character is trying to romance the Drew Barrymore
character. She is the object of a man's affections, and she doesn't
really struggle with her condition; rather, it's the Adam Sandler
character who faces challenges as he tries to woo her! In Remember Sunday,
Gus is trying to develop a relationship with Molly even though he knows
that he will forget her the next day, and he wonders if Molly would
reject him were she to learn of his condition. As Gus' ex-fiancee tells
Molly later in the movie, Gus is capable of having children; he just
won't remember who they are each day. The movie did a good job
detailing the hell that Gus was going through in terms of his condition:
not being able to become intimate with new friends or to learn new
things (Gus was a scientist prior to his accident).
I tend to admire people who stick by the person they love, whatever that person is going through. I think of Adam Sandler in 50 First Dates, or the James Garner character in the movie The Notebook. When I watched the movie Sybil,
in which Sally Field played a woman who had multiple personalities, I
was disappointed that the person who was romancing her did not stick by
her. I was hoping he was better than that, that he would be that
special kind of person.
In Remember Sunday,
it's not always clear that Molly is that special kind of person. She
seems to be at first, but later she leaves the relationship, perhaps
because she questions whether she truly has what it takes. But she
comes back to Gus when she is looking at a meteor falling in the sky and
remembers a conversation that they had about astronomy. She realizes
that she loves him and that she wants to have a relationship with him, whatever
his condition might be.
At times, when I
have watched movies on the Hallmark Channel, I've noticed
inconsistencies in the plot that spoil the whole movie. I won't list
examples, since I don't clearly remember them right now. But I'm just
saying this as a launch-pad to my next point: there was one
inconsistency that the movie could have done without. Gus was planning
to ask Molly to marry him, and he left a note to himself about this on
his computer, which Molly erased. At the same time, Gus told Molly
that, if an operation did not work out for him, she should get out of
his life, since she deserved so much better. Which was it? Did Gus
want to marry Molly, or did he want to condition the relationship on
whether or not his condition got cured?
The
movie was pretty good in terms of humor. For example, Gus has a best
friend, who gets frustrated because he has to remind Gus each day that
he (the friend) and his wife got a divorce. The movie was also good at
depicting the struggles that many people face: having to pay back one's
student loans, having hopes and dreams, etc. Molly ends up inheriting a
bunch of money (or, more accurately, she gets the money that was hers
from the sale of her aunt's house), but would be that everyone were that
fortunate!
The characters were quite
likable. There was Gus, with his bumbling quality. There was Molly,
who was cute and sweet. There was Gus' devoted sister. I'm not
surprised to find out that these actors are fairly well-established.
The guy who played Gus is the star of the TV show Chuck, which I have not seen, but which others have told me is good. And I've read that his character on Chuck is himself rather nerdy! Molly is played by Alexis Bledel, who has been on The Gilmore Girls and had a brief span of time on Mad Men (she is actually engaged to the guy who plays Pete Campbell on Mad Men). And Gus' sister was played by Merritt Wever, who was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the series, Nurse Jackie.
Of course, there have been established actors who have played in some
pretty bad movies, so having established actors does not necessarily
make a movie good. But, in my opinion, they did a good job in Remember Sunday. I doubt that the movie will get nominated for any Emmys, as happened with the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie My Name is Bill W. But I'm glad that I taped and watched Remember Sunday last night.