I don’t have much to say about The Vicar of Dibley – A Holy Wholly Happy Ending
He falls in love with her at first sight. Which addresses a concern several of us have voiced: there are so many stories of ordinary-looking men with wives who look like supermodels, so where are all the stories of ordinary-looking women with gorgeous men falling for them?
Well, this is one, and the whole story including subplots is really funny and adorable, so I recommend it for all sorts of reasons aside from the fact that it dares to show a non-super-modelly middle-aged woman as worthy of true love and a traditionally hot younger guy as capable of looking right at her and loving what he sees. Without attempts to rationalize or explain it or make excuses. It just is. It’s treated as no more or less remarkable than any meeting of two people who fall in love.
Also, Dawn French jumping into a puddle so deep she completely disappears. Trust me: when you see it, you’ll understand why you needed to.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I know! I watched the first half of this last weekend on PBS, and so badly need to see the second half this weekend. I love Dawn French madly, and I cannot express how happy that episode made me. XD
Tessa(Quote) (Reply)
I rented the dvd of this a couple weeks ago and loved how this part of the storyline was handled for exactly the same reasons. I love Dawn French; she and her equally funny comedy partner Jennifer Saunders have been heroes of mine since I was a kid. On one of the making-of specials on the dvd it was brought up that Dawn insisted that the actor cast as Harry be as good looking as possible. XD And I certainly think that Richard Armitage qualifies!
The puddle gag completely cracked me and my family up, partly because it was a well-done revisit to a similar joke in a previous episode. The whole Apocalypse Now thing as she emerged was great too.
Jenny H.(Quote) (Reply)
Tessa, the second half is at least as good as the first!
Jenny H, French and Saunders are both fantastic in everything they do! It’s interesting that Dawn insisted he had to be gorgeous – she sort of played that off when she talked about him being so great because he agreed to do all the extra kissing she insisted on for practice.
But I think she was being true to the facts most of the film industry is in denial about: that women are visually stimulated, and we do care about looks, and when/if we have over-the-top romantic fantasies about men, they’re always gorgeous.
I just think about the puddle gag every now and then and start chuckling.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I want to know who came up with that poppycock in the first place. Like hell I’m not visually stimulated. It might be a slightly different approach than staring at porn, but me closing my eyes and picturing someone specific is visual. And that’s not to say I don’t have “can’t look away from the hotness” moments with moving and still pictures. LOL, my DVDs are often rewound and paused.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
I always thought it came from the same place as the idea that women don’t have sexual feelings – that we just endure sex (“lie back and think of England”) out of love for the patriarchy. Where that’s coming from… my guess would be men who are terrible in bed, but think they’re entitled to sex anyway. They would need insurance against other men figuring out how to please women and thereby stealing the women away from them. The myth that women are so sweet and innocent and virginal and pure hides the lie in what sounds like an awesome compliment, hence its endurance.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Another thing I like about the Vicar of Dibley was that given the time it was made – at the height of the public furore about female priests, and whether they should exist – the show paid no respect, as far as I saw, to any need for her to “prover her right” to be a vicar.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
That was an aspect of the show I wasn’t even aware of until I saw the DVD extras. Probably deserves a post unto itself.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Back when Ricki Lake was still acting (and fresh off of China Beach, which she was terrific in, btw) and still overweight, she starred in Babycakes (1989) a made-for-TV movie in which she, the fat girl, got the good-looking guy.
It was an average Cinderella story-line, and I don’t remember much about it, other than, she got the boy, not the skinny girl. Actually, looking at her IMDB page, she’s been very active in the acting business – but noticably thinner than she was ten years ago.
Gategrrl(Quote) (Reply)
Cool! I’ll see if I can find and watch that.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)