A friend was telling me I would enjoy the movie The Girl in the Cafe.

I loved the scenery!

Richard Curtis (who also wrote Notting Hill) wrote this movie. I remember reading about it when it first debuted, but I wasn’t sure how much romance there was and how much politics.

It has an interesting offbeat storyline. Lawrence, a socially inept 57-year-old Londoner (which adds pathos, poignancy and humor, as well as adds to the slowness of the development of the movie), has a quasi-successful governmental career and nothing else in his life or in the offing. He meets a young girl in a café. The things he has going for him: he is a decent man; he has droll, self-depreciating humor; he takes a chance on life, against all odds. Each reveal small slices of their life in their first meeting. They agree to meet again and after that meeting, again.

Then, surprisingly, he invites her to accompany him to the G8 Summit in Reykjavík. At this point the question becomes, was their meeting by chance or was she a plant to challenge the politicians? It has a couple of lovely lines: that he is both tender and true; that it was almost love. Interwoven are scenes where we laughed out loud, while the overall milieu of the movie is compassionate and caring.

She reveals herself bit by bit. We were not wholly unprepared for her revelations. She is as needy in her own way as Lawrence is in his.

The movie is slow moving and didactic, but it is enjoyable, nonetheless. It is good to see how life can change in an instant, if we are willing to take a chance.

Have you seen it? Did you like it? (BTW, the Americans didn’t come across very good in the meetings, fictional though they were.)

Karin

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