Widowers in the Movies

****** Movie Spoiler Alert *******

I took my girls to see “Nim’s Island” last week. Good movie overall, but I can’t help to think of how they portray widowers and their families. (something personal here). This is the second recent movie that I’ve seen that has a widower as one of the main characters, the other was “Enchanted”. By the end of both movies the widower dads were attached/married. Hmm, if only real life was that easy.

In “Nim’s Island”, the father hooked up with his daughter’s favorite author. A dad and daughter out in the middle of the ocean, and an agoraphobic author from San Fransisco meet. Wow, that was easy. This was computer dating at its very best (worst?). The daughter seems to set them up too. (Come on girls get your acts in gear… 😉 )

Now all I have to do is set up some sort of research on a south sea island (doesn’t sound too bad), and I will be able to find a future Mrs. Somehow I don’t think things are ever that easy.

And on to “Enchanted”. I enjoyed this movie, and all the ins to other “Disney” shows. Cartoon characters come to life in New York. Of course the beautiful princess meets up with the widower, thanks to his daughter (again, girls, you aren’t working things right!!!). Singing and Dancing ensue. At the end through many trials and of course defeating the “Evil Stepmother”, the widower and princess are together. One happy little family.

Then of course there is another widower meets girl picture. Can anyone say “Sleepless in Seattle”? This time the son of the widower calls up a radio talk show to get dad a wife. Cross country trips occur, and they walk off to what is assumed another happy family, Hollywood style.

I will admit that “Sleepless in Seattle” did a admirable job of actually portraying what a widower goes through, at least if you have enough money to pull up roots, and have the luck and or skill to get another high paying job in another city. Yes, there were many a night that I didn’t sleep, even less than my normal sleepless patterns. Yes, I’ve daydreamed about talking with my late wife. Yes, I had to get up every morning and remind myself to breath. I don’t normally need to remind myself of that anymore, but it was there. There were many things I have gone through that were in that movie. This in itself gets my vote for a good movie. Most movies I’ve seen with widower or widows don’t even touch the problems with losing a spouse. It is for good reason that losing a spouse is on the top of most lists of traumatic life events.

My last question. Why are a lot of movies about hooking up widowers? Doesn’t that fly in the face of all the “Evil Stepmothers” of fairy tale fame?