50 First Dates is two movies in one. The first movie is your typical Adam
Sandler train wreck. You hate it, but you can't stop watching. Sandler is Henry
Roth, a veterinarian in Hawaii who is a regular Don Juan with tourists. He loves
Œem Œtil they leave him, and that just fine with him.
Typical of Sandler's mindless matter, he surrounds himself with an assortment of
oddball characters. His androgynous veterinary assistant is the target for a
projectile vomiting attack from a surprisingly gifted walrus. Most of the first
half of the movie is but a sad vehicle for juvenile humor--Sandler's success,
after all, comes from a certain target audience and he knows it. Then there's Rob
Schneider--seems it's not a Sandler flick without the tasteless talentless Mr.
Schneider--in this case he plays a Hawaiian with a bad eye, an ugly mouth, and
extreme poor taste. To suggest Schneider is offensive to Hawaiians only begins
to tell the tale, this man is so creepy it makes your skin crawl. Schneider is
offensive to humanity.
So the first part of the movie left me wondering how en earth I would ever make
it to the end. Then everything turns around. Sandler is sailing off Hawaii's
Windward coast near Kualoa when he is forced ashore by boat
trouble. He seeks assistance in diner, where he is blinded by the beautiful Lucy
Whitmore (played by Drew Barrymore). Henry is immediately smitten with Lucy, even
though he knows dating a local girl means trading in his life of one-night
stands. Or does it? Lucy has short-term memory loss, the result of a car
accident. She can remember everything about her life until the accident, but
every morning since the wreck, she wakes up and cannot remember the events of the
previous day.
Henry spends every day trying to pick up Lucy. Bill Murray did it better in
Groundhog's Dog, when he was caught in a weird time warp. But Lucy's condition is
permanent and as Henry falls for her, he realizes he will need incredible
ingenuity to try to build a life with a girl who can't remember who he is.
Just as Henry discards his playboy persona, so 50 First Dates trades up from a
vehicle for tasteless humor to a poignant little film about the difficulties of
romance. It is quite touching to watch Henry's attempts to help Lucy cope with
her peculiar disability and still enjoy the rich rewards life can offer.
By the end of 50 First Dates, I actually felt no regret at having given 96
minutes of my life to Adam Sandler and his somewhat loveable film.
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