After watching Jerry Maguire, I began to contemplate the under lying message of love that the film portrays. At first, I felt the film was very idealist in terms of its execution of character relations and love. However, as I finished the film I began to slowly change my point of view of the whole film’s view of love, though I must admit that I belief that the film examines love in three different angles.
The film first introduces Tom Cruise and his soon to be wife, Kelly Preston. We are thrown into their session of wild lovemaking, which is coincidentally our first meeting of this couple. From this depiction, both characters are more interested in a physical relationship or a relationship built around the idea of loving someone for what they look like. However, as the movie progresses we learn that this is most likely the truth. Both Tom Cruise and Kelly Preston seem to have no emotional attachment to one another, only caring for one another based on their physical appearance and their social status. It is important to note that in the final scene between these two characters we find that Tom Cruise would be considered the weaker of the two in the relationship, since he shows signs of emotionally caring about one another’s feelings. Whereas for Kelly Preston’s character, she is incredibly strong willed and bull headed, however, she is able to assert her dominance over Tom Cruise and fulfill her role as the ‘aggressive I don’t take no for an answer corporate woman.’ This leads the audience to view Tom Cruise in a more positive light, due to his fragility since he has just been further knocked off his pedestal since losing his job.
The second relationship we encounter is that of Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger. The relationship they share with one another is a very idealistic. Their relationship is a perfect example of Hollywood’s typical awkward/cute first time encounter, Tom Cruise helping Renee Zellweger find her child at the airport terminal. From there their relationship slowly builds, and finally at the end Tom Cruise confesses his love for her. This whole relationship is completely based on the wonderful fairy tale ending of most movies, where prince charming saves poor Cinderella from her wicked step sisters, but in this setting, prince charming saves Cinderella from her sad lonely single mother life. Honestly, this relationship seemed very unrealistic. This is for the fact that Tom Cruise’s character regardless of how far he fell from grace in his own point of view, would not settle for such a woman. It seems almost out of character, because even though Tom Cruise’s character has changed quite a bit, it is easy to figure out that he is still very aware of how attractive he is. Most notably in his bachelor party scene where we see a video of his ex-girlfriends talking about him, giving the audience an idea of what type of women he usually dates.
For the third couple, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Regina King, their relationship seemed the most real. Even if the audience were to perceive their relationship as the ‘perfect marriage’ due to their close connection and constant affection, their relationship can still be considered to be the most realistic in the film. In one view point their marriage is perfect, but at another angle their relationship is what we all strive for, understanding and cooperation. But what makes their relationship so real is how they are both balanced characters, whereas every other relationship is borderline bi-polar. We have Tom Cruise who is having a serious mid-life crisis, which at times is compared to that of a person who suffers from bi-polar disorder. Kelly Preston’s character who is overly aggressive and domineering, probably has incredible self-esteem issues and has had to hide her emotions for so long that she is no longer truly stable unless she is in control of another person’s life. As for Renee Zellweger’s character, she isn’t as bad as the two other characters, but she is still guilty of obsessively looking for a new husband/father and someone to support her since she is far too weak to manage most of her life on her own, thus she is still living with her older sister.
For Cuba Gooding Jr. and Regina King’s characters, they work well with one another because both actors have chemistry and the characters are able to make themselves vulnerable without looking like they are flailing about on the floor looking for someone to pick them up and give them a direction. For these main reasons, I feel this couple stands out far more than all the other couples in the movie. They are the stereotypical perfect marriage, but at the same time, they are characters that we can see as being sane.
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