Only You

Only You is a 1994 romance by Norman Jewison about the apparent climax of life for one Miss Faith Corvatch. Ever since she was a kid she has been obsessed with finding a man, romance and her soulmate. In Faith's case, she believes her soulmate is a man she's never met named Damon Bradley. Why? Well, his name keeps coming up on Ouija boards, at fortune tellers and so on. Faith is now and adult, a school teacher and getting married to a boring ole podiatrist. A few days before her wedding, while she's trying on wedding gowns, she answers a call from a friend of her fiancee, wherein he tells her he can't make it to the wedding, best of luck, but he'll be in Italy. His name? Damon Bradley. She flips, literally starts having an emotional freak out and immediately grabs her best friend, goes to the airport and boards a plane for Italy. She's still in her gown.

She then finds, so she thinks, Damon Bradley. Problem is, just as she's about to take him to bed after falling head over heals for him, she discovers he's not Mr. Bradley at all. He's just some guy, played quite likabley by Robert Downey Jr, who heard her going on about Damon Bradley and impersonated him because he felt he was in love at first sight with Faith. The rest of the movie is him convincing her that he is the one and not this Damon guy. The podiatrist is never mentioned again, poor schmuck.

This movie was downright offensive. Faith is portrayed as a shallow, man crazy idiot. She gets literally hysterical trying to find this guy that's she's never met because, why, because she's a girl? Because girls are all dumbstruck googly eye'd saps whose hearts melt like butter on a hot sidewalk at the very mention of romance? Offensive. It's not that women can't be portrayed as softhearted romantics, but Faith has no subtlety whatsoever. Take Cher from Moonstruck or Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally and dial the subtlety back until you arrive at a 10-year-old fan in the late 80's at a New Kids on the Block concert. And what's worse is this is Jewison we're talking about who brought us such fantastic flicks as Moonstruck, The Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof and, my favorite, The Statement. This movie sucked from start to finish. Skip it and go rent one of the many fantastic hits Jewison has created in the past and skip this major miss.

U