{"id":4982,"date":"2009-08-25T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-24T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/08\/25\/the-object-of-my-affection\/"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:22:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:22:19","slug":"the-object-of-my-affection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/08\/25\/the-object-of-my-affection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Object of My Affection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-object\" The Object of My Affection<\/a><\/em> (1998) \u2013 on rental. Romantic dramas on film can be pretty formulaic: the two persons typically do not like each other terrifically i.e. the conflict phase first, but from either natural or contrived circumstances will eventually end up together i.e. the coupling ending. With interesting narratives being out of the norm, whether a romantic drama then is of any good depends on the likability of the two leads, both separately and when they\u2019re together and if they\u2019ve got chemistry.<\/p>\n

The Object of My Affection<\/em> is a pretty old romantic comedy, relatively speaking though as it comes from (just) 11 years ago. It stars Jennifer Aniston as Nina, a New York-based social worker and counselor, and Paul Rudd as George, a gay first grade teacher. Aniston was just approaching 30 when this film was made, and she looks positively radiant and adorable (she looks, well, old today). Rudd I haven\u2019t seen much in more recent films, but both persons are in familiar territory judging from both\u2019s filmography. Both are likable, and don\u2019t look or feel awkward with their individual character\u2019s disposition.<\/p>\n

The story revolves around Nina having a somewhat overbearing boyfriend whom she gets pregnant with, but she slowly develops feelings for George \u2013 who as already mentioned above is gay. When you\u2019ve got a setup like this, the story can go both ways: you could get the happy ending, i.e. Gay George gives up gayism and marries Nina. Or you could get the sad ending with both going their separate ways. Affection <\/em>cheats a little: it goes with the very PC route of having George remain gay, but the both still end up being together \u2013 sort of.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the journey towards that ending that\u2019s interesting though. There are two subtypes within the larger genre of romantic dramas: those that are tear jerkers, e.g. anything that\u2019s based off a Nicholas Spark book, or those that are comedic. Affection <\/em>lies somewhere in the middle. There are spots where you\u2019ll get the sniffles, but there\u2019re also a few light comedic moments too.<\/p>\n

The tender moments though are surprising, and they\u2019re mostly at the scenes when George and Nina have to deal with each other\u2019s feelings within all the existing complications of their sexual orientations. These moments don\u2019t feel unnatural or forced, contrived sad music in the film\u2019s soundtrack accompanying the scenes not withstanding.<\/p>\n

Lastly, there\u2019s a couple of faces in the film that I recognize too: The West Wing<\/em> alumnus Alan Alda and Alison Janney show up as a high-powered couple, and Steve Zahn has a minor role too.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

On the overall, it\u2019s a watchable film with two leads that demonstrate enough chemistry that\u2019ll have you rooting for both to be together eventually. That the story and its ending is a little different from the norm\u2019s a bonus.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Object of My Affection (1998) \u2013 on rental. Romantic dramas on film can be pretty formulaic: the two persons typically do not like each other terrifically i.e. the conflict phase first, but from either natural or contrived circumstances will<\/p>\n

Read More The Object of My Affection<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}