The Story of Us (1999)

He wore a rug on his head; she wore a pith helmet. Can this marriage be saved?

The Story of Us (1999)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Written by Alan Zweibel & Jessie Nelson

Tagline: Can Love Last Forever?

Probably not, although the hatred this film arouses seems pretty darn immortal.

Our story begins with Michelle Pfeiffer telling us that everything she ever needed to know about marriage, she learned from Harold and the Purple Crayon. See, her husband Bruce Willis is Harold, she is the person who has to wash the walls, and the crayon seems to be a penis metaphor or something.

Then Bruce flashes back to how he and Michelle first met—he threw paper clips at her, and she countered by donning a pith helmet with a flashing light on top. We now comprehend the root of their marriage problems: he’s abusive and she’s clinically insane.

Now it’s time for a montage of highlights from their fifteen years of fighting, which serves to illustrate Tolstoy’s saying about all happy families resembling each other, but each movie montage being boring in its own way.

In one key sequence, we see how their differing temperaments lead to a lack of communication. Michelle is trying to cope with a flooding washing machine, two kids who are demanding that she mediate their spat, and her husband’s telephone call asking her to get nostalgic with him because the apartment where they first lived—where they “became an us”—is being demolished. Michelle hangs up on him. This scene shows us that Bruce is spontaneous, romantic, and an idiot, while Michelle is practical, diligent, and a shrewish moron. (Note: Those of you who look to the movies to learn how to deal with real life should not follow Michelle’s example. No, this is how you really cope with this situation. First, unplug the washer. Second, order the kids to shut their traps and start mopping. Finally, tell Bruce that you are sorry they are tearing down the apartment, because it was there that you first had an orgasm—with his best friend, Paul Reiser.)

Bruce and Michelle decide to separate while their children are conveniently at Camp Idawannacustody. With the kids away, Bruce can hang out in restaurants with Reiser and Rob Reiner (who must have slept with the director to get the part). Michelle too has her assigned friends, and the loud, ribald banter of both groups teaches us important things about love, marriage, commitment, and the excruciating horror of having loud, ribald friends who think they are funny.

Eventually Bruce drops by the house to pick up his dry cleaning. There are long, lingering shots of Bruce and Michelle’s faces. Apparently, we are supposed to think that Michelle is too beautiful to be alone, and that Bruce’s toupee is really his own hair. The couple ends up in the bedroom, and they engage in foreplay consisting of flashbacks about their various marriage counselors, including one who said that every time they go to bed there are actually six people there: Bruce, Michelle, his parents, and her parents. And then, in a wacky, Woody Allen moment, both sets of parents are in the bed with them! This kind of kills the moment for Michelle. (And understandably so—who could maintain proper lubrication while Red Buttons and Jayne Meadows were watching?) But Bruce is still in the mood, and is annoyed when Michelle won’t put out. “What happened to that fun girl in the pith helmet?” he asks. Michelle replies, “That was Groucho Marx—did you sleep with him too, you pervert?” No, she actually says, “You beat her out of me!” which is even funnier.

Bruce finally comes to the realization that love is just an illusion and that life is rough for white, male, rich people. He seeks counsel from Rob Reiner, who tells him that, “We do not possess butts, but merely fleshy parts at the top of our legs.”

His head brimming with ass-related wisdom, Bruce goes on a vision quest, and has a montage of Michelle crying, fretting, complaining, and shrieking at him. This is a breakthrough for Bruce, who now understands just how great it was to be married to her. He goes home and tells Michelle “Tonight I saw myself through your eyes!” Having learned what a putz she thinks he is, he wants to get back together. The movie could end right there, but it turns out that Michelle has a date with Tim Matheson. Bruce demands a divorce, because he won’t share his wife with the voice of Jonny Quest.

Bruce and Michelle go to pick up their spawn from camp, having agreed to tell the kids that while they are divorcing, they still love each other—“But in a different way.” You know, the way where daddy calls mommy a whore, and mommy tells daddy that he isn’t the kids’ real father. However, Michelle is suddenly hit by the movie’s trailer, a mega-flashback of ironically juxtaposed moments from their entire marriage, set to the music of “Classical Gas.” She is no match for this overwhelming schmaltz, and it causes her to erupt in a five-minute monologue of incoherent nonsense, all done in a squeakily cute voice and without pause for breath, much like Sylvester Stallone’s climactic speech in First Blood. The soliloquy conveys key information, like the location of the Bactine, exactly what did happen to the fun girl in the pith helmet, and how they can’t get divorced because they’re an us! This is enough to mend the rift, so they each say “I love you” and everything is fine! Another marriage saved!

So, how can this movie help you revitalize your marriage to a nagging shrew or a whiny baby? Well, to begin with, if you’re meandering along on connubial cruise control and you happen to hit a patch of black ice, don’t talk about it with your friends. They’ll just respond by being embarrassingly loud and ribald in public, or even worse, will recite Zen koans in an effort to prove that your ass doesn’t exist.

Secondly, while Harold and the Purple Crayon offered Michelle profound truths about her crummy marriage, we think that Bruce’s early exposure to Curious George caused his pith helmet fetish, and so led to his misalliance with Michelle. So, search your own childhood reading material and try to determine if you were betrayed by Dick and Jane into forming unrealistic beliefs about gender roles, family duties, and the amount of running done by dogs.

And finally, men, whenever your gross insensitivity brings your marriage to the brink of separation, don’t try to make up by bringing her flowers or jewelry. Have a montage! According to our focus groups, women can’t resist them.

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