Review of An Affair to Remember (1957) by Ben L — 12 Feb 2016

A movie with such a simple premise has no right being this good. I mean, this film is literally a bare bones romance about 2 people who are already spoken for meeting on vacation and falling in love. Sure there'a a little more to the story, but not much.

Yet, despite the plot's simplicity, the scripting of the dialogue in this film is in another world of quality. It seems that nearly every single scene there are at least a dozen lines where the character doesn't really mean what they are saying.

The brilliance of An Affair to Remember is that it does something that is extremely rare nowadays...it trusts us to understand the subtext in the dialogue without spelling it all out. I miss seeing films that thought I was smart enough to follow them without needing my hand held.

But none of this would work without the incomparable Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Some of this dialogue beats around the bush so much that if you read it typed out the conversation would have a completely different meaning than you find when watching the scenes with these 2 brilliant actors.

They know how to act with subtle innuendo without blatantly winking at the camera. Admittedly, because this film has such a simple plot thread, it can be a bit tedious watching them drag it out to 2 hours.

I think there are definitely scenes that could be trimmed, but even with the extra fat in there I find An Affair to Remember to be an amazingly charming film. Every time I've watched it I end up approaching tears and getting that warm fuzzy feeling only stories about true love can deliver.