Review: You’re So Cupid (B)

You’re So Cupid (IMDB, official site) is from the same team behind 2009′s Minor Details, including writer Sally Meyer, director John Lyde (One Man’s Treasure, Money or Mission) and many of the same actors.

Like their previous film, You’re So Cupid is aimed squarely at the teen/tween crowd, but its cheerful mix of romance and magic should be a decent and satisfying experience for anyone looking for a good “family” film, whether they belong to that age group or not.

Lily and Emma are fraternal twins who happily serve as the resident match-makers of their high school.  As a major dance approaches, they efficiently arrange their classmates into pairs for optimum romance and compatibility, while remaining aloof from romantic entanglements themselves.  Their lives are thrown into turmoil, though, when their parents (Daniel and Audrey) announce their separation (separating the girls as well, one in each household).  Now, Emma and Lily will have to use their match-making powers on their own parents to avoid what seems like an inevitable divorce.

If that wasn’t enough stress, a new boy moves into town — handsome, confident Connor — sending both Emma and Lily into a crush-induced haze. After both girls ask Connor to the girl’s choice dance, complications arise when Connor — due to some extenuating circumstances discussed in more spoilery fashion below — says ‘yes’ to both.   Obviously, he can’t really go to the dance with both Emma *and* Lily, so the two sisters are suddenly pitted against each other for Connor’s attention.  What happens when your sister and best friend suddenly becomes your biggest rival?  How can they hope to fix their parents’ relationship when they no longer get along themselves?

Lily and Emma are played by the two best young actors from Minor Details, Caitlin E.J. Meyer and Danielle Chuchran, and they’re even better here.  (Buying them as sisters, especially fraternal twins, requires suspension of disbelief, but when they stand next to each other you can almost buy it…)

I enjoyed You’re So Cupid, despite being a 35-year-old adult male who isn’t anywhere near the target demographic.  It’s a more successful effort than Minor Details in virtually all areas, and a good choice for families with young girls.

Commenting from an adult perspective on a G-rated family film (with its accompanying expectations of a happy ending and little-to-no “edgy” material) is a tricky prospect — some oversimplification of complex subject matter is expected, but where to draw the line between a fair criticism and an unfair one?   I do not belong to the camp that says a film not having profanity, sex, or violent content automatically makes it good and praiseworthy.   Even younger viewers deserve strong characterizations, solid plots, and thought-provoking ideas in their films, without the implication that they should accept and appreciate sub-par material simply because it is “clean”.

You’re So Cupid is not “sub-par material” to be sure.  It’s a positive, well-made film and the target audience will probably not care about some of the minor issues that occurred to me as I watched it.   However, my adult perspective is the only perspective I’m qualified to write about, so with that caveat, below are some analysis and personal feelings about the content and theme of the film.

Magic And Divine Matchmaking

The key conceit of You’re So Cupid isn’t revealed until an hour into it, but is mentioned in every synopsis of the film (and hinted at by the title) so it probably isn’t much of a spoiler to mention:  Emma and Lily’s dad is actually Cupid in mortal form, and both girls’ skills at match-making comes in part from their divine genetics, including some honest-to-goodness “magic”.  (Some magic “pixie dust” is what bewitches Connor into accepting both girls’ dance invitations.)

Having a supporting character be Cupid in mortal form is a major plot point — and in doing so the film possibly bites off a little more than it can chew, mythologically.   Cupid is said to be the son of Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war) in Roman mythology, and this raises a number of logical questions within the film:  does Cupid’s existence mean the Roman pantheon of Gods (Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Neptune, etc…) are a reality in Emma and Lily’s world?   How did Cupid’s life as a God work, and how exactly does someone like him choose to “become mortal”?  Does having a divine parent make Emma and Lily effectively demigods — the equivalent of Hercules, Perseus, Achilles and other mythological figures from ancient stories?   Is their DNA different?  Are they (or their dad) still going to grow old and die normally?

(Like Minor Details, You’re So Cupid is not an “LDS” film, with no outright religious content, but you can imagine Cupid’s existence would raise a host of religious questions as well.  Imagine how, if Lily and Emma’s family were LDS by chance, their belief and conception of the traditional LDS Plan of Salvation would drastically change by this revelation)

For what started out as a low-key high school romance, Cupid’s existence raises some pretty heavy questions that the movie is not really prepared to answer or explore.   Emma and Lily themselves take the revelation about their dad in stride (and their magic powers) without any deeper thoughts about what it all might mean.

Cupid makes a nice “hook” to the film, however — and it’s an easy way to introduce a magical ‘wish-fulfillment’ element that younger viewers would be attracted to — so it’s clear why the concept would be attractive to the filmmakers.  It’s arguable, though, that the plot doesn’t need Lily and Emma’s dad to literally be Cupid at all.

Previous to their father’s revelation, Emma and Lily’s skills at matchmaking haven’t relied on any magic (they only discover those talents later).  While the irony of Cupid — the master of love and relationships — having relationship problems in his own marriage is an interesting twist, Daniel the dad is never really the focus of the story.  He’s always just a supporting character and we don’t get any real insight into what being Cupid entails nor how he would have approached marriage with a mortal in the first place.  Since the story is focused on Emma and Lily, having a ‘regular’ dad instead of a divine one doesn’t change their experience much at all.

With their mutual attraction to Connor, we learn that it was the girls’ magic that compelled Connor to say ‘yes’ to both girls’ invitation.  Supposedly, their magic has enchanted him into being in love with both girls equally — however, in practice, Connor ends up spending most of his attention on Emma anyway.  (Not a surprise, as the movie has already developed an alternate love interest for Lily).   Since this is already close to a logical contradiction with the film’s magical premise anyway, perhaps there is no need for the magic element at all:  without it, Lily and Emma could still fall in love with the same guy, who simply prefers Emma more, leading to Lily’s jealousy, then Emma’s retaliation, and so on…

Younger viewers probably won’t care — however, for an adult viewer there are a lot of unanswered questions about the movie’s premise, giving the impression an admittedly cool idea was unnecessarily grafted onto a basic family drama without carefully integrating them together.

Love, Romance, and Marital Problems

Many family films avoid showing marital problems, nor suggest any loving mother and father would ever consider divorce.  You’re So Cupid gets “real world” points for being upfront about how good people (like Emma and Lily’s parents) can love each other but still have serious enough compatibility problems to consider a permanent split — a circumstance that many young people in the target audience will have experienced within their own families.

It’s a given for this type of movie that by the end, problems will be resolved and Daniel and Audrey will eventually reconcile and stay together.  However, many kids who face similar situations in real life will not be able to depend on a “happy ending” the same way movie characters can.  What does You’re So Cupid have to say about how marital problems start and are (hopefully) overcome?   What message — positive or negative — does the movie send to younger viewers who may face a parental split themselves?

Emma and Lily’s primary tactic in dealing with their parents’ separation is to constantly ask them, “Don’t you still love [him/her]?” — with the implication that marriage problems are only caused when one parent stops loving the other.  It’s obvious (to an adult) that Daniel and Audrey still love each other, but we also know that in real life that’s not enough to avoid personality conflicts and marital strife.

You’re So Cupid is direct in showing Audrey leaving her husband in a huff, but doesn’t share any details as to the cause.  There are hints about Daniel being married to his job possibly being a factor.  There is also a random comment out of nowhere from Audrey about how “men see with their eyes, not their hearts” — which could imply her problem with Daniel is somehow related to physical attractiveness, possibly infidelity.   (That would be way too serious a plot point for this kind of movie, though.)

Their follow-up conversations with their kids don’t provide any specific information either, centering almost exclusively on what happened the day of the separation (whether Daniel should have been more assertive in stopping his wife from leaving) without any mention of what caused her to leave in the first place.

(One obvious possibility: after her own magic abilities are revealed, Emma wonders aloud if Connor really likes her, or if it was just the ‘pixie dust’ that drew his attention unwittingly.  Wouldn’t it be likely that their mom, knowing the true identity of her husband, might be asking herself the same question:  “Did I really fall in love with this man, or was it just his ‘magic’ that brought us together in the beginning?”  This would present a reasonable motive for Audrey to doubt the viability of their relationship).

You may argue the specific cause of their marital problems doesn’t really matter.  For the sake of an innocent movie experience, it may be irrelevant, but I believe the lack of details hampers the happy ending a little, as we can’t judge how big a triumph their reconciliation should be.   We’re not sure if Audrey was just overreacting to a small spat when she left and it was much ado about nothing, or if the two of them were able to face and resolve a genuine marital problem that can plague many married couples in real life.   Obviously, the latter would provide a much more powerful life lesson to younger viewers about real life relationships, than the former.

The theme of the movie, expressed by Audrey in voice-over, also deserves a little comment.  Audrey explains that “some say that you only fall in love once, but the truth is you can fall in love over and over again until you get it right.”

True…but not necessarily with the same person.   What if some kids’ parents are genuinely not suitable for each other, and would both be happier with the opportunity to “fall in love again” with someone else?  It’s always a heart-breaking thing to be a kid when your parents split up, but You’re So Cupid may be contributing to the child fantasy that their parents can *only* be happy married to each other.  And that all Mommy and Daddy have to do is have a romantic dinner together and say romantic-sounding things to each other a little more and everything will work out.

In the real world, that’s not how it works for many families.  It is not a surprise how You’re So Cupid resolves its ending, but “happy endings” can also create unrealistic hopes.  Being more upfront in recognizing that some relationships will fail may help younger kids realize divorces aren’t necessarily the end of the world — and allow them to hope for their parents to fall in love and find happiness with people apart from each other.

Again, these are tangential comments which shouldn’t detract from the main point:  You’re So Cupid is a positive film with romance and magic that families will enjoy.

Final Grade: B

Additional Notes and Comments:

(1) You’re So Cupid is available for instant streaming through Netflix, although the stream begins with a parental warning for “Adult Content”.

Wait… Say what?

Let me make this as clear as possible:  there is absolutely, positively nothing in You’re So Cupid that could be categorized as “adult content” — this is as cheerfully G-rated a movie as you can imagine.  The idea that this movie requires any kind of parental guidance boggles the mind (clothing with bare midriffs, maybe?)

Even if there was some sort of adult content in the film, just showing the words “adult content” on the screen is useless without any additional information.  What are conservative parents who care about movie content supposed to do with that “warning” when making viewing decisions for their kids?

Movie content and ratings are important issues, but parents need genuinely helpful information about movie content, rather than generic statements that don’t mean anything.

(2) When convincing her hesitant mom to chaperone the high school dance (and let her inadvertently meet up with her father), Lily says, “What kid *wouldn’t* want their mom to chaperone their high school dance?”.

Uh…only every high school kid on the planet who didn’t have an obvious ulterior motive?

(3) Using the name Emma for one of the girls seems to be a direct reference to Jane Austen’s Emma, in which the title character served as a matchmaker for others while (supposedly) avoiding romance herself, just as this Emma does.    Emma’s lament about how she’s supposed to be the matchmaker for others, not involved in romantic complications herself seems directly inspired by the book as well.

(4) There is a brief clip of a movie starring Matthew Reese (Beauty & The Beast, Rescued) shown on the girls’ home TV.  The clip is from an actual movie from Matthew Reese Productions called The Guardians and is still completing post-production without a release date.

(5) Some of the credits for background extras include “Amazing Thug” and “Really Cute Guy” — nice work if you can get it.