Date Night

The second film in my all-day Columbia City Cinema Fest, and a charming comedy relief between two Very. Serious. Films.

It doesn't really make it as an action film -- I don't think anyone expected it to -- but plenty of little moments are there for the taking. The reason we're pulling for Phil and Claire is not necessarily because we identify with them, but because we see how they identify with each other, which is much more important. We see Phil come home and slouch into himself without acknowledging his wife, but we also see them entertaining each other at a restaurant when Claire, at Phil's request, makes up outlandish imaginary conversations between nearby strangers.

The idiosyncrasies and personal flaws of others, which we sometimes carry as boredom or annoyance, are also the very key to our connections with each other, and as demonstrated here, a source of comfort when the rest of the world is going to hell.

Plus, I would crawl over melted, Ebola-infected shards of glass atop an undersea oil gusher, just to see Tina Fey deliver lines like this:

"If we're gonna pay this much for crab it better sing and dance and introduce us to the Little Mermaid!"