#202 An Affair To Remember Onboard a ship bound for New York, soon to be married playboy Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) meets also soon to be married Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) and both fall head over heels in love with each other. Unable to be together initially, they decide upon reuniting six months after disembarking the boat at the top of the Empire States Building, minus their respective partners and with some form of job. Will they be together again in six months or with some unknown force keep them apart? This is one of those films you hear lofted as the greatest romance film of all time or a love for the ages. I was not buying it. The first 40 minutes to an hour we quite enjoyable, watching them try to fight the urge to be together and the whole section with Ferrant's grandmother was quite lovely to watch but as soon as they got off the boat this film dragged its heels for the rest of the run time. It might just be that I thought the reasons for not having them together in the 2nd act was really stupid (killing the atmosphere/immersion for me) or the fact that both of the previous fiances just sort of accepting being cast off, but the latter hour of the film was a slog to get through. They take 10 minutes of this movie just to watch a choir of the cutesy-est little ragamuffin children sing in two separate scenes. Seriously, 10 minutes is just watching kids sing. It's down right sickly to watch and such a blatant attempt to make one of the characters even more wholesome than they were to begin with. On top of this I didn't buy the love. It was building to it on the boat but there is just too quickly a change from flirting and 'maybe I will/maybe I won't' to 'she is my sun and my moon, without her the day has no meaning' especially given his playboy attitude and her seeming fealty to a 5 year relationship. It never reached the point where it earned the level of schmaltz it was piling on this thing by the end. I don't know what it was about the latter half of this film but it just rubbed me right up the wrong way. It's probably only specific to me but I really just did not like how this film progressed at all. Despite all I've said however, the first half was enjoyable and if you can buy into the relationship/drama of the whole thing, and take all the cheesiness with it, then this might be worth a watch. For me it was not and as such I cannot recommend it at all. 1/5 What is it with me lately giving all these classics horrible scores and mediocre to bad films a pass for some reason?
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