The Grandson (Fred Savage): Grandpa, maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow.
Grandpa (Peter Falk): As you wish.
My mother loved "The Princess Bride," which premiered on this day in 1987.
That is what I most remember about the movie.
Mom saw it at a theater. I didn't see it with her. For years after that, she kept urging me to rent the video tape, but I never did. Finally, she gave me a copy of the video tape for Christmas — just a few months before she died in a flash flood.
At the time of her death, I still hadn't watched the tape. I still had it, but I hadn't watched it. So one night I decided I was going to do it for Mom.
I thought the movie was cute, and I could see why Mom liked it, why so many people liked it. Critics liked it, and it was a modest success at the box office, too.
I would have liked to talk with Mom about it. That was what we did almost every time we saw a movie together. Our discussions were brief sometimes, extensive other times, but they were almost always the best part of the movie watching experience for me.
I miss many things about my mother, but that exchange of thoughts and ideas may be what I miss the most. I have no doubt that our conversation about "The Princess Bride" would have been one of our best.
Reading Roger Ebert's review was almost as good. Not quite, but almost.
"'The Princess Bride' reveals itself as a sly parody of sword and sorcery movies, a film that somehow manages to exist on two levels at once," Ebert wrote. "While younger viewers will sit spellbound at the thrilling events on the screen, adults, I think, will be laughing a lot."
I wanted to know which parts Mom found funny — and why. I think I know the answer, but I never truly will.
Ebert elaborated on that point, and I couldn't disagree.
"In its own peculiar way, 'The Princess Bride' resembles 'This Is Spinal Tap,' an earlier film by the same director, Rob Reiner," he wrote. "Both films are funny not only because they contain comedy, but because Reiner does justice to the underlying form of his story. 'Spinal Tap' looked and felt like a rock documentary — and then it was funny. 'The Princess Bride' looks and feels like 'Legend' or any of those other quasi–heroic epic fantasies — and then it goes for the laughs."
Without going into too much detail, the movie was the telling of a story by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his bedridden grandson (Fred Savage) — and if Mom could be here, I have no doubt she would say that I shouldn't spoil too much for anyone who hasn't seen it.
I don't think it would spoil too much, though, if I told you that, in the context of the story, it was established that the phrase "As you wish" really means "I love you."
When I discovered that, I understood the meaning of the note Mom had attached to that Christmas gift. "I think you'll like this," Mom wrote. "As you wish."
I remember being puzzled by that at the time, and I asked Mom about it. But all she did was smile. She knew what it meant, and she knew I would understand only if I watched the movie.
