I am not a romantic. I just don't believe in "true love," at least not the way it is portrayed in fairy tales and chick flicks. I believe in passion but like it best grounded in reality and the qualities that endure long term. After all, I've been married for almost 21 years and Mr. Philately and I still end phone conversations with "I love you" and we mean it. It's not that romance totally passes me by�not by a long shot. It's more that what our culture thinks should resonate, doesn't.

Which brings me to "The Corpse Bride." It was fun, it was cute (in an Addams family sort of way), and it was a good way to spend the time while waiting for Day and her friend to finish seeing her movie. I like Johnny Depp and I like his voice. (I'm married, folks, not dead. Luckily for me, Mr. Philately prefers to be a choice among possibilities and is not bent out of shape. Besides, he's too busy thinking about Grace Kelly's lounging in the doorway in "Rear Window" to protest.) It was predictable but with just enough small twists to keep me going. The Peter Lorre-type maggot was annoying but not enough so to ruin things.

The problem was the ending. I could not help but think that poor Victor would be better off with the corpse bride. His "real" intended was a boring, pretty face. I could not name one thing he had in common with her. She did not inspire him to be more, to do more, or to talk to him. He could not play piano duets with her. He had no personality with her. In ten years, there they will be in the tomb of an old distinguished house with nothing to say.

The corpse bride was the better woman for him. True, she was dead but he didn't really seem all that alive anyway. He seemed much more in his element with all the dead folks who sang and danced than he did with those emotional corpses up on the surface. He never really thought until she came along or felt very deeply. Instead, he just longed and dreamed and dawdled at life.

And so, the fairy tale ending doesn't ring true. She was set free and got what she "deserved" and he got what he wanted.

I just don't think it's going to turn out to be what he really wanted after all. So much for happily ever after.

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