Thursday, February 4, 2016

Riske Business: Bed of Roses 20 Years Later

by Adam Riske
This week I’m taking an in-depth look at one of my favorite romantic dramas, the absolutely batshit Bed of Roses.

*Please note: this column will contain spoilers for Bed of Roses.

A lot of times you say to yourself “Man, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since [so and so] came out.” In the case of Bed of Roses, I can believe it. This is a movie that exists in a different era and maybe more specifically on a different planet altogether. I love it both ironically and un-ironically. It’s a PG-rated Prince Charming-esque fairy tales for adults written and directed by Michael Goldenberg and this is his only directorial effort. He has also written (or co-written) Contact, Peter Pan (2003), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Green Lantern. But Roses, as I like to call it, is the only movie in his filmography that is truly 100 percent his. If this is Michael Goldenberg’s statement to the world -- if it’s the story that he was burning to tell -- then that fascinates me all the more.
The plot in brief: A young career woman (Mary Stuart Masterson) is swept off her feet by a shy florist named Lewis (Christian Slater) who falls in love with her after one glimpse into her window. Here’s the movie’s trailer.



The 1990s were an interesting time for Christian Slater. Not only was he marketed as a budding action star in movies like Broken Arrow or a bad boy in something like Pump Up the Volume, he was also posited as a romantic lead in movies like Untamed Heart and Bed of Roses. True Romance might be the best amalgamation of his unique attributes as he gets to be a badass, a man of action and a romantic figure. But the truest romance Slater ever committed to film is in my beloved Roses. He plays an impossible character in a performance that is equal parts good, bad and WTF. I love it so much. His co-star, Mary Stuart Masterson, is playing a character just as nuts but the great reveal of Bed of Roses is that we don’t discover that until mid-way through the film. The only way for Masterson to beat Slater’s crazy is to match it or even exceed it.

But let’s take a step back and describe the plot less briefly. One day a woman named Lisa (Masterson) gets a bouquet of roses at her office from a flower shop owner named Lewis (Slater) who tells her “they’ll last longer if you put a little 7-Up in the water.” This is great, specific storytelling that I’m sure comes from someone’s life (possibly writer-director Goldenberg). Adam hearts specificity. Not knowing who sent her these flowers (the giver chose to be anonymous), Lisa goes on a search to unravel the mystery of who her secret admirer exactly is. She tracks Lewis down at the New York Public Library, where he (a grown man) is sitting and listening intently to a children’s story time because (in his words) “there’s nothing like hearing a story read out loud.” Lisa asks Lewis “Do you go to story hour a lot?” to which he replies “I haven’t been lately. She’s been sick.” This is never addressed as being weird behavior and the weirdness of that makes me love this movie just a smidge more.
Before we continue, let me just point out a couple of things about Bed of Roses. One, the score is phenomenal. It’s by Michael Convertino and it’s so fucking good that it could be subbed into The Shawshank Redemption and no one would even notice. Second, Bed of Roses is an endangered species (like a flower that will eventually die when the winter arrives) because it’s a romantic drama that is not from Nicholas Sparks. It’s too good for that. I love Bed of Roses.

Ok, back to the story. So Masterson discovers Slater is the one who sent her the flowers because she catches him LOOKING INTO HER WINDOW AT NIGHT!!! CREEEEEEEEEPPPPPYYYYY!!! When she confronts him about this, he admits to sending her the flowers and also says that he does this kind of thing a lot. He likes looking into people’s windows and wonder what people’s lives are like/what they’re dreaming about. He then continues that he found out who she was because HE FOLLOWED HER TO WORK and asked someone who she was. Her reaction to this textbook stalker situation is to say “So, you sent me this beautiful bouquet of flowers?” The two of them then spend the day together and kiss but then at night she’s back at her apartment and we see her shoving the roses he gave her down a garbage disposal. Who does this? A crazy woman. That’s who. We learn the full extent of her craziness later in the movie. She’s damaged, you see. She can’t love. She can open her vagina but not her heart and soul.
Masterson confides in her best friend, played by Louie’s Pamela Adlon, who thinks the whole situation is romantic as opposed to creepy. Later Slater admits that he chose Masterson as the subject of his affections because he looked up in her window one night and saw her bawling (she had just learned news that her foster father had died and her fish died to boot). Slater wants to do some balling of his own (actually, he wants to make love, Lewis doesn’t fuck…he makes love, softly) so he sends Masterson a dozen roses on the hour to her apartment. She’s flattered by the attention for some reason (she’s not creeped out by this) so she goes to Slater’s flower shop and proceeds to hear the saddest story ever told from him about why he is the way he is. They then make love and he leaves her a single rose. #LikeABoss. Of a flower shop. Masterson then goes to the kitchen to see Slater is cooking her breakfast.
She asks “Where are my clothes?” and he replies “Oh, I took them to the dry cleaners” and that he also made her breakfast, bought her toothpaste and a toothbrush and also a robe. You know…while she was sleeping. They then go to story time together while the amazeballs song "Independent Love Song" blares on the soundtrack. Listen to this fucking thing and watch this video. It’s almost as funny as the movie. I swear, this song should be playing anytime anyone loses their virginity. In the rain. With candles. And a single rose.



I could go on and on but I won’t spoil any more because I do want you to watch this movie, especially in time for Valentines Day. It’s a movie that starts out hilarious and then broke my wall of cynicism. It’s on Netflix Instant. Check it out now! DON’T YOU THINK IT’S WORTH THE RISK???

19 comments:

  1. First of all: era.

    Second of all: finally, the retrospective on Bed of Roses we've all been waiting for since you mentioned liking the movie so many podcasts ago. I saw the movie before knowing how much you loved it, but unfortunately it never pierced my cold, cynical heart. The mid-nineties was such a weird time for romantic comedies. Between this, While You Were Sleeping, and My Best Friend's Wedding, there were so many movies where you were asked to just gloss over the really psychotic decisions the protagonists were making.

    Lastly, I want to have your baby on the basis of bawling/balling alone.

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    1. I just recently saw While You Were Sleeping and it really made me mad. She's such a goddamm liar, how could anyone trust her after all that?

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    2. I want to have Riske's baby too, conceived while watching the video for "Independent Love Song".

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    3. These comments have made my morning.

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  2. I seriously, Adam, now want you to also do a retrospective on the batcrap crazy Untamed Heart. That movie is grade-a bananapants.

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    1. I don't think I've seen that one since it came out on video. Might have to give it another look soon :-)

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  3. A Life Less Ordinary was also an ULTRA specific and batshit crazy one. That one worked for me.

    I would've had a major crush on Mary Stuart Masterson if I was a teenage boy in the 90s.

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  4. why you be stealing somebody else's entire website??

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  5. I think "Worth The Risk(e)" could be the name of your next column.

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks Kelly! Glad I'm not alone in my Roses love.

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  7. I watched Bed of Roses awhile ago based on Riske offhandedly mentioning his love for it on an older podcast. I thought it sounded nice, in a weird way, and delved in. Not only is this film just as fucking weird as described ("she's been sick") but it's also just as hypnotic and I totally fell under its spell. I'm going to ask my new boyfriend to watch it with me for Valentine's Day as a test and I know he won't pass it but I don't care. I like this strange world where we find lovers by creeping straight through windows instead of on tinder, where we dry clean each other's clothes while we sleep after a first date and don't alarm each other thoroughly. It's unabashedly creepy and petal-soaked but it's a lovely parallel universe. Thanks for being this film's biggest supporter, Riske. You're gathering a small trail of followers in your parade.

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    1. There is a certain kind of movie that I will forever henceforth refer to as "petal-soaked."

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    2. The Room is totes petal-soaked.

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    3. I think Serendipity might be petal-soaked.

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  8. So many words I could write about this underrated film. One of the benchmark films in my film loving life. Thanks for writing, Adam.

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