My "Review" Will Go Completely Against The Grain

Rating: 2/10 (16 February 2005)

This is a formulaic "chick flick" with the interesting twist that it doesn't focus SOLELY on the "passion" of young love but does show that love can endure. I appreciate that as far as it goes.
However, as the father of a teenage girl (now 15) trying to rear her with values in this valueless world of "sex, lies and DVD," I must protest.
Above all, young women (at least) AND young men with any integrity whatsoever did NOT behave this way in the 1930s and 40s. Such unbridled passion leading immediately to sexual gratification occurred seldom. Usually it was the young woman who, by virtue of cultivated modesty and a sense of personal worth, refused to put herself in such a predicament.
Certainly "stuff happens," but this was NOT a typical story. The idea that a young woman, regardless of her depth of emotion, would immediately throw herself into bed with her Summer romance--not to mention one she had not seen for years--is just not reality.
Could it happen? Yes. Would it have happened? HIGHLY unlikely. In those days, a woman had far, far too much to lose in such a scandal.
This was a matter of taking modern sensibility--where "love" equals "sexual passion"--and projecting it into the past, ignoring all the mores and sensibilities of that era. I repeat: It Is Just Not Realistic that a "mature romance" would result from such a shameful act.
So, it's only a movie, right? Well, my daughter viewed this with her older, married sister, and was so taken with the story. This is the way that young girls are gulled into believing this dark lie: That "love means giving yourself to 'him' when the opportunity presents itself."
Meanwhile we have our present-day dilemma, of illicit sexual relations between children with no thought of consequence, risking unwanted pregnancy, abortion, emotional trauma and low self-worth, all because these things are depicted as "part of romance". It is NOT reality, and it is reckless.
This illustrates all too clearly the widening gulf between "Real America" and Hollywood--and why Hollywood has done so much over the last generation to help destroy traditional values and land us in the mess we're in today.
In 1999, 79% of all births to women aged 15 to 19 were to unmarried women, compared with about 14% in the 1940s and 1950s (SOURCE: Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States, 1940-1999. National Vital Statistics Reports, 2000). Think of that: Even with contraception AND ABORTION available today, the RATE of unmarried teenage pregnancy coming to full term is more than FIVE TIMES what it was in the time period depicted in this movie.
What do you think that irresponsible film-making of this kind has contributed to that problem?
If you are the parent of a teenager: What messages are you sending to your sons and daughters by your support of films such as these?