"You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you."
Carter (Morgan Freeman)
Some titles become cliches almost from the start — like "Catch–22" and "Groundhog Day."
And Rob Reiner's "The Bucket List," which premiered in Hollywood on this day in 2007.
Edward (Jack Nicholson), a billionaire, and Carter (Morgan Freeman), a blue–collar mechanic, had nothing in common — until they found themselves sharing a hospital room after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. They gradually got to know each other, and one day Edward saw Carter writing on a notepad. He asked Carter what he was doing, and Carter said nothing special, just scribbling.
Turned out Carter was engaging in an exercise in forward thinking that a philosophy professor had assigned many years earlier. It was a bucket list — a list of things one wants to do before one "kicks the bucket." In Carter's case it was more a list of things he wanted to achieve — like "help a complete stranger for the good" and "laugh until I cry." Edward's list was more about things he wanted to see — such as the Pyramids — and do — like skydiving.
I am not a linguist so I do not know how long the phrase bucket list has been in existence. Most people have always had in mind certain things they wanted to do before they died — whether they actually did them or not — compiled in a mental list. I just don't know if it had been given a name before the movie premiered.
And I have known people who really did cross off items on their bucket lists — but they did so in very piecemeal fashion as if actively crossing off items on a list was an admission that they would die. So they did things one at a time with lots of time in between.
I do know that it was on everyone's lips afterward, even long after the movie left the theaters — and today, if someone mentions bucket list, you know exactly what is meant. In the movie it required a little explanation.
But the underlying concept was easy to grasp, just as it was in "Groundhog Day." Like Bill Murray learning to function within his new reality, Edward and Carter were forced to face their mortality.
So they embarked on an adventure. It was something most people could understand even if it was impossible for them to achieve. But Edward, as I said, was a billionaire, the developer of hospitals, including the one in which he met Carter, and when he brought up the idea of traveling the world and seeing and doing things they had always dreamed of seeing and doing, it appealed to Carter, who probably never thought any of his dreams would come true.
That may have appealed to moviegoers, too, the thought of having money restrictions taken out of the equation. That can be very liberating, and the premise can be very profitable. ("The Bucket List" earned nearly four times what it cost to make.)
Thus Edward and Carter went on something of a road trip — although it is rather hard to see a skydiving interlude in a road trip context. For that matter the road trip crossed continents that were separated by oceans so the entire trip did not take place on a road.
But perhaps that is being too literal.
There were lots of contradictions in the movie, which led to a wide range of opinions about it. Some people see it as a great buddy movie while others think it was awful.
I have mixed opinions.
When I referred to being too literal, that was sort of a hint about my thoughts on "The Bucket List." While it dealt with a serious topic, I felt that the movie, like most movies that are made, should not be taken too literally. I found it worked best when one looked at it as a fantasy.
I mean, people are diagnosed with some form of cancer every year, and the daily battles that cancer victims must wage are too unpleasant to talk about. That's the reality. And another reality is that few cancer victims have the good fortune to meet someone who can foot the bill while they go chasing all their dreams.
Like, for example, seeing the Pyramids — but that was really the billionaire's goal. The mechanic was just along for the ride.
Which brings me to a point that critic Roger Ebert made: "The boys in front of the Pyramids look about as convincing as Abbott and Costello wearing pith helmets in front of a painted backdrop."
That was essentially Ebert's verdict on the movie's special effects, and it was certainly valid, as was his observation that, in this road trip, "the only realistic detail is the interior of Edward's private jet." And I could live with that.
But as Ebert went on to point out, the emphasis was largely on Nicholson's character who "throws his money around like a pig and makes Carter come along for the ride." He was the least likable of the two, and the movie probably would have benefited if Carter had been the focus, if the narration at the start and end of the movie had been Nicholson praising Freeman's virtues and how he had changed what little life he had left — instead of the other way around.
That, it seemed to me, was the statement that this movie needed to make.
But Edward was the one with the money, and money makes the world go around — and makes others go around the world.
