to know it is to love it

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2000)

This movie is an absolute masterpiece, with both heart and deep, cynical intelligence. Of course it's contrived. that's part of the joke. It's the most beautiful and romantic film ever, but has an utterly black heart. That's why, like the ups and downs of the human heart, it's as much comic as it is tragic. The ending is perfect precisely because it is such a cop-out, leaving us as (and Scotty) just as stranded over the abyss as we were at the beginning. To love this movie you have to understand it. And if you don't, well, go watch North By Northwest with the other children.