Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 24-September-06
Spoiler Rating: High

Roman Holiday (1953)

One of my favorite storylines is the one about two people who meet unexpectedly and brighten each other's life without the encumbrance of happily ever after. Because really, how often do you meet a person who will share the road with you forever? Most encounters are fleeting, and the happily-ever-after ones get a disproportionate amount of press. Besides, they're what everyone walks around dreading, pining for, or otherwise anticipating. Isn't it refreshing, if not downright romantic, to think that some encounters can have a momentous impact — to teach, to inspire, to guide — even if they don't outlive a week? It's a wonderful basis for a story. And whenever I need an example of such, I always think of Roman Holiday.

William Wyler's classic gets everything right: the scenery, the dialogue, the acting, and, most of all, the way the script exerts an emotional pull without yielding to standard conclusions. It's notable that the authentic setting, which the studio boasts up front, doesn't feel like the point of the film; in fact, the story would resonate just as much someplace else. It centers around a young princess (Audrey Hepburn in her Oscar-winning debut) and a seasoned reporter (the flawless Gregory Peck) who come together under improbable circumstances and beguile, bedazzle, and better each other during one unforgettable day. A day of sightseeing and gelati and brawls and kisses which lead to nothing beyond a magnificent roadside attraction.

The particulars and outcomes of their meeting blend drama with comedy. For Princess Anne, it represents a passage to the maturity required of her station. During an exhausting tour of Europe, she becomes hysterical one evening and, after being given a sedative, escapes her gilded cage for a lark on the streets of Rome. The reporter finds her draped over a fountain and with some confusion (and extremely well-done slapstick) takes her home to sleep it off. For him, the adventure begins as reluctant charity but shifts to a lucrative con. Having found out who she is, he decides to milk the situation for all its worth, to which end he enlists a photographer friend played affably by Eddie Albert. But eventually his motivation shifts back to kindness, this time deliberate. Like the princess, he grows up because of their connection, although to what purpose it's not as easy to tell.

As the highest form of escapism, Roman Holiday offers visual and imaginative delights, but it also offers more: a picture of lives intersecting in ways both ephemeral and full of meaning. Poets and philosophers have speculated that beauty derives from impermanence. Stories like this prove in technicolor that they're right.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.