We picked this because we were tired and it’s the shortest Best Picture Winner, but we were so glad we did! It kept us awake and interested and chatting long into the night! If there were one word to describe “Marty” it would have to be charming. Just charming.
It’s a simple story of two lonely people defying societal expectations, familial pressures and their own pasts to find happiness with each other; not because their families are at war, or one is from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ or has some hideous disability, but just because they’re both kind of ordinary looking and have faced rejection far too many times. One of my favourite lines comes from Marty himself and sums up the feeling of the two main characters before they meet, “You don't get to be good-hearted by accident. You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain.”
We follow their first date and watch as they gently encourage each other to come out of their respective shells and face life again. Then we see their struggles as they try and break out of the roles their families have happily but innocuously kept them in for so long; changing one part of any system will always necessitate change in the rest of the system, but those systems can be mighty resistant!
This is a beautiful, simple and charming movie that was a lot of fun to watch (despite the occasional cringe factor as Marty clumsily tries to compliment his new friend “You know, us dogs aren't really so much of the dogs that we think we are.”) and an odd and (through modern eyes) seemingly misogynistic outburst from Marty 2/3rds of the way in.
Overall I scored it 83% and Mat gave it, 76/100. We’d recommend this to anyone who has ever doubted they deserve to be loved or questioned if they would ever really find it.
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