Guess Who

I just watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the original, not the Bernie Mac redo which was silly though I think it made me laugh.

I'd never seen the film before, but it was pretty special. The premise is simple, set in 1967 a white girl brings her brand new, black fiancé back to meet her "liberal" parents for the first time. As new people keep meeting the couple, everyone has a different reaction. It's rather funny, quite a bit 60s, and it has good things to say about people and their prejudices or lack thereof.

Every character was good. Except the couple acted a little silly sometimes. The writing was top notch and Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn are totally ace.

In the end I think the couple needed a good shellacking, not for being mixed race, but for meeting 10 days earlier and wanting to fly to Geneva and get married the very night they meet the parents. And Dr John is 37 and smart, you'd think he might think waiting at least a few months would be a good idea. But as Spencer tells us "The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt, that's everything."

Love wins in the end. I wish someone had said, "love waits" but hey, it's still Hollywood. But despite that, see the film, it's quality. There's a priest in it, and he's funny, and honest, and wise, and loving, and when I get old I want be like him.