Matt and Christina Drayton (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) are a couple whose attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé (Sidney Poitier) who is black.
I had never seen this movie until last night, primarily because I never saw the point. The story seemed so obvious and cliché to me, having grown up decades after the film was released. Of course a family would react poorly when they see the racial difference of their daughter's chosen husband. But, I underestimated the whole thing.
The film is more complex, because as it turns out, the family is not actually racist -- at least not in theory. And this film allows theory to meet practice, which may be harder to overcome than they thought. Luckily, they have the advantage of the black man being a world-renowned doctor. Had he just been any old schmuck, the family might not have been as welcoming. It is a whole different story.
The two things I found most interesting about the film were: one, that the two people most opposed to interracial marriage were both black. That seemed quite the opposite of what you might expect. And two, I found it odd that the biggest problem was supposed to be the racial difference. The 14-year age gap and the fact they wanted to get married after only 10 days of knowing each other was largely ignored. I find that to be the much bigger problem -- how do you commit to a lifetime after only 10 days?
I had never seen this movie until last night, primarily because I never saw the point. The story seemed so obvious and cliché to me, having grown up decades after the film was released. Of course a family would react poorly when they see the racial difference of their daughter's chosen husband. But, I underestimated the whole thing.
The film is more complex, because as it turns out, the family is not actually racist -- at least not in theory. And this film allows theory to meet practice, which may be harder to overcome than they thought. Luckily, they have the advantage of the black man being a world-renowned doctor. Had he just been any old schmuck, the family might not have been as welcoming. It is a whole different story.
The two things I found most interesting about the film were: one, that the two people most opposed to interracial marriage were both black. That seemed quite the opposite of what you might expect. And two, I found it odd that the biggest problem was supposed to be the racial difference. The 14-year age gap and the fact they wanted to get married after only 10 days of knowing each other was largely ignored. I find that to be the much bigger problem -- how do you commit to a lifetime after only 10 days?