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- REVIEWS, Page 78CINEMAThe Frog Princess
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- By RICHARD CORLISS
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- TITLE: PRELUDE TO A KISS
- DIRECTOR: Norman Rene
- WRITER: Craig Lucas
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- THE BOTTOM LINE: This adaptation of a Broadway hit is a
- heartbreaking fable of love and loss -- and love triumphant.
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- Will you still love me, darling, when I'm old and gray?
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- Of course, my forever.
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- Really? Then watch this.
-
- (Poof! The beloved is old and gray.)
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- Fairy tales are for children; adults usually have to
- settle for metaphors. But Craig Lucas knows that for grownups
- a fable can have the impact of a first kiss -- every bit as
- beautiful, seductive, haunting.
-
- The works of this wonderful writer (the plays Reckless and
- Blue Window, the screenplay Longtime Companion) pirouette
- impishly on themes as deep as the earth. His pieces begin as
- modern sophisticated comedies with the brisk banter of
- naturalism; then they spiral into tragedy and, finally,
- liberation from fears of madness, isolation, death. But not
- until his 1990 play, Prelude to a Kiss, did Lucas find the
- perfect blend of style and subject. The combatants here are the
- human body and the human urge to love. The first is impermanent,
- the second imperishable. For once an ad line gets the sense of
- a movie: "If you can't believe your eyes, trust your heart."
-
- Peter (Alec Baldwin) and Rita (Meg Ryan) have a love too
- good to be true. He is sensible and cute; she is vague and
- cute. "Let's get married," he says, almost as soon as he meets
- her. "O.K.," she says. On their wedding day, an anonymous old
- man (Sydney Walker) gives Rita a congratulatory kiss . . . and
- things start to go sour. On their honeymoon, she doesn't drink;
- Rita was a Dewar's girl. Before, she was forgetful; now she is
- an amnesiac. Suddenly she is fastidious in her lovemaking. To
- Peter, Rita seems another person. Isn't everyone, really, when
- the musk of courtship has evaporated and people stop playing at
- being their most attractive selves?
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- After an uncertain start, director Norman Rene (a valued
- collaborator on all of Lucas' projects) finds a sure, subtle
- rhythm that honors both the script's delicacy and the boisterous
- demands of a date-night movie audience. Baldwin, who breathed
- this role so naturally in the play's off-Broadway stint that no
- one else needed apply for the movie version, is a terrific guide
- through Peter's decent bafflement. Ryan, new to the part, must
- work hard to get under Rita's skin, which she does beautifully
- at about the time someone else invades it. And Walker, a stage
- veteran, has the knack of expressing despair and ecstasy with
- the sag of a jaw, the wink of a smile. He is a priceless gift in
- a dowdy package.
-
- Which is Lucas' moral. Inside every frog, he suggests,
- there is a princess held in bondage. Inside every princess is
- the clock of decay, which ticks remorselessly until she loses
- her looks, her grace, everything but her love -- you can read
- that in the eyes. In Peter's eyes too. They course with anger
- when he feels he has lost Rita; they moisten in awe when he
- finds his love in a most unexpected place.
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- Hurry up; the film opened last Friday. You're late
- already, but so lucky the rapture of Prelude to a Kiss awaits
- you.
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