I Rewatched ‘The Princess Bride’ as a Boy-Mom, and I Had a Stunning Realization

The Princess Bride is the best movie ever. That’s just facts. And it’s a movie you can grow with, and find something new to love with every subsequent watch. I should know. I’ve probably seen it over 50 times, and my relationship to the characters, plot and message has evolved over the years.

As a little girl, I loved the fairy-tale-on-steroids conceit. My friend and I would order her younger brother around and call him “farm boy.” I considered Cary Elwes to be the epitome of romance (still do!) and I thought the final scene where Robin Wright slow-motion jumps out a window into Andre the Giant’s arms was, well, magical. As I grew older, I started to appreciate the humor and contemporary nods: Wallace Shawn giving the advice to never start a land war in Asia; Billy Crystal as Miracle Max raving in a New York accent about an MLT (mutton lettuce and tomato sandwich).

But I never gave much thought to the Fred Savage/Peter Falk framing device. That is, until I watched it recently with my own son, who is 9 years old. Much like Savage’s character, he was initially resistant to a story he thought would be “about Disney princesses,” and much in the same way, he needed me to talk up the action, adventure and revenge elements. (I’ll have you know he jumped into my arms the minute the ROUS snuffled onto the screen.) But then, over the course of the movie, he softened. Suddenly, he wanted to know if Buttercup and Wesley would end up together. He was OK with all the kissing.

This made me realize: The Princess Bride is a story about story-telling, but it’s also a story about allowing young boys to tap into their emotions and unabashedly love books. With kids’ reading rates plummeting (the “decline by 9” trend is extremely troubling) and evidence that boys, in particular, are falling behind in reading, this feels like an important message. Additionally, so many of the books targeted at the elementary-boy demographic are intentionally sophomoric and bratty. (Looking at you, Big Nate and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.) If we want boys to understand their emotions and learn to share the mental load, we need to give them stories with emotional depth and, yes, even romance. The Princess Bride has this depth, and it packages it in a way that makes it palatable to 9-year-olds in Chicago Bears Jerseys.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into a movie whose most famous line is, “Mawiage is what bwings us togeva today.” But I do know I was touched by both Fred Savage and my son’s response to the ending. “Can we watch it again soon?” he asked me. “As you wish,” I answered.

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