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The champagne flows, and the clock strikes midnight, but those smiles, kisses, inebriated bastardizing of little used Scottish phrases... they're haunted. Each and every one of them. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Who could hum those bittersweet chords, and not wonder if next year will be the same? Better? Worse? Will the recipient of that choice midnight lip-lock fall to the wayside in the months to come? Will we be the same, twelve long moon cycles from now; just as addicted to nicotine, just as carnivorous, Chuck Taylor All Star web-pattern firmly imprinted upon the environment around, roly-poly, exercise-shirking, just as mediocre -- just as we were last year, and the year before that?
For the haunted, the ball drops, the numbers ignite, and inspiration immediately hits.
So much of the media would have us believe this yearn for self-improvement is healthy. Santa no sooner returns to his Christmas Widow wife, when the Campbell's Green Bean Bake ads are replaced by diet formulas and three payment wonders that will alter your brainwaves for the better. Change is not only good, these wallet-manipulating snake oil dealers would have us believe – it's necessary.
So much of the media, that is. Not all of it.
Not the movies.
Change isn't easy; in fact, it's downright exhausting. Swearing off the bottle doesn't take hold by simply christening the bathroom drain with a pint of Jack. There are meetings to go to, pubs to avoid, and explanations ad infinitum. Little wonder the population at large is bellied up to heart shaped troughs, brains basking in bourbon, toting trays full of ash come Valentine's Day. Thankfully, Hollywood doesn't waste time on those people. Normal people. If normal people were subject to change... well, sufficed to say, evolution is a very slow process.
For one, most of us won't be fortuitous enough to be visited by three spirits.
What The Movies Have Shown Us About Drastic Life Change:
Lesson #1:
If one is living their life poorly – so poorly, they are dooming their very soul – they'll know, because a deceased friend will ring them up on Christmas Eve and tell them so. Very helpful, the dead. The amount of therapy dollars the doomed will be spared as another spirit directs them to the root of their problems would be cause for celebration enough, but truly doomed individuals are treated to a smorgasbord of insights."
Question is, why can't we all be afforded such an epiphany? Would the world spin off its axis if we were all over achieving, cripple-loving Christmasholics? Or, is there a deeper lesson to be gleaned? I think it's possible that a delicate ratio of Doom : Potential Good was what prompted the arrival of ghosts Christmas Past and Present to a cheating, cantankerous land baron in the wild west (EBENEZER). The baron was as shocked as anyone else when his heart began to do more than simply push blood around all day. So... hope for the doomed. Isn't that always the way?
Lesson #2:
"Change may seem like a swell idea – but the trappings of a more enjoyable existence are just that: TRAPPINGS. Be mindful of the fine print."
Such was the case to one, Arthur Hamilton. In John Frankenheimer's 1966 cult classic, SECONDS, amid tenuous organ music and unsettling camera angles, the character of Hamilton chucks his lackluster existence -- dead-end job, uninteresting wife and all – in exchange for a thrilling new life. The mysterious company's offer was more than enticing. Upon his orchestrated death, an insurance policy would be utilized to provide for his family, and foot the bill of Arthur's plastic surgery immersion. Arthur became Tony Wilson, played swimmingly by Rock Hudson (and what penis-bearing human wouldn't chuck their life for a chance to look like that).
Problem with faking your death and undergoing extensive plastic surgery is no one will know you still exist. If no one knows you exist, there is no safety net. Inevitably, the doldrums of life you abhorred suddenly won't seem quite so awful.
Lesson #3:
"Mastering a new pattern of speech, and a laundry list of manners will only snag you a fellow who looks like Rex Harrison."
It's true.
MY FAIR LADY proves it.
So, Audrey Hepburn undergoes a radical de-Cockney-ization, only to fall for the scheming, arrogant, not-so-charming dandy that set her on the path to ladylike behavior in first place. On a bet.
Best to just stick with 'airing your h's, eating with your hands – and find yourself a stud.
Lesson #4:
"You can take a gal to 
Work at a bank, or look like Rock Hudson... work at a bank, or look like... |
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Paris, but you can't put the neighbor boy in the girl."
Or: "Before getting all crazy with the changes, chance a trip to the beauty parlor. It's entirely possibly all one needs is tweezed eyebrows, a new hairdo and some contact lenses in order to land not the one they want – but someone *better* than the one they think they want."
Just as those nimble schoolchildren did in the "Duck and Cover" reels, Audrey Hepburn may have been trying to teach us something. Spades more useful than shielding one's head with a nearby textbook to curb nuclear fallout, Audrey's plan remains promising; just because you're a chauffeur's daughter doesn't mean you can't go abroad for a couple of years and be transformed into the smooth sophisticate that will woo the bosses son(s). In SABRINA, Hepburn couldn't quite pry David from her mind. Attaining the object of one's desires, it turns out, isn't very difficult. However, Hollywood maintains the person of one's desires might not always be the optimal choice. Apparently, while looking up to a person, people are inclined to acknowledge only a slice of the person. Once you get to know the whole, it's a much less arousing package – and you should have simply fallen in love with your best friend in the first place and not wasted good money on an unnecessary haircut.
Lesson #5:
"Don't take the above Clark Kent-to-Superman transformations lightly! By far, the only category of life alteration enthusiasts who stand a chance in hell of achieving success are the ones who need only lose the dork hair to become a fabulous looking person."
Though in CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) needed considerably more alteration than a new hairdo – the wishful thinking geek was in dire need of a new wardrobe, as well – once altered, Miller was able to breeze past the wrong girl, and straight into the arms of the one he should have chosen in the first place.
Lesson #6:
"Even if you're some mega-rich rock 'n' roll star -- even if you make certain you have a return clause in writing -- drastic change will only result in your trailer exploding, the contract turned to embers – and the rest of your days doomed to wither by in a nursing home, your only friend some nutty black guy who fancies himself JFK."
Hey, it happened to Elvis.
( BUBBA HO-TEP)
Lesson #7:
"You can strategize, and pumice-ize – but ultimately, your fate will be decided upon by the most unlikely urine specimen attendant."
Vincent Freeman wanted to change his destiny. In the future, however, genetics are genetics, and there's no way around them. Unless, of course, you're willing to break your legs and stretch the bones a few inches, in the process of assuming the identity of a genetic superior. What GATTACA taught us is the fallible nature of any plan, and to be as mindful of that fact, as we are to being kind to the little people on our way up – because those are the bastards who know the most dirt.
Lesson #8:
"Taking measures to better oneself is not proof positive of sanity."
When her lover fails to perform in bed one night, nutty little Seh-hee decides to transform herself into a new, more sexually interesting person, via extensive plastic surgery without letting her boyfriend in on the plot. It might lead you to think women are crazy (you're right), but that would mean you haven't seen SHI GAN (TIME) (which you really should).
If stark raving can be construed as altruism, then perhaps Seh-hee's motives weren't ill placed. Problem with crazy though, is its both combustible and contagious nature.
Lesson #9:
"Change isn't synonymous with erase. Once something is there, it remains there – even if the new people you've surrounded yourself with can't see it."
Cronenberg was nice enough to point this out to all of us. In A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, Tom Stall is minding his café when some gangbangers burst in, and Tom swiftly bursts a coffeepot over one of their heads. And that, folks, is all it takes to bring years of painstaking change to a screaming, shooting, mob-laden halt.
Three payment wonder programs be damned!
When staggering individuals at the bar Monday night slap you on the shoulder and inquire as to your resolutions, bellow, "no!" and run. Run away. Run straight to the bartender, run to have a smoke outside, run over to the nearest Krispy Kreme and bang on the windows until they pummel you with glazed doughnuts.
If you don't, you'll wish you had.
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