Dreamy Eyes and Broken Hearts on 34th Street

While watching The Miracle on 34th Street– not the TOTALLY awesome 1947 version starring Natalie Wood and Maureen O’Hara, but the disappointing 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough, who, BTW, I cannot watch without remembering his turn as Jacob in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and shouting– er, singing, “Jacob! Jacob and sons!” because AWESOME MUSICAL?!– the ever romantical Allison rushed to the defense of Bryan Bedford, played prettily by Dylan McDermott, after he proposed to Dorey Walker and she freaking SHOT HIM DOWN in the street like Atticus did to rabid old Tim Johnson, except not with a gun or bullets, but figuratively, or the show would have ended WAY differently, you know what I’m saying?

In response to Dorey’s unbelievably harsh “Have I ever done anything to give you the impression I wanted to marry you?” speech– which, Dorey, have you met Dylan McDermott?! Good LORD, woman! Are you INSANE?! He has, like, the DREAMIEST EYES ever! And the HAIR?! Hello?!– Allison turned to me, her misty eyes glittering behind her glasses.

“What?!” she cried. “She DID give him the impression she wanted to marry him! She DID! I mean, she kissed him”– she paused for emphasis– “ON! THE! LIPS! Like, mmmwah, mwahmm!”– here she made out with her hand a bit, which was a little disconcerting, let me tell you– “and she held his HAND, and… and… she went on a DATE with him!” She threw her arms in the air, obviously disgusted with Dorey’s loose moral standards. “Right, Momma? Right?!” she asked– rhetorically, I hope, because I was too busy trying not to giggle to answer– then she folded her arms across her chest with a little “hmmph!” and turned back to the movie.

Granted, the Dorey character does lose a little in translation, making this scene even harder to take, because, again, woman, do you not see the DREAMY EYES?! Come on! Plus, a single mom– not a widow, but a *gasp* divorcee!– trying to make it in the 1940’s business world was playing in an entirely different ballgame than today’s single working mom. Where Maureen O’Hara’s Doris was sympathetic as a realist trying to raise her daughter to accept the hard facts of life that would have been relevant to a single working mom at that time, modern Dorey’s mopeyness and glacial heart made me think, “Dude, a little Lexapro would be a Miracle on 34th Street for THAT lady, I tell you what.”

So, for a second I wasn’t sure if I should explain to my nine-year-old daughter that, in all honesty, smooching and hand-holding and dating aren’t quite the binding evidence of True Love she apparently thinks them to be, so TECHNICALLY the spurned luvah’s proposal was both arrogant and presumptuous (but, dreamy eyes?!), or if I should just let it go.

“I know, right?” I agreed, folding my arms across my chest in solidarity and cross disapproval. “Shocking.”